6-year-old who steals :'(

[tallybee]

My 6 year old daughter won't stop taking things. Anything, pens, toys, food... I've even found stashes of things like clothes pegs in her room. She can't seem to resist. I've lost count of the times we find things in her room. She takes things I had set by and listed on eBay, so I have to take them off. She's taken sweets from shops. She took a gift which we had just gone and bought for her friend's birthday, took it out of the gift bag, opened the packaging and stashed the little figurines away in a pencil case. Anything seems to be game to her

I am actually at the end of my tether with this. We have tried ways of dealing with this but nothing seems to make the slightest difference. She seems sorry when she's been found out and says sorry, promises not to do it again, but will always do it again - sometimes literally straight away afterwards :/

We've told her taking things is wrong. We've explained to her that other peoples' things are not to be touched. We've been through how she wouldn't like for other people to take her things. We've used time out, we've confiscated favourite items of hers for the day. She gets plenty of attention and praise, other than this she is a great, bright, loving, happy, sociable, lovely little girl.... Running out of ideas and at a loss

I just don't know where I've gone wrong

Thanks for reading

 

[Baby France]

Has she said why she takes them?

Is it a collection type thing for her? So that they are hers and she keeps them nice and safe?

Like for example, how do you know she's got the sweets? Do you see that she has taken them or has she stored them? If its a storing/collection thing, why not try and get her interested in things that she can collect? So that she focuses on one particular thing?

 

[tallybee]

Thanks hun

She gets caught out when we find stuff like sweet wrappers in her room. She doesn't collect the sweets, she scoffs them but fails to get rid of the evidence. lol.

Doing a collection thing with her is a good idea to try, as some of the other things are totally stashed!

xx

 

[Baby France]

the sweet wrappers

Bless her....I'm not sure how it came about, but I was a collector when I was younger.

Keyrings and I had millions of them and LOVED getting or choosing a new one. Maybe tell her that you can go hunting for a special one every other week, but if you find that she has touched something that doesn't belong to her then she isn't allowed one as that will be her payment for her keyring (I hope that makes sense?)

 

[JASMAK]

Can you make her pay for these things by selling some of her prized toys? Natural consequences.