We make criminals of the young because we are blind and hardened with our own failures and minor struggles. We also cause, as in the case of this boy who killed himself, the most heart-breaking tragedies. It is appalling even to contemplate the suffering brought quite uselessly upon boys and girls by grown-up foolish ignorance.
We show too little imagination in our treatment of the child who does wrong. We rarely remember his almost terrible sensitiveness, nor do we consider the unusual advantage (from the point of view of the child) that we possess just in being grown-up. And nothing, as I have said before, is to the boy plainer as a sign of this grown-up freedom than the power we have (or rather that they think we have) to spend money how we like and when we like. That is why the taking of money is one of the most common symbolic acts for a boy’s wish for love or power.
That boyish theft is often pathological is proved by the fact that the objects stolen are often useless to the boy, that they are hidden away, and, as a rule, forgotten, and further that the boy forgets, or almost forgets, what he has stolen or how he took them. Some boys have a passion for stealing certain objects which they will take over and over again. Those who have had anything to do with delinquent children well know these symptoms.
In nearly all cases the thieving is repeated over long periods; although each act may be followed by violent remorse. Parents and all those who have to deal with these childish wrong doers, should know that this sorrow, especially if it is emotionally excessive, serves only to increase the tendency to a fresh repetition of the theft. For remorse fixes the boy’s attention on his stealing, and, still more, on the pleasurable feelings that unconsciously to himself are connected with the act. He remembers these, though he does not know it, whenever he thinks of his wickedness in stealing. And this fixity of attention in itself is a kind of rehearsal of the act, that is very likely to lead to an actual performance of it. Boyish remorse is, no doubt, gratifying to parents, but, almost invariably, it is harmful to the boy.
Whenever the boy thinks how bad he is, how wrong and disastrous an act would be, he is in danger of being compelled to perform that act. Most of us have experienced this, but we forget its application to the moral conduct of the young. Once think how terrible it would be to fall down the precipice, and the idea of jumping down approaches.
Remorse is a form of temptation. And all forms of temptation should, if possible, be avoided in dealing with the misconduct of children. If your boy steals money do not leave money lying about. Also, even if he has stolen money several times, express no faintest suspicion as to his not using honourably any money entrusted to him, for some necessary purpose, such as paying railway fares or buying a school book. Never be suspicious over the change such a child brings you. As he steals from a feeling of inferiority, and, in particular, because through jealousy, whether imagined or real, he feels himself less blessed with the love of those about him than other more confident children, any sign of your not being able to trust him, must render him more liable to err.
If the thieving boy were treated with sympathy and understanding, and loved and helped, instead of being blamed and often cruelly punished, there would be fewer grown-up thieves.