What do you do when a child continues to do something they know is wrong & they are going to get in trouble for? What do you do when you have tried various punishments for the same offence but it has no effect and the child continues the behavior?

The reason I ask this is because my 8 year old sister has a major problem with stealing. She's stole from kids at school, her family, & even at different stores in the mall. But nothing seems to stop her.

Here recently we found out she stole from my daughter's piggy bank & my mom has asked me to determine her punishment since it was my daughter who she stole from & honestly she doesn't know what else to do. They have tried long drawn out talks, taking her back to the stores making her admit to stealing the items, apologizing, and giving them back, spanking her, making her do extra chores, extra homework, no tv, no video games, etc. We've tried everything we can possibly think of. I don't want my sister to be a thief. I know there are a lot of parents on herw so I thought I might get some advice & opinions from you all.

When my nephew went through a stealing phase, my aunt went into his room and would start taking things of his.
Like the stuffed animal he always slept with.
Small-ish things that made him freak out when he noticed they were gone.

And of course when he went running to my aunt about it, she said "Oh, they're missing? Someone must have stolen them. Sorry I can't help you."

I'm not sure how well that would work with your sister, but I know with him it totally worked.

Technically your mum should be the one doing the punishment, since it's her daughter, but I suppose in this instance you can both discuss it together since there's a big age gap between you and your sister and your mum has run out of ideas. But your mum should implement the punishment so that she maintains respect from your sister.

That sounds pretty serious, if all those kinds of punishments haven't worked.

I likw Jess's idea of stealing things from her, and seeing how she feels about it and reacts to it, and then explaining that "That's how other people feel when you steal their stuff. It's not a nice feeling, is it?"

Unfortunately I've never come across this in my experiences, so I can't offer much. I guess taking her to see a psychologist would be a very last resort. Or maybe (I know this is harsh) she needs to get into legal trouble (e.g. the police catching her) to get scared out of doing it. Maybe you can stage something like that?

I've pretty much helped raise my sister since she was born. We don't have the typical sister relationship. She would comes stay with me for weeks at a time so I had to take on disciplining her as well. I understand how it seems odd my mom asked me help her come up with a punishment for her since we are sisters, but you'd just have to know the relationship though.

Also, can you think of any reasons as to why she would be stealing? Sometimes it's easiest to nip these things in the bud when you know the mechanisms behind it.

Also we've asked her that a million times. The kid gets everything she wants & never goes without anything. If she wanted money or a toy from a store all she'd have to do is ask for it. So we don't know why on Earth she would want to steal things. The has no reason too.

It may not be a direct, obvious connection, like she feels like she doesn't get enough at home so she feels she has to steal (and I wasn't suggesting that at all in my previous post! Hehe). Is there anything going on at school? Like (and this is a big stretch, but bear with me...) maybe she is getting bullied at school, and so the only way she can 'get back' at the problem and remain in control is to steal?

Argh, that is so very tough that your step-dad is in the public eye. It makes the issue that much harder to deal with. I mean ordinarily you could just call the cops, have them show up at your house, and 'arrest' her. But I mean he DOES have connections with the chief of police... so maybe he could arrange something... hehe (and he doesn't have to tell the police chief the real reason behind it! I can't think of any good lie though... xD). Also, does your sister feel she can get away with a lot because of your stepdad's position in society?

She's never been picked on at school. She's a pretty tough kid & always the one standing up for the ones being picked on. So I don't think it has anything to do with that. She's only ever been picked on by one little boy on the bus in kindergarten & she bite him so hard one time he stopped. :D So I'm sure if she was dealing with any kind of abuse at school we didn't know about she could & would stand up for herself.

I think I'm going to suggest the whole "calling the cops" tonight & see what they say about it. My step-dad might go for it since we have literally tried everything we can think of.

u need to scare the living daylights out of her!! "call" the cops!! when my aunt was little(about 6) she stole an ice cream. the owner "called" the cops and told her never to come back to his store. it worked. she was soooo scared and she never stole anything again.

Honestly I think that would be the best idea. But I really don't think my parents would go for it because my step-dad is a public figure & we live in a small town. He is best friends with the police chief & I think he would be too embarrassed to tell them that his daughter stole.

Oh & get that they didn't really call the cops on her just pretended too. But you'd have to understand Haley. If we fake called the cops on her & they didn't at least show up to "arrest her" she'd laugh it off & probably go steal again because she knows they won't come take her to jail. So if we wanted to use that we would actually have to get the cops to come up there to actually scare her because she is a pretty brave stubborn child. lol

hmm, maybe do what my mom did when i was younger and i never did it again.. i took something from a store.. my mom busted me. she took me (i was like 6 or something i dunno) back to the SAME store like ASAP... and i had to GIVE it back weather i ate it or not, (it was candy i think) and appogize to him, and it was SO embarrassing cuz he sat there and gave me this evil look and so on...

Yep. we've tried that. Still didn't work.

could she possibly have kleptomania? that could be why the punishments aren't working.

I don't think so because she takes things that she really wants or money that she knows she can spend. She told my mom that the $20 she stole from my daughter's piggy bank she got from a birthday card last year & she already had it put up to buy a basketball next time they went into town. So she knows exactly what she is doing & steals things of value to her.

this is a hard situation. My stepbrothers began stealing at a young age and never got stopped because of who they knew. Now they are both in jail. If it were me and my child I would call the cops even if I was a prominent figure. Or your mom could simply never take her anywhere again and tell her its because she steals things all the time.

I'm with Jessica on this one. When I was little, I got to the point where I was SO bad that my parents took everything out of my room. Except for clothes and my bed. And then I earned those things back. I didn't pull my stunts anymore.

I personally don't understand why you SHOULDN'T be the one to pick the punishment because after all it was your daughter's money. I'm with the majority of people when I say to have the cops come by and maybe even take her down to the jail so she could see what could happen. Back when my cousin was younger she got caught stealing a candy bar and she was actually arrested and did some community service. It didn't take her long to realize what she had done was wrong and she wouldn't want to have to go through something like that again. Sometimes kids do things because they think they can get away with it and some just haven't suffered any consequences so they have no reason to do stop what they're doing.