How to stop children stealing, lying and hoarding

Do you have a child that hoards or steals? Are you struggling to understand why your child does those things? Are you struggling with ideas to break the behaviour? In the interest of child protection, DO NOT hit your child but rather, try to see behind the behaviour and hear what help it is asking you for.

Children do not have sophistication of vocabulary to explain how they are feeling inside so they use their behaviours to tell us. Just as play is children’s work so too is behaviour their communication. Lying, stealing and hoarding are juvenile emotional responses begging to be redeveloped, to be educated and to have someone meet the underlying psychological needs of the behaviour.

It is our job as adults and parents to read the unacceptable childhood behaviour of lying, stealing and hoarding and to offer some alternatives. Punitive measures of punishment do not help the behaviour. They instead escalate it because the child feels bad and therefore more emotional baggage is hidden away, dying to be listened to, understood and dealt with. Feeling bad and out of control, the child turns to familiar behaviours that make them feel better; lying, stealing or hoarding.

How can you create some alternative behaviours that help the child to feel good about themselves and therefore reduce the likelihood of stealing, lying and hoarding taking over? Here’s three simple and easy ideas to try:

• Investing heavily in developing emotional intelligence in our children is the first step of reversing the sneaky behaviours of lying, stealing and hoarding. Being mindful of who we are, how we feel and what makes us tick is a gift that I long for every parent to give their children. Self Knowledge is personal power. A sense of personal power cuts through many psychological responses to trauma or emotionally based unacceptable behaviours. Read about some emotional intelligence games and activities in the Intuition section of Parent Sense. Academic intelligence is not the only thing that helps get our kids through life you know. Knowing our emotions keeps us safe from harm and from harming other people. A pretty important piece of life intelligence I would say. Be warned though, Teaching Emotional Intelligence is a job for the Intelligent Parent.
• Increase the activity. For example: a hoarder of stones may be helped by enrolling in lapidary classes to learn more about stones and by organising their growing stone collection into a display case – you are not taking the need for collecting the stones away but rather normalising and depathologizing the hoarding behaviour.
• Guess how the child might be feeling and act to counteract the feeling before the child has to steal/hoard (this is re intuitive parenting). For example, child may be feeling insecure because another baby has come into the home or there has been another change in their routine. Guessing that child needs increased reassurance perhaps more hugs, one on one time, verbal assurances of future activities together or ever a name plate for the child’s bedroom door – TIM sleeps here – can be helpful in reversing the emotional and psychological need of the behaviour.

Lying, stealing and hoarding are behavioural reactions to an underlying emotional and psychological need. It is not a child’s job to magically stop stealing, lying or hoarding. It is our job to help develop a child’s sense of self, to keep them safe and to help them work through any trauma they may be experiencing. Do you have Parent Sense or are you as immature as the juvenile and needy behaviours of lying, stealing and hoarding?