16. The One Mistake to Avoid When Your Kid Lies or Steals

Have you ever caught your child stealing or lying?

It can feel so embarrassing and confusing—you may wonder, “Why would my child do this?!”

Here’s the truth: it’s very normal for kids to test out this kind of behavior. And as parents, our reaction matters a lot. Jumping in with lectures or scolding often makes things worse, not better.

In this episode of Sustainable Parenting with Flora McCormick, I’ll walk you through the KEY parenting mistake to avoid in these moments and explain the 3️⃣ reasons why it doesn’t work. You’ll also hear practical positive parenting strategies you can use instead—approaches rooted in gentle discipline and kind and firm parenting.

✨ By the time you finish listening, you’ll understand:

• Why “neck-up” parenting doesn’t work
• How the young child’s brain learns best when it comes to lying and stealing
• Tangible, calm steps to take the next time your child makes this choice

This is your chance to add more calm parenting tips to your toolbox and move toward positive parenting that builds connection while raising resilient kids.

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Transcript

Flora McCormick: [00:00:00] You're listening to Episode 16 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with your host, Flora McCormick, licensed therapist and parenting coach. Today, we're talking about the number one mistake to avoid when your kids lie or steal. I had a parent recently come to me and say she was mortified by having her daughter get caught stealing from friends at school, taking things out of their backpacks, food and toys.

And it's getting to this place where... Any friend who loses something immediately thinks that her daughter probably took it. And this can be so embarrassing and then takes us to a place mentally of questioning ourselves. What have I done wrong that my child would do something like this? And it's really easy.

For many different reasons to fall into this number one mistake that often makes things worse, not better. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that [00:01:00] gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time and give you the exact.

Steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective. And for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome.

Here's the number one mistake I find parents make when their kids lie or steal. It's that they end up parenting from the neck up. We talk about this a lot in sustainable parenting. Parenting from the neck up is the error of getting cognitive and rational in trying to make a difference in our child's behavior.

And this is ineffective for three main reasons. It is not accurate to the child's brain development. It is not solution [00:02:00] focused, and it can often include shaming and blaming, which just triggered the child's brain to shut down. So, first of all, we do not want to get caught in neck up parenting because it is not developmentally that useful.

Think about it. Neck up parenting in terms of rationalizing with your child about development. Why it was not okay to do this thing and why it's so important that they do something else. That's not really aligned with where their brain has fully developed. So that frontal prefrontal cortex of our brain that understands cause and effect that is really able to take in moral reasoning and rationality.

Guess what friends? That is not fully formed in the child's brain until around the late 20s. So when we try to look at a three year old and say, honey, it is not okay to steal from me that breaks our trust that makes it so that [00:03:00] I cannot trust you. And when we can't trust each other, then that makes mommy very sad and that that is not okay.

And, you know, if you break trust in your future, that's going to have X, Y, Z results. All of this is just. too advanced that's leaning into what would be helpful for a fully developed prefrontal cortex, which a three year old definitely does not have. Even with our teenagers, if we are rationalizing how that's morally not okay, we are still leaning into a part of the brain that that is not fully functioned until later in their life.

So the error of neck up parenting. Is that you are leaning in to try to rationalize and explain and that doesn't match where their brain is at in these early years of 2 through 12. Secondly, neck up parenting doesn't work because it is not solution focused. Usually, we are saying all the reasons something wasn't [00:04:00] okay and we end with something like, so let's make a better choice next time, okay?

Now, you know why you shouldn't do what you did. You shouldn't steal. You shouldn't lie. So next time, just don't do that. Okay. Instead, I want to suggest that you offer a solution moving forward. So move your thinking from just explaining from the neck up and thinking that's going to change behavior to what could you do differently next time?

So if you were curious about my makeup, and you decided with that curiosity to just wander in my room and grab it, what could you do differently next time that you're curious and interested in my makeup? That gives them a chance to be able to say, Oh, I, I guess I could ask you, or I could write a note, or you know.

Those would be in like, yes, please do that next time. And then I'm totally okay with you borrowing X, Y, or Z, or we could have a conversation about what parts of my makeup are just [00:05:00] fully accessible to you versus what's not so. The solution there is to move from neck up parenting instead of being solution focused.

What can you do differently next time? And the third reason that this neck up error doesn't work is because it can be shameful and involve blaming which shuts down the child. Without us even really meaning to. So a lot of parents will end up sharing with me that when they've done corrective action or disciplining with their kids, they'll hear back from the kids statements, um, maybe right in that moment, or maybe later in the day or the next day, things like, I'm just not a good kid.

I don't make good choices. I'm not very kind. I'm a bad boy. And they'll say, I don't know where that came from. I never said anything like that to them. Is this resonating with you? If so, it may actually be coming from [00:06:00] these neck up lectures that you've given to your kids if they were lying or stealing or other behaviors.

It's very common that we get into like explaining this is not something that nice kids do or it's just not kind to have stolen something from him from a friend. You know, the subtext of that is that you are not being kind. You're not a kind person. If you had the desire to steal or you had the desire to lie and instead again, kind of leaning into that solution focused mentality.

I want you to go to your kids instead of being shameful or blameful with the lecture about neck up parenting on the line is to say to them, how can we make it right? So after we've come up with what they can do differently next time, We're going to say, how can we make this right with that person? If you stole from them, you're utilizing it involving the child in coming up [00:07:00] with, well, I could take it back to the store.

That's a great idea. They stole from a friend and they say, well, I could give it back. Yes. You might add something else like, and I think it's fair to maybe give her an additional toy of yours because you had taken something that wasn't that that she had not offered to you. I want you to offer something to her.

So the 3 key steps instead of the neck up air, you are going to know that the development of the brain does not need a giant lecture. And instead, you're going to focus on the 2 key tools of future focus. What could you do differently next time? And how can you make this right friend, these are going to help you to be way more productive in resolving and having better outcomes.

If your kid has stolen or lied, and I would love to hear from you. If you have questions about this examples that you really [00:08:00] want to be able to share and get some personalized suggestions for join us in our Facebook group, sustainable parenting and Ask those questions there. We would love to hear from you and be able to respond.

I personally monitor that group every day and respond directly to questions that group members ask. So can't wait to hear from you and make this week another opportunity where you get to respond with kindness and firmness at the same time so that parenting can finally feel sustainable. See you next time.