Help! My Child is Stealing!

Question:

First, let me say that your book Positive Discipline has been immensely helpful. I read it when my son was five (he’s ten now) and I buy a copy for all the new parents I know ( along with the “Read-Aloud Handbook” by Jim Trelease). So thank for writing the book!

My son gets up before me in the morning and gets himself ready for school. We’ve been having a problem with him taking things that don’t belong to him. We’ve found some of our belongings (watches, pocket knives, comic books) in his backpack.

I’ve asked him to stop many times but he doesn’t. As for the pocket knives he said he wanted to carry one because I did. I stopped carrying mine and left out where he could see it and now I no longer carried one. However, I still don’t know what to do with him about the other things he takes. This has been going on for at least a year.