This is a tough one. Claudia_SF, I think your foster kids are teenagers. Is it possible that when this particular friend visits they can hang out outside? Skateboard or ride bikes or just walk around, or something? What does your kid think? Does he think the friend is stealing?

Who knows why he steals. Stealing can be a bad habit. Almost like a compulsion. Maybe he feels entitled. How old is he? Maybe he is selling your stuff. People will steal from their own grandmothers.

If you aren't at home at the time will the kids agree that there will be no visitors because you are uncomfortable with people in the house until you can figure out what happened to your stuff. I don't know how realistic this is.

My house is kid hangout central. We have a neighborhood kid that is sort of a bully and a big baby at times. He threatens to go home if he can't get his way, pushes people down for no good reason, etc. He asks the other kids to act like a dog and fetch an imaginary stick he has in his hand. This is typical kid behavior, but he is very bossy. It's a tough situation. He's only a first grader. He's still such an innocent kid. When I find myself becoming irritated with his behavior I try to remind myself how young he is. I try not to butt in too much and try not to listen to their conversations. I want my kids to be able to stick up for themselves. This in no way compares to stealing, but I can relate. Sometimes I want to ask this kid to go home, but I stop myself. You can't ask your kid's friend to go home if you can't prove anything. You can do whatever you want of course, but you know what I mean. My thought is, if you can't prove anything you can only be very careful when he is around.

Thanks, LoriFLA -- thanks for confirming that there is no easy answer I'm missing. The kid in question is 18/19. My kid is 19. My kid doesn't know -- he thinks it's possible, but his friend denies it, so he doesn't know.

I went into parenthood two years ago without much experience with any of this kind of thing. My parents always let me have friends over, so I've done the same. Most of Chris's friends don't have many other places to be (they are in foster care, or are in troubled homes with lots of conflict). If I had to do it over again I'd probably regulate more about friends. It's hard to dial back after two years. And Chris will be moving out soon ... (he's enrolled in a foster youth housing program and he has a May 31, 2008 deadline from me).

I don't know what the solution is - I'm currently going through more or less the same thing with my 16 year old son and his friends. Stuff is walking out of the house although, so far, nothing more valuable than a CD. It could just be carelessness - it's mostly glasses, forks, that kind of thing but then there have been a few more troublesome items, like the CD, which I know was taken and didn't just vanish or get eaten or anything. And some of it is probably my son, who is occasionally overly generous (he gave our extra blankets to a homeless guy the other day, which sent me into a frenzy of fury; I mean, nice gesture but I can't fucking afford to buy more blankets and I have houseguests coming next week! Goddamnit!) It's beginning to REALLY bother me and given that there have been some other incidents I'm about to ban all my son's friends from the house. He's not going to like it much but I'm not sure which kid it is and it seems fairer to just exile them all. I'm not keen on a lot of his friends anyway, sigh, but forbidding any contact would backfire badly - this I know from bitter experience so I'm just going to make sure that it's not happening here. God teenagers are awful.

If he's 18 or 19 the heartless side of me says to tell the friend to get a job, or two.

I can totally understand this tough situation though. I can understand you not wanting to make your home off-limits. I think most parents want to make their home available to their kid's friends. I know I do. But if it happens again I would put the hammer down and not let anybody over. They can hang out at the SonicBurger or something.

My kids are young and I still don't let their grubby paws into my house. They can play outside in the backyard or hit the bricks! :)

Whoha, at times like these I realize how strict my mom was. When I was ten I had to stop playing with a friend of mine because she came over once when I wasn't home and "borrowed shampoo" (without asking). Shampoo!

My kid is just 19 months so I don't have any parenting experience with this. But I think if your gut is telling you that this kid is the culprit, you're probably right. I also don't think there's an easy answer you're missing. Why is he stealing, if he indeed is? Like LoriFLA said, it may be a sense of entitlement: "She's rich, she's got so much, she'll never notice it missing and besides, I need whatever it is I can get for this" or it may be a compulsion. It may be a game to see how much he can get away with. Even if you're not actually Warren Buffet-rich, you may seem so to him, compared to his circumstances. Maybe he justifies it to himself this way.

If this were happening to me, I'd tell the foster son that I want them to hang out outside from now on. It's your home and you need to feel secure and comfortable about who is in it.

I'm sorry .. it's a tough situation. But it's your house and you get to make the rules. I always go with: Listen to your gut.

Someone was just telling me that a therapist told them that stealing always indicated a father issue.

I have no idea what the basis for that proclamation was, but it's as good an explanation as anything I've got. :-)

Can you sit down and talk out some options with your kid? Banning his friend from the house (or instituting whatever other measures make sense) might be easier if you've got his buy-in. Plus, kids/teens are often more creative at coming up with solutions to this sort of thing that adults are.

Oh, actually, I think maybe the idea was that kids steal because they subconsciously want to get caught, and the person most likely to catch them and discipline them would be the father, so stealing becomes a way for the kid to try to get the father's attention. Maybe?

Of course, the above explanation really only works under the assumption that father = disciplinarian.

Whomever came up with that doesn't know my mom.

Kidding aside, I agree with occhiblu gut instincts are usually spot on. Trust gut. Tough as it may be you're probably going to have to ask them to hang outside.

It was actually Kangaroo who advised listening to one's gut instincts, but I fully agree and thus am willing to take credit for it!

Y'all are spot on, as usual. I just talked with my kid, and the two of us agreed that our "gut" (individually and together) is that he's the culprit. We've decided that this kid cannot come over unless I am here.

PS I just learned that the suspect has actually been banned from another house for stealing. So, yes.

Yay! Glad your household came to a satisfactory solution.

Good for you, Claudia!

Coincidentally, the thief in question just stopped by. Chris told him he can only come when I'm home. During the same visit, he thanked me for helping him with his resume, and told me that he got a job "thanks to you." (Total sucking up, but perhaps sincere in part. I said "Congratulations!") Teens are so (So!!) fucked up.

i think you should do something, because some people mistake mercy and kindness as getting away with something. Let the other kids do the penalizing for an overall action, like limited space and time. The kids will be able to figure out better who and what happened and if it can be remedied, and also they should have an example of consequences.

And now i'm glad this is unnecessary information.

Someone was just telling me that a therapist told them that stealing always indicated a father issue.

Or, to paraphrase a wise man, they want somethin' and they don't want to pay for it...(note: as a teenager I was quite sticky fingered, and it was never for any other reason. I only boosted stuff from stores though).

The resume thanks sounds a little like Eddie Haskell to me. "Gee Mrs. Cleaver, that's a lovely dress you're wearing." Anyway I think you were really wise to include your foster son in the discussion and decision about this as it's his home too, at least for now. I guess this sort of thing is all to come for me but for now I am loving the babyhood stage!

Sort of late to the game, but I thought I would add my two cents, as the mother of a fast-fingered teenager, who is friends with other fast-fingered teens himself.
For my own son's part, he is exceedingly charming (Eddie Haskell style), and probably wouldn't come off as the thieving type to anyone but me. But. BUT. I have had too many things go mysteriously missing from my house not to accuse him of taking things from my home. Jewelry, blankets, glasses, vases, electronics etc and etc....
His friends come over and all of a sudden, we are missing video game controllers, video games themselves, mp3 players... Things that my own kid wouldn't lift because he enjoys them too much himself.
I don't know how to make my point - I guess I am going to go ahead and nth what everyone above-post has said, go with your gut. Occam's razor and all - the most obvious explanation is most likely correct. What steps do you take to remedy that fact? In my place, the rule is no one comes into my home with my son when I am not home unless they have been approved in advance. Which means to say, I know their folks, and have no problem calling them in the event that something at home is awry. Luckily, I have nosy neighbors, who will let me know if there are a gaggle of teens in my front room if I am not here. I am not a fan of nosy, but man, I sure take advantage of their knowledge when I am not here.
Additionally, if my husband and I are going to be away from the home for any length of time, and we do not trust our son (and unfortunately, we don't), we simply lock all the important stuff in a safe, and then we lock our bedroom door. Sad, but necessary. One of my son's friends was recently arrested for stealing. This is a typical 'good boy from a good home' situation, where he really had no reason to be stealing, but there he was, stealing high ticket items from other people's (but not ours) homes. Teenagers, especially those who place themselves as outsiders, can have some very warped values. I have learned that lesson the hard way. I am sorry that you are facing this reality, but the loss of naivete is certainly a gain for you in the long run. Email me if you have any more concerns about wayward teenagers. I am amidst a flock of them, and have a few experiences to share, if you are a'needing.

I've worked with a lot of kids who had a stealing habit, of various ages, kindergarten to pre-teen. It's actually kind of common for kids to 'experiment' with stealing, and it's probably an important part of moral/social development. For another set of kids, it's episodic - it happens during a stressful period in a kid's life, and fades when things get better or the kid feels more supported.

Kids who steal habitually, though, tend to have a problem. Sometimes they want to take things they can sell for money, sure. But more often than not, in my experience, it's an emotional problem. Not so much that they feel resentment that others have things they don't, or entitlement - but something deeper, that they just generally feel a deep sense of lack. That no matter what happens in life, they don't have enough, can't count on enough, and will never have enough. A lot of times the behavior changes or disappears when the kid's life becomes more stable or secure, or, if that never comes to pass, becomes habitual - which is when you see the justification "I deserve it, rich people shouldn't have everything" -- but I'd argue that that justification comes after the fact, rather than being the motivation for theft.

Basically, they steal because they have a need. Not a material need, but an inner need that they feel may never be filled.

I don't know how to advise you to handle it, though - at 18 or 19, this is probably pretty advanced or entrenched behavior. But is it crazy to maybe suggest that you could try the counterintuitive tactic - address the emotional need? Be super nice and warm and supportive, show sincere personal interest in his welfare? I dunno. At that age it may be too late for that to work well. It's just a thought though - maybe there'd be less need to fill the void, at least in your house, with your stuff if he was receiving a different sort of experience.

So this is probably not so helpful now, but I just wanted to speak up that kids don't steal only out of meanness or selfishness. It's a sucky behavior but it runs pretty deep and on some level it makes emotional sense. I liked the idea of talking to your son.

Duh, I missed that followup, ClaudiaSF. Glad it worked out and you have a solution you can all live with.

Well, solutions can be a bit slippery in my experience. We'll probably be visiting the issue again.

I have to agree with Miko--the times when I felt like taking something from my house and pawning it was to get some money so that I could buy some stuff for which I was too ashamed to ask my parents for because I knew they wouldn't give it to me; I wanted to look cool, and I thought the only way to do that was to acquire as much of materialistic things as I could. Thank god I never had the guts to go through with it, except on these two daring occasions, once when I was caught, and my father told me--if anything so much as a ball point refill goes missing out of this house--there's going to be no one worse than him. I guess he knew what he was dealing with, and was aware what a slippery slope it could be once you get into the habit. The other time that I did it was when I'd decided to kill myself, and I didn't want to do that without having read the Kamasutra, so I took something else from the house thinking that I was going to kill myself the following day anyways, so it's not like they can do anything about it. Of course, I never did go through with my suicide idea, and the fact that I had stolen something again made me feel so guilty, and scared (that my father would find out about it), that I basically haven't entertained the idea ever since. I think this happened when I was also in my teens (18 or so).

late to the party as usual, but I had to comment.

mygothlaundry: you have a 16 year old son who gave blankets to a homeless guy? A 16 year old BOY. Cared enough to give something to someone who needed it, or at least could use it.
How many different shades of amazing are you raising this guy as?!
sorry it's at a bad time, and it's your stuff and all that, but ... empathy? From a 16 year old male?

Maybe I just haven't had enough exposure to "kids" these days, and I don't have any of my own, but that severely impresses me. Especially coming from a thread about theft.

Need to save face:
You damned kids get off my lawn! YA! Even the caring one! OFF!

> "Let's give boys more credit," said study author Andrew Smiler, an assistant professor of psychology at the university. "Although some of them are just looking for sex, most boys are looking for a relationship. The kids we know mostly aren't like this horrible stereotype. They are generally interested in dating and getting to know their partners."

> But are boys that age really defined primarily by their sexual urges? Or does the stereotype fall short, telling us less about teenage males and more about a culture that seems to have consistently low expectations of its boys?

If you work around kids/teenagers you get to know that most of them are basically young good people. They make a lot of mistakes, but they are mostly on their way to becoming decent human beings. Except the ones that aren't, who probably won't make it to 'decent human being' status at any age.

Thanks, Kai. Yeah, I know, I overreacted at the time and it was a good thought on his part, but it meant that his sister would be sleeping cold that night. So 10 out of 10 for kindness and minus 12 for practicality - we really can't afford to buy more blankets. Sigh. Somehow or other I ended up with two kids who are more dedicated to saving the world and more left wing than I am. This means that I worry about them constantly and wonder what, exactly, I could have done to produce a lawyer or doctor or something instead of St. Teresa and Che Guevara. ;-) He has a good heart, though nobody who just met him would believe it, given his carefully calculated terrorist/trying to be super cool thug life guy persona. And he's still terrifyingly idealistic, has a mouth on him and is ready to jump in where he perceives injustice, which has landed him in a shitload of trouble already with more on the horizon. Argh.

If it helps, mgl, in my lifespan development class, we very definitely labeled "idealistic" as a phase (and, "black and white thinking" as part of the same phase). He'll probably grow out of the worst of it, and it sounds like he's well set up to keep the best of it.