So our 5 year old son was with his mother at a store looking at stuff for Halloween. She texted me just a little bit ago saying she heard him in the backseat chewing gum and asked if he stole it. And he said he did. The store was already closed so she couldn't just take him back in.

I remember being around his age, maybe a little older, and stealing a few pieces of candy from a store, and my parents found out and called a cop to come out and sort of "scare me straight". We have a cop friend and I thought about calling him just to come out and talk to our son. But I'm thinking we may just empty his piggy bank, make him go in tomorrow, pay for it, and apologize, and handle the punishment at home in some other way.

He's a good kid, he does great in school and he listens pretty well at home (as well as an average 5 year old I suppose), so I don't know that it's necessary to freak out about it, but I definitely want to discourage that type of behavior, obviously.

Any thoughts on the best way to handle it?

Edit: For those interested, he's going to go in tomorrow and apologize. We're going to pay for the candy, and he's going to "work it off" helping around the house this week. He got a costume today (a pretty sweet Star Wars one, actually) and I told him I was holding on to that until he got us paid off for the candy.