14 yo who steals from sibs

amother

Pumpkin

Mon, Aug 13 2018, 2:45 pm

We have and seem to always have had a major boundary problem in our family, in which each child takes things that belong to the other. No matter what we try, they don't seem to understand that this is wrong, even though each gets upset when the other one does it. Things that get taken include games that belong to a specific child, nosh that a child bought with his own money, money, pens, you name it. Of course they also take nosh that we have bought and put away. As of yet we have not figured out how to get across to our children how wrong this is.

We were hoping that once our oldest hits bar mitzva he would stop this, but I guess it was silly to imagine that he would suddenly stop just because he is now answerable to G-d for his deeds. Clearly, if we failed to be mechanech him about not stealing before, it wasn't going to magically happen now.

Anyhow, by now he's 14 and today he took some candy that belonged to my 9 year old. This is getting insane. How can a family live as a family when everyone steals from the next one??

How do we get this across to our kids and stop the stealing (and of course the lying that comes along with it)?

Ideas on how to confront our son and what to say are also welcome.

amother

Copper

Mon, Aug 13 2018, 6:50 pm

It sounds like maybe things are way too regimented and divided. I can't even think what my kids have that they would consider exclusively theirs. Definitely not more than a handful of items, if that.

Also please don't refer to it as stealing. That's far too harsh a word for what's going on.

amother

Babyblue

Mon, Aug 13 2018, 9:48 pm

Copper, if a child earned or received personal money and another child, old enough to understand, takes it, yes, that's stealing. Same with nosh that he bought or prizes earned. And children NEED to have personal objects and to have their individual ownership respected.

OP, I don't have advice, just sympathy and tefillos that you find a way to be mechanech in this area that your children can be receptive to. Hugs!
Also, It does sound like it's, as you said, 'a major boundary problem' more than anything else.

amother

Ruby

Mon, Aug 13 2018, 10:08 pm

Op, you need to change the title to "all my kids steal from each other's". It's not only the 14 year old's problem, you need to set boundaries & rules for the entire family to follow. Talk to them about privacy & be strict with the rules. How did it come to that this is happening in your family? You can't expect him to change suddenly when this is how he grew up & he probably doesn't see what's wrong with what he's doing.

FranticFrummie

Mon, Aug 13 2018, 11:57 pm

Call a family meeting, and put it in simple terms.

"If the item is not yours, don't touch it!" If the child steals, then they have to give up something to compensate. Either give up their nosh, or take over the other child's chores that week, or something else that is a consequence.

You may have to go through each child's things once a week, to look for stolen items and return them to the rightful owners.

If none of this works, then I agree with the above comment about getting locks on everything. Just be sure to hide the screwdrivers, because the kids WILL most likely try to take the locks off of each other's personal stash.

amother

Pumpkin

Tue, Aug 14 2018, 10:51 am

amother wrote:

You're right. I was thinking that as I was writing the post (but then I would have had to change the section and rewrite the whole post, so I just left it.

This is something that we have been talking about for years now, since he and our other kids were old enough to understand, but they still don't seem to have internalized it. I would think that 7-8 years of hearing about keeping out of other people's things would have been enough to know it's wrong. And he does know it's not okay - intellectually. But I don't think that knowledge is internalized enough to stop him when he feels like going through his siblings' stuff, and this goes for all my kids.

amother

Pumpkin

Tue, Aug 14 2018, 10:53 am

amother wrote:

How are you modeling respect for personal items?

I don't steal, not from my kids and not from anyone else. I happen to be very honest and truthful. I don't go through my kids' stuff except for putting their clean laundry away. I don't invade anyone's privacy. Is there another way I can model such respect?

amother

Pumpkin

Tue, Aug 14 2018, 10:56 am

amother wrote:

and in the meantime just get each kid a cheap locked box that they can lock with a key of their own

Tried that. Eventually a kid forgets to hide his key and then his box gets opened.