Stealing

I have a son that the past 6 weeks has stolen every week at least once.

Our rule is that he gets 24 hrs if he’s caught stealing and doesn’t come forward about it

A dab of hot sauce if when caught he lies

Only a major maintenance if he comes to us about it before we find out

And if he tells us he’s tempted and we can make a plan before it happens, he’s praised and sometimes even given what he’s tempted to steal.

We have done numerous SODAS on this. We have talked about the short and long term impact of this choice.

We also have a trust chart that restricts different levels of media, and supervision. It takes 7 weeks of checking and no infractions to earn trust and all freedom back. We’ve been on the beginning level for 6 weeks.

Still, it keeps happening as if nothing matters and nothing is helping. This seems to come and go in phases. Sometimes he does really well, other times it’s constant. In the times when it’s going well, it doesn’t appear to be tied to anything. He does feel good when he’s earned trust, and makes good choices, but then in times like this it doesn’t seem to matter to him.

Do we just keep the course and keep doing SODAS, 24hrs, and trust chart each week and hop it clicks? It’s not always impulsive, sometimes the stealing is very premeditated. I’m not sure how to get through to him. He also doesn’t have new ideas for ways to incentivize/disincentivize the behavior.

For background, he’s 14, adopted at 8, has lead poisoning, which presents like autism, receptive/expressive language impairment, and DID.