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12 Year Old Been Caught Stealing In Supermarket

NAS84564

My son has been caught stealing from our local supermarket.  I was not with him, he was approached by a staff member who took his bag of shopping from him (which he said he paid for) and said "I'll have my stuff back.  We have been watching you and you have been stealing from this store.  You are banned from coming in here again and if you do come back, we will phone the police".  He is 12 years old.  He has just been diagnosed with ADHD and Autism after a 10 year battle.  He has admitted that he had taken 2 things on 2 different days but swears he hasn't taken anything else - and hadn't taken anything the day he got approached and had his shopping taken off him.  The trouble is, I don't believe him.  I feel awful saying that but he is very, very good at lying and I am struggling to separate truth from lies with him.  He has absolutely no need to steal.  He has money every time he goes into the shop.  I asked if he did it for the thrill of doing something "naughty" and he said no.  He didn't really think about it, he just did it.  I am at a loss as to what to do.  I haven't been to the supermarket as they do not know who he is and my worry is that if I go there and confront them for approaching a minor and taking his things from him when he had paid for them (he selected "no receipt" but the tills have recordings so they could check) then they will press charges for the things he has stolen - and if my gut instinct is correct, I feel he may have been doing this for a while.  I feel like a terrible mother for trusting him with his pocket money and allowing him the freedom to go to the shop on his own but I had no idea stealing would even cross his mind.

My worry is that this will not stop him and he will continue doing things like this and end up in the courts.  I have confiscated his phone (except at night when he needs it as part of his sleep routine), his games console and grounded him (he has no friends and doesn't really go out anyway, other than to the shop) and has been banned from going into any shop unless an adult or his older sister is with him.  He doesn't seem upset by the situation at the slightest, but I am living on my nerves.  I am still coming to terms with the diagnosis and trying to get things put in place for him at school as he is not settling into secondary at all at the moment and this seems like a huge step backwards.  I asked if he will ever steal again and he said he didn't know.  I really do not know what else to do with/for him.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

  • I would arrange to make myself available to the shop manager and pay for whatever they can prove is missing. He's still young and if you've only just had him assessed, then this would be something to bring up. 

    I'm going to echo that lying isn't typical for autistics unless when used as a survival mechanism. There are 2 key biological factors which are the same with Au and ADHD: Hyper-Sensory or different sense-perception (not able to dull the senses the same) and less GABA inhibitors which can contribute to hyper-focus, gut-health issues and biologically induced anxiety. These can contribute to a different rate of maturing. From what I've seen in research, we're only now finding fundamental understanding of what is constituting these differences. I'm assuming there may have been a good deal of misdiagnosed individuals over the last so many years. 

    Kids who are ADHD, without added language difficulty and highly intelligent can catch on to extraordinary measures of unfairness in society. Social manipulations and subliminal intentions. They simply won't have the wisdom to know how to respond. Wisdom which is earned from 40+ years of being in society, soul and ethics searching for how to integrate without resentment. He might not be lying about doing something naughty if he feels justified in his actions. 

    It could be good to just find a therapist for him and you! Learning how to encourage his ability to confide in you so you know what you're working with would be a good first step. Then perhaps finding ways of influencing his choices so that he can respect your influence would be my next step. I've noticed with my son every time I learn a new way of being or have a new breakthrough in becoming more true to myself, he benefits by just being exposed. 

  • This appears to have been triggered by the transition to secondary school and the fact that he is not settling there. Perhaps that's where the focus needs to be, to ensure he has all the support he needs at school.

    Lying is not an autistic trait. Everyone is different but autistic people tend to be honest and direct. It is of course possible for an autistic child to learn to lie, likely as a means to avoid punishment. 

    When I was at secondary school I used to truant a lot, since the school environment was so overwhelming and a complete sensory overload. If I hung around near the local shops some of the other kids would try to pressure me into going in and stealing something for them. I refused and stopped hanging around there. Your son might not find it so easy to escape such pressures.

    You are not a terrible mother for trusting him and eventually you will need to trust him again. I wonder if he can sense that you don't believe him? Assuming he told you himself about the incident in the supermarket that demonstrates that there is some trust there to build on. 

    Explain to him that in future he needs to always request a receipt at the till, so that there can be no doubts if he were to face a similar situation again.

  • in reply to Mariusz

    Btw. Staff in that supermarket shouldn't have stopped your son, it's illegal. I work in a supermarket now, and if there are kids stealing we just let them go without stopping them. The only deterrent is to follow them around in store, hoping that it'll discourage them, if we notice they're regulars.

  • When I was 10-11 and started a new school, I was trying to make friends at first, I saw it as opportunity, If I make a friend before other in my class find out I'm not like them, and turn me into their mocking target. 

    I think in retrospection, they already knew, so when I was attempting to hang around with them, they were challenging me to steal from small shops, to prove myself worthy. I did steal some sweats on few occasions, until my conscience got better of me, and I gave up on an idea of making friends, until I meet new people. It was looking like a pattern, every new school, new class, new group of boys, sooner or later I was becoming target for them. Until I went to college, I was 15, and my new school had a prevalence of students that focused on learning instead of being naughty boys. It's where I finally found a group of boys that accepted me, we were playing RPGs together.

    Your son might find it difficult in a new school, because of other boys, and to appease them he might be stealing for them. 

    An activity with other boys, that isn't just hanging around together, would benefit your son probably, especially if it's something like a hobby.

  • I haven't experienced this, and I'm not a psychologist, but I have heard that shoplifting in children and teenagers is often less about need or even thrill and more a cry for help. You say he's not settling into secondary school and I wonder if that's a factor. Maybe it would be helpful to speak to him about his worries there and what he's struggling with?

  • The police phoned here one Christmas eve to say they had my Sister locked up for shoplifting, she was probably about 13 at the time. They wouldn't release her with a parent or guardian came, They wanted me to contact my Mum to collect her. But my Mum was working, and Christmas was very busy for her, so i decided not to phone her, to wait untill she got hame for tea. I thought it will teach my Sister a lesson if she has to sit in a cell for a few hours. Anyway when my Mum got home she went to the policestation, they said the girl who was with my Sister, was known to them, they thought she'd encouraged the shoplifting, but they thought maybe this was my Sisters first tine, so they just gave her a warning. I don't think she ever tried something similar again.