How to deal with a klepto kid?
 

Alright, so my girlfriend's little brother is a kleptomaniac, I mean, bad... He can't go a day without stealing from either me, her, or her father... And not to mention he can't walk into a gas station without stealing a candy bar or something

Anyone know of any ways to scare the piss out of him to make him stop?

I thought of talking with the cops and staging something where we get them to come and ask for him, hand cuff him, give him the whole rights thing, and haul him off to jail and let him sit for a little bit and tell him he was seen on cameras stealing stuff.

My sister did that to my nephew when he as 8 and she caught him steal a squirt gun from the grocery store. I have yet to hear of him stealing anything. The last I heard he's got a piggy bank full of change and dollar bills that he's been saving to buy stuff he wants now.

Speaking from experience, I don't think you can really "scare" him into stopping. What you need to do [if you plan on sticking around with her that is] is get it through to him that no one is ever going to trust him.

You can emphasize the point by telling him "no" whenever he asks for anything that requires even the slightest bit of trust.

I remember when I was a kid, they always tried to scare us into not doing "evil things." To be honest, that just tempted me more.

Steal his shit, see how he likes it.

Yeah I've been doing that also, he asks me all the time to borrow a 360 game of mine, and I always say no, just to find that he's just taken it anyway after we've gone to sleep, and not only taken it, but scratched the shit out of it to the point that it freezes halfway through the game.

I've kept an eye on all the games and shit he stole and ruined and I tallied up how much it costs to replace and I make him clean the house and do stuff for us to repay it, but that doesn't help because I always see shit of mine in the basement hidden under the couch or in dark corners.

Hell it's gotten to the point where my girlfriends dad has beat his ass with a cement scraper until the metal handle snapped for taring apart a direct tv receiver box to get the hard drive out while he was waiting for the box to be delivered by ups to send it back to direct tv, yet he still does this shit.

I think the only way to do anything would be to make him realize what happens when he gets older and gets caught doing this shit.

He's 13 by the way, just turned.

He doesn't care, half his property is stolen from someone somewhere, he just thinks "oh well, I'll just go steal it again from someone else"

Guess I am lost. Why would you let your girlfriend's little brother live with you? As long as you are putting yourself in that situation you are going to have to lock up everything of yours that you do not want him to touch.

Sounds like he's the one living with her and her family.

Get your own fucking apartment and let the kid's parents deal with his shit.

That crossed my mind as well. If that is the case, move. Otherwise you have to deal with it.

If you are under 25 you should not have "a" girlfriend. You should have many girlfriends. The kid is doing you a favor.

That's the thing, he doesn't live with us. His mother is worthless and chooses her abusive controlling boyfriend over her own kids, so he has no where else to go but with us, because he doesn't get along with her boyfriend and would rather him stay then her own kids.

So we get stuck with having to take care of him.

Actually, we have our own house, and the basement is full and has a bedroom, bathroom, and livingroom in it for her father to stay in on the 3 days a month he's home from work.

My ex's daughter used to have this problem... when I learned she was doing it I started taking her back to the stores to make sure she gave it back or paid for it (with her allowance/birthday/christmas money)... it continued to be a problem until she stole some lipstick from Family Dollar and when I took her down to give it back they insisted on calling the police... they put her in the back of the police car for a few minutes and then one of the officers went and talked to her about how stealing is against the law and how lucky she was that I had convinced them not to take her to jail... but next time she wouldn't be so lucky... we never had a problem again.

That sucks for you man. Family or not, that little shit needs to find someplace else to call home.

Tell me again why he has no respect for authority / elders.. ?

Take something he really needs, like 1 shoe. Or all his shoes, guaranteed he freaks out.

Then level with him and tell him not to fuck with you, 2 can play every game. You need to get past the games.

Someone with that kind of morals won't take long to start logging into your computer and getting all your logins and passwords to all your programs and cashing you completely out.

I'll wait to see the thread next month.

Yeah, that's why I thought of doing what my sister did, it apparently worked well for him.

I don't care if he's not my direct family, I'm not gonna shun away the kid because his mother is just as worthless as the man that donated the sperm to create him and left a a month before he was born.

You really think being a dick to him and telling him to get lost is really gonna make him change his ways? No it's gonna make it worse and cause him to be a even bigger fuckup when he gets older.

It can be fixed, just have to find a way to do it, I used to be a little shit when I was little, what changed me? My mother taking me to a maximum security prison where my uncle who I was told acted exactly like me when he was young, was sitting for 10 years and since then I have never been a little fucktard.

You one of those people who think a good ass whooping is wrong and cry child abuse when you see a mother slap the hand of her little brat kid?

To yours and my surprise, the little shit actually respects my girlfriends father more than anyone else because of these ass whoopings.

I'm at this thing 12+ hours a day, he has no way to get to it and do any of that shit, and he knows if he even TOUCHES my computer, I'll pinch the tips of his fingers with a pliers until he looses all feeling in them.

Unfortunately that's the only thing he listens to me about, my work computer.

That is pretty fair :thumbsup

I like the idea of taking one shoe. If he has many pairs of shoes take one of his favorites. Do not return it under any circumstance. Next time he does it, take one from the next pair.

When he has to start wearing mismatched shoes to school the shame might start getting to him. If the school calls tell them why. Nothing says his shoes have to match.

Good idea.

simple give him a good ass kicking then smash one of his hands really bad. enough of the pussy shit with these kids.

The ass kicking may work, but I'm pretty sure smashing his hands would land me in jail... I need to be in the mob, that way I can just do it every day!

Telephone books are such handy items if willing to go that route.

Do they still do the Scared Straight type programs?

sounds like a kid who needs a good serious asskicking.

You know what's even more fucked up? He stole something from me and destroyed it, I took the CD tray out of his 360 (which he already had torn apart and voided the warranty from Microsoft) and told him until he either worked the price off, or paid me for it, he'd get it back. His crazy mother come over flipping out on him and us, and wanted it from me, I told her not until he works it off, or she gives me $80, which I knew she couldn't do because shes broke as a joke, and lives off my girlfriend's father's pay check, and she started throwing punches at me, hitting me 4 or 5 times until I got sick of it and just smashed it saying "He destroys my shit, I destroy his".

Pretty much what I'm saying is he deserves a good ass whooping, it would help, but you try to discipline him and his worthless mother who doesn't even take care of him, flips out on you, so actually doing anything physical is out of the equation.

It's sad, because it would be so much easier doing like candyflip said earlier and just tell him to get fucked and find a new place to stay, but the kind person in me just says no, it won't help anything.

Hoping so... My nephew is 11 and it worked for him at 8. This kid just turned 13 in February.

There's a big difference between a mother smacking her child.
Hitting a child so frequently and hard that you break a construction tool during the process?

You tell me what the difference is.

If the kid respects his grand dad, get his grand dad to help talk / punish him.

I'm not saying it would be easy to toss him out, or that I could even do it myself in this situation.

But sometimes, something extreme needs to happen for shit to sink in. A few nights in someone shitty group home or juvi might have him rethinking what he does.

Scared Straight worked on a few of the neighborhood kids who got busted breaking into someone's house.

Thats pretty sound advice, especially about the "Scaring" thing.

I was into stealing shit, not for the shit just because it was a rush.. It's unexplainable for those who have the bug, you're sitting there trying to be self contained and composed while your hands are trembling and on the inside you're paranoid and nervous. You make your way out and the feeling is euphoric..

But I grew up.. And I feel I turned out to be a well educated and articulate young man. Hell, I don't even surpass the speed limit, lol.

I think what needs to happen is you need to play what baddog said, tell him how it's going to leave him untrusted, if he's old enough to reflect on that maybe he'll see he's not growing into the man he wants to be.

Yeah, and when I was young my father stuck his steel toed boot up my ass and guess what, I never cocked off to him again, and you know what? I thanked him when I grew up for not being such a pussy and giving me what I deserved.

That's the problem with kids these days, so many whiny ass bitch kids grew up and became social service workers and got it so that if you even slap your kid jokingly you could lose them for child abuse, thus caused today's children to grow up and not respect authority and become what you see.

P.S. I'm 24 years old, so I'm not an old bitter man, I just think the laws about child abuse these days are retarded and make the problem with today's youth, not combat it.

Yeah, we're doing something like that, like if something comes up missing, even if he didn't steal it, we still assume it was him, due to the fact that we don't know if he's lying to us or not, and he gets real upset about it.

Interesting point..

and you should just beat the kid if he steals from you.

Fear and Guilt are the best things to control a kid.

The kid never had an older brother to put a stop to this sooner..

One day when he's at the store buying pepperoni and fucking chicken chips over at Cory and Trevors Conviences you and Lucy should totally move the trailer to another lot. Hopefully he won't find his way back.

Step back, walk away.

obviously the kid needs therapy. you don't just wake up one day as a child and decide to behave compulsively. whats next??? "how do you stop a kid from killing homeless people and burying them in the woods"? jesus.

i can't believe how fucking dumb we are as a society after 10-15 million years on this planet.

so you're solution was to make him the victim?

brilliant.

that will teach him right from wrong.






the second i take control of this planet... the only first priority is forcing everyone into an evaluation program with genetic testing, psychological evaluation, earnings potential analysis and then of course, many will find their way into the much needed sterilization program

So, the kid has a mom who prefers an abusive boyfriend so he has to live at her sister's boyfriend's basement, and his dad who fled before he was born beats him with a construction tool until it breaks because he does something that makes him feel in control and you think violence will fix him? He does not respect authority and he does not respect his dad, it's a combination of despise and fear, because he does not have the right to tell him what's wrong and what to do, because authority figures in his life have all been fucked up pieces of shit - you ARE an authority figure and you don't know what to do except to threaten to maim him so he keeps away from the computer. You know what threat would have also worked? Kicking him out since he would be directly affecting your income and ability to provide a roof top for him.

Respect to authority is earned, and you know what really does for eternal loyalty? gratitute and guilt, that he won't feel because he does not think you deserve to be treated right because you have not shown compassion. Get him caught stealing, do not just scare him, have him sent off to a correctional institution with daily group therapy and the like, then come rescue him and talk to him and tell him your story the way you're telling us, and if he fucks up again, kick him to the streets. Physical violence doesn't teach anything, it's the mental process behind wanting to avoid the physical violence to be inflicted upon you that does, and there's more effective ways to use such mental process without becoming precisely the kind of thing he despises and give him more reasons to steal and ruin your stuff.

There is a difference between being nice and being a bitch. You sir, are a bitch.

He is using you, he doesn't give a fuck about you, you are simply a tool for him to use until he finds another to use.

you just made it onto my "Safe List" for when i take over the planet.

totally bizarre that a grown adult can be so retarded to see a child acting out and not get that its a symptom of something wrong in his life... and not understand the need to get to the bottom of it... instead... everyone wants to figure out how to punish him.

now we will have to pay for this shitheads parenting when his kid spends his life in the prison system.

:(

Another reason that I am only up to the level of caring for plants.

The notion of raising children successfully seems like an increasingly daunting task.

Perhaps one day, I'll get a pet.

You guys are delegating the issue, the kid is a little prick.

Apparently you've never delt with a person like this have you? You don't truly understand how their minds work do you?

Nope, try again.

Fail number 2, try one more time.

Fail number 3, please step off the stage to the left, you have not made it past this round and cannot continue onto the second round.

LOL, alright. :thumbsup

Totally bizarre that somebody that knows nothing about either people involved that they gotta make assumptions on such small information.

Can you please scan your psychology degree, I wanna see that bugger.

Dude, you're posting for advice on GFY.
Everyone here, seriously or otherwise is providing input that you asked for.

Everyone is in accord that your situation is not desirable.

We are only going off the information you provided. The way you spun it sounds exactly like the way Anna summarised it.

We're roughly the same age. This should be a period in your life where you're forging new paths, not collecting baggage.

Take that piece of advice with as gravity as the rest of the pieces of advice here.
Your life, your situation, but complaining due to exasperation, and then attempting to justify the fucked up situation is, frankly, self-destructive.

So I reread the stuff I wrote and AnniKN has still misread what I wrote and took it wrong.

I also asked for ways to make someone stop being a klepto, not a psycho analysis, or the advice to just ditch him and forget about him.

A therapist saying "So where you abused as a child?" has nothing to do with him wanting to steal stupid shit constantly...

Also what's my age have to do with me actually being a responsibly person and helping my girlfriend with her family problems related to her brother?

By your logic I should, at the age of 24, be saying "fuck this shit, you're family's whack!" and ditch my girlfriend, the one I love for who she is, not for what I want, and plan on spending my time with, because her brother is a little twerp? Come on, seriously.

Anyways, I don't care about any psycho analysis of what's wrong with the kid, I asked for advice on ways to make him realize he shouldn't steal everything under the sun.

If you got ideas on how to do that, awesome share, but if you want to pull out your google images printed psychology degree, hit the x button to close the thread now.

I'd say that yes, him being abused (emotional, neglect, physical) all have something to do with why he's acting out (ie. stealing).

:2 cents:

Although I stand by my post, I'll bite regarding advice, only two things I think that might work based on what you're saying now is:
1. acting like you've stopped caring about it OR
2. trust him with something that appears important and make it clear it's his last chance to be trusted by anyone until the day he dies

And then, send him to therapy.

..and that's the advice you're getting.

BTW, I didn't tell you to leave your girlfriend - that's what you read into it.

What were you expecting from this thread? Someone to say: Oh, kleptomania! Just feed them more potatoes and they'll be fine!

It's an issue more complicated than that.
Incidentally, he's not a kleptomaniac. There are 5 basic categories for kleptomania, and from your description, he doesn't fit any.

He seems like a kid from a shitty family looking for some attention.

If my parents were half as bad as you describe his, stealing shit would have been the least of their worries.

Fix this shit while you can. And the only way YOU can do this is by driving him to someone else who can help.