Related content: Kids Stealing from Parents: What You Need to Know Sneaking the Phone There could be issues with drugs or alcohol. This may lead to uncovering other behaviors that will have to be addressed. If your child continues to steal from you, it’s time to try to find out what he is spending this money on. You tell them that the behavior is unacceptable and that you will be watching your money much more closely. If your child sneaks money from your wallet, this is also stealing. Then, he must make amends to his sister by paying her back and then adding an additional gesture, like doing her chores for a week. He might lose all electronics privileges until he makes amends to his sister. If you find that your child has stolen something, the consequences need to do the following:įor example, if your son is caught taking money from his sister, your conversation with your son should set a consequence for the stealing. Stealing is an example of one of these behaviors that hurts others. If your child’s sneaky behavior has hurt someone else, this needs to be addressed.
Related content: How to Deal with Lying in Children and Teens. You can even tell them that as a parent it’s your job to help them follow the rules in your home. Tell them they have to be truthful with you. They won’t like this, but you have to let them know that you care about them. Let your child know that you are concerned and suspicious of their behavior and that you will be keeping an eye on them. If your child’s lying seems to be getting worse or is particularly worrisome, there may be a need to reach out to others in their life to find out what’s really going on. Don’t spend all your energy stressing the right and wrong nature of lying. Conversations about right and wrong have a place, but the most effective approach is to focus the conversation about finding a better way to solve problems that don’t entail lying. If you look at lying as a problem-solving issue, and not a moral one, you can help your child develop strategies so they can stop lying in the future. They lie to get out of a consequence because they think it’s their only option left. And they usually lie because they just have a really poor way of solving problems. The truth is, kids know lying is wrong. But they lie anyway.
Their thinking is immature, and they generally lie without even considering how these lies affect others. It’s helpful to remember that kids don’t understand how hurtful lies can be. Related content: The Surprising Reason for Bad Child Behavior How to Handle Lying It’s always most helpful when these ideas come directly from your child. Ask them to think about their behavior and be prepared, either verbally or in writing, to let you know what they were thinking when they did this, what the problems were with the behavior, and how they might behave in this situation in the future. Remind them that the behavior is unacceptable and issue the consequence.Ī way to begin these problem-solving conversations is to have your child do some “homework” ahead of time. When you catch your child in a lie or doing something sneaky, tell them immediately. Think about how a good boss would handle things-professional, calm, and honest. Just be businesslike and objective and focus on the behavior and the consequences.
Even if you feel as if it’s a personal betrayal, try to take the emotion out of the discussion with your child. If calm, the situation will be much easier to deal with. Either way, being sneaky is not the right approach, and it’s your job to give consequences and to coach them to solve their problems the right way. They’re being sneaky to get what they want or to solve a problem that they have. Instead, it means your child has a behavior problem that needs to be addressed. These are the times when parents need to be able to step back, focus on the behavior, and not take it personally. Lying and sneaky behavior is not okay, but it doesn’t make your child a bad person. Don’t Take Sneaky Behavior Personally and Stay Calm We may have even thought we were justified at the time and came up with all kinds of reasons to explain our misbehavior. Perhaps we lied about where we were going or who we were going to be with. We may have stolen cigarettes from our parents. Let’s face it-many of us were guilty of some type of sneaking around when we were younger. When your child lies and sneaks around, it can feel like a betrayal and begins to feel like a moral issue. Sneaky behavior such as lying and stealing are some of the hardest issues for parents to deal with.