My 5 year old steals a lot

For about a month and a half now, my 5 year old son steals everything. He will steal money out of our pants pockets, and my purse, he will go into his sisters room and go through her things and hide them in his room. Just about two weeks ago we were in the mall shopping for christmas presents and we went into a hat store and when we left it looked like he didn't have anything, but when we got to the next store he pulls out this hat and puts it on his head. So we had to take it back and have him apologize and then we had to have a long talk with him AGAIN and took all of his toys away from him and told him that when he can stop stealing that he can have his toys back. He has stolen from his teacher and I had to take him to class and explain to her what was going on. She now searches his backpack before he goes home for the day. It has gotten to the point that I have put EVERYTHING away in my room, and when something comes up missing I have to go into his room and do like they do in the jails and search the entire room. My husband and I have tried everything that we can think of and nothing seems to get through his head. I don't want him to grow up and end up in jail, but I don't know what else to do, my husband and I are out of ideas. Can you please help us?

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Yes. Of course continue to set a firm limit on this behavior. If he takes something, have him return it and apologize, and then place him in time out for ten minutes or so. At the end of the time out, ask him how come he's in time out. When he says 'because I took ....', he can leave time out and renind him: 'No taking things that do not belong to you.' All it takes is persistence.