‘Nip it in the bud.’. My kid stole something from the class ‘treasure box’ and I called him on it when finding the loot. Marched him up to the teacher to return and made him apologize. He was in 3rd grade. Never did it again.
Did you take him to the police station?
Hopefully, we’ve all made our kids return things they’ve stolen but hopefully we don’t drag them to a police station, using it as a parenting tool, when they are 7 years old.