Children Who Take Things

Abstract

Most children ‘steal’ or take things that do not belong to them at some time or other. This is not to say that stealing is not a matter of concern, but merely to indicate that most children pass through such a phase apparently unscathed and without relapse in later life. The problem of persistent stealing, however, is a particularly difficult problem for parents or teachers to resolve, and this difficulty increases the longer the stealing persists and the older a child becomes. Consequently, despite the apparent ubiquity of the problem, appropriate early intervention is called for.