I agree, last I checked the law starts to get involved at age 10, and we’d rather prevent her from getting in serious trouble!

I suppose I’d also try completely putting aside the wrongness of it, as she seems to know, and instead try to understand why she does it, maybe figure out why it so appealing. Maybe the adrenaline of doing it, which could be substituted for a different activity… I hope you have luck!

In my experience getting louder doesn’t resolve any misbehaviour, at least not in the long term…

I have anticorp beliefs so I’d be aware of teaching the moral standpoint of not stealing from small, independent, local businesses.

She definitely seems to prioritise her desire for the item or the act of stealing over any knowledge of wrongdoing.

I know that taking one out of one’s comfort zone, as it were, can elicit more effective punishment. I can only think of temporary confiscation of whatever she likes (it’ll be easy if her parent/s already got her hooked on electronic devices), or perhaps if she finds comfort in her parent/s, her being detained by an officer or store security for stealing, with no familiar face in sight, but for a 7yo this’ll be hard to fabricate.

I was thinking about setting up something with a local officer - I read that you’re in the UK, so that gives you a good shot of this at least

How is she for eating vegetables? Could threaten to remove them as a punishment. I fell for some dumb threats as a kid, it might work to reinforce that veg is the most important portion aha

As well as punishment for what would later in life result in legal conflict, you probably know it’s just as important to encourage streaks of good behaviour, if you’re confident it really is a clean streak.