My Five Year Old Found a Five Finger Discount

     I picked my son up from preschool yesterday and on the way home we stopped by a store I like to peruse for journals. On a "clearance" table, Max found a toy dinosaur that was out of its package. Of course, he wanted it, but we weren't there for him, we were there for me! Alas, I took him over by the toy section to see if there was anything he might like for his upcoming birthday. After leaving the clearance table, he had asked three times, "Can we go home now?" Not an unusual question from any of my children when we are patronizing a store that isn't named "Toys R Us," but he was persistent about wanting to leave. As we got in the car, I noticed he put something on the side of his booster chair in a manner that tipped me off that he did not want me to see it. I asked him what he had. "I don't know." I insisted on seeing what was beside his chair. Sure enough, it was that dinosaur. No wonder he wanted to leave so badly, he had just ripped off the joint! "Max! We didn't pay for that! That's called stealing!" I told him we had to give it back. He didn't like that idea. We walked back inside and I made him give the toy to the customer service person and say he was sorry, which he did, but as soon as we turned to leave, he erupted into tears.
     As soon as we got home he went straight to his room completely on his own and got under the covers of his bed. I followed him in there so we could discuss what happened. I put my arm around him and explained what stealing was and how the Bible teaches us that we shouldn't steal and how we need to be pleasing to God if He tells us not to steal. "Did you like going back in the store and giving that dinosaur to that man?" He shook his head. "That wasn't fun, was it?" Shook head. "Are you ever going to do that again?" More head shaking. Then I hugged him and said we weren't going to talk about it the rest of the night.
     At dinner, the girls brought up the random items Max had been bringing home from school saying friends or teachers had given them to him; a bell, a coloring book, an old-school fisher price bald headed man toy... little did we know he had been lifting things from his classroom for weeks. I told him when I dropped him off the next day that we were going to thank each person that had given him these gifts. He didn't like that idea.
     Later, I asked Max if he had taken those items without permission. And he fessed up. So, he will return each "gift" and make it right just like he had to do at the store, and I'm praying he has learned a lesson. But I think I was learning just as much as he was, about flying by the seat of my pants as a father when I clearly didn't remember this chapter in the parenting handbook they gave me when my kids were born. After all, no one caught me when I took the little gun out of an opened Star Wars action figure package in Payless Drugstore, but those guns were so easy to lose, you have to understand...