what to do when a 6 year sneaks stuff
Sneaky behavior such as lying and stealing are some of the hardest issues for parents to bargain with. When your child lies and sneaks around, it can feel similar a expose and begins to feel like a moral effect. You outset to question their character. You may showtime to dislike your child.
Let's face information technology—many of us were guilty of some blazon of sneaking around when we were younger. Nosotros may take stolen cigarettes from our parents. Perhaps we lied nearly where we were going or who we were going to be with. We may have even thought we were justified at the fourth dimension and came up with all kinds of reasons to explicate our misbehavior.
Don't Take Sneaky Behavior Personally and Stay At-home
These are the times when parents need to be able to pace back, focus on the behavior, and non take it personally. Lying and sneaky behavior is not okay, merely it doesn't make your child a bad person. Instead, information technology means your child has a behavior trouble that needs to be addressed.
Kids are non being sneaky to hurt yous. They're being sneaky to become what they desire or to solve a problem that they have. Either way, being sneaky is not the right arroyo, and it's your job to give consequences and to coach them to solve their issues the right way.
Stay calm and focused on the behavior. If at-home, the situation will exist much easier to deal with. Even if you feel every bit if it'southward a personal betrayal, effort to take the emotion out of the discussion with your child. Just exist businesslike and objective and focus on the beliefs and the consequences. Think well-nigh how a good boss would handle things—professional, at-home, and honest.
Call Out Sneaky Beliefs When It Happens
When you catch your child in a lie or doing something sneaky, tell them immediately. Remind them that the beliefs is unacceptable and issue the consequence.
If y'all call back your child has been lying to you and sneaking around but you don't have the details or the full story, let them know your suspicions. Tell them that yous're going to follow up to become more information and that you will be monitoring their behavior more closely.
Have a Problem-Solving Chat With Your Child
Subsequently, when things are calm, you volition demand to have a conversation with your child about how to solve their problems without resorting to lying or sneaking. Give yourself time to set up for this important discussion, and practise information technology when you are calm and without getting emotional.
A way to begin these problem-solving conversations is to have your child do some "homework" ahead of fourth dimension. Ask them to think about their behavior and be prepared, either verbally or in writing, to allow you know what they were thinking when they did this, what the issues were with the behavior, and how they might behave in this situation in the time to come. It's always most helpful when these ideas come up directly from your child.
Related content: The Surprising Reason for Bad Kid Beliefs
How to Handle Lying
It's helpful to retrieve that kids don't understand how hurtful lies can exist. Their thinking is immature, and they generally prevarication without even considering how these lies affect others.
The truth is, kids know lying is wrong. Only they lie anyway. And they usually prevarication because they merely accept a really poor way of solving bug. They prevarication to get out of a upshot because they recollect it'due south their simply option left.
If you look at lying as a problem-solving issue, and not a moral one, you tin help your child develop strategies so they can terminate lying in the future. Don't spend all your energy stressing the right and wrong nature of lying. Conversations nearly right and wrong have a place, just the most effective approach is to focus the conversation well-nigh finding a better way to solve problems that don't entail lying.
If your child's lying seems to exist getting worse or is specially worrisome, there may be a need to reach out to others in their life to find out what'southward really going on. Permit your kid know that yous are concerned and suspicious of their behavior and that you will be keeping an middle on them.
They won't like this, but you have to let them know that you care almost them. Tell them they take to exist truthful with you. You can fifty-fifty tell them that as a parent it's your job to aid them follow the rules in your home.
Related content: How to Deal with Lying in Children and Teens.
How to Handle Stealing
If your child'due south sneaky beliefs has hurt someone else, this needs to exist addressed. Stealing is an example of 1 of these behaviors that hurts others. If you find that your child has stolen something, the consequences demand to do the post-obit:
- Accost the misbehavior – stealing
- Make amends to the person who was hurt
For example, if your son is caught taking coin from his sister, your conversation with your son should set a consequence for the stealing. He might lose all electronics privileges until he makes amends to his sister. Then, he must brand apology to his sister past paying her dorsum and then adding an additional gesture, like doing her chores for a week.
If your child sneaks money from your wallet, this is too stealing. You tell them that the behavior is unacceptable and that you volition exist watching your money much more than closely.
If your child continues to steal from you, it's time to try to detect out what he is spending this money on. This may lead to uncovering other behaviors that will have to exist addressed. There could be problems with drugs or alcohol.
Related content: Kids Stealing from Parents: What Y'all Need to Know
Sneaking the Phone
If your child sneaks her telephone at dark and texts into the wee hours with her friend, there volition be a natural consequence for her because she'll exist tired the side by side day. But remember, you command the phone. You're paying the bills. And you can and should permit your kid know that she has broken the telephone rules and won't have the privilege of using it for a reasonable amount of time (depending on the age of your child and whether this is a ane-fourth dimension matter or a pattern of misbehavior).
Related content: How to Give Kids Consequences That Work
Sneaking Out at Dark
If your child sneaks out at night, you need to reiterate your rules around his curfew and then consider the risk of the behavior. Is your xv-year-old son sneaking out to his friend's house just to hang out? Or is your teenage girl taking off every night to go to her older boyfriend's house where drugs and alcohol are present? Some behaviors and patterns of sneaky behavior are much more dangerous and risky than others and have to be dealt with more than seriously.
When your child is calm and can talk about what he or she did, it'south useful to try to discover out what the motivation was. Was it to be with a beau or girlfriend? To get loftier? To have sex activity? Or just to hang out with a group of kids?
Reiterate to them that the sneaky behavior is not allowed and goes against your house rules. Your conversation needs to include a short and direct discussion of the risks and dangers of the behavior and your concern about your kid's safety.
The consequences and conversation should match the level of safety business organization. For example, if your child was on her telephone all night and it's a first-time offense, taking away phone privileges for the weekend while she practices skilful behavior and goes to bed on time may exist adequate. If your child is sneaking out of the house and information technology becomes a pattern, the consequences demand to become more serious.
Have a Consistent Message About Sneaky Behavior
Tell your child that lying and other sneaky behaviors are non acceptable in your family unit. Explain that he needs to observe better ways of problem-solving than sneaking effectually your rules. State your family unit's values and your expectations for your child inside the family. Think, while sneaky behavior is normal for kids, it's non okay. You can but say:
"Lying is not a adept mode to solve your problems. We don't allow this in our family."
You child won't similar information technology when you face up sneaky behavior. They will initially resent being defenseless or being suspected of the behavior. And they definitely won't like the uncomfortable conversations and consequences that follow. Simply that'south okay. By doing so you are doing your chore every bit a parent. Just be calm, matter-of-fact, and clear most the misbehavior and the consequence. And so omnibus them to healthier ways of solving their problems.
Source: https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/i-caught-my-child-lying-how-to-manage-sneaky-behavior-in-kids/
0 Response to "what to do when a 6 year sneaks stuff"
Post a Comment