Last night I came home to discover that my middle child age 5, had stolen some of his brother’s money and hid it.

He was caught by his mother.  My wife handled it well, playing up the guilt and letting him know he was going to have to tell his older brother and his father what he had done.

This reduced him to a ball of tears and he did his best to make up for what he had done, writing notes of apology, praying and generally crying a lot. Once I came home and was presented with the situation, what my wife had done to remedy it and how he had reacted. I talked with her about why this all came about in the first place.

Yesterday, I remarked on how it was difficult for a middle child to figure out his own path.  Obviously our middle child did not know how much he had taken, he had no goal in mind, or purpose the money was going to. In fact, he seems to think that pennies are more valuable than the five dollar bill he had absconded with, yet he coveted the money so much he was willing to steal it.

If he didn’t know the value or its practical uses why would he steal it? The answer could only lie in one place. His older brother is a notorious hoarder of money and money like objects. While other children can’t seem to spend money fast enough, our eldest child will hold onto it. The idea of having it is more fun to him than spending it. He even does this with the school bucks he wins at his grade school, refusing to turn them in for prizes and continuously hoarding all the little green sheets he can.

Our middle child sees this and the pride the eldest takes in it, and wants to participate as well. Our 5 year old has no access to money and thus his only form of participation comes in stealing it.

So my wife and I set ourselves to the task of finding a way for him to participate.

We want him to understand that money does not come to easy, and since he doesn’t understand the concept of value yet we decided to reward with pennies. We have decided he can have a job of folding napkins for dinner. His brother gets paid every week, but he will get paid every night.

Once the napkins are folded he will get a new penny. This should provide the immediate gratification a 5 year old needs to keep doing the job, and give him a sense of saving like his brother.

My wife and I hope this will provide sufficient outlet, but the underlying issue of being infatuated with everything his older brother gets to do remains.