If the whole world knows about about his son’s first theft, maybe there won’t be a second.

That’s what Joseph Gonzalez believes.

His 12-year-old son Jose took $100 from the wallet of his cousin at the family’s Aurora home. Jose’s punishment is spending many hours of his spring break standing on the corner of 22nd and Larimer streets in downtown Denver with a bright yellow sign announcing: “I am a thief. I took money from a family member.”

“He’s a good kid,” Gonzalez said. “This is the first time he’s done something like this. I hope it will be the last.”

His cousin worked hard to make that money, Gonzalez said.

Jose put in five hours of curbside confession Tuesday, standing across from his father’s pawnshop, where Gonzalez could keep an eye on him — and take him pizza slices.

He figures Jose, with drinks and bathroom breaks, should be able to put in 10 hours Thursday.

Gonzalez said he’s not worried about his son’s reputation.

“Nah, he’s only 12 years old,” he said. “Everybody makes mistakes at that time in their life. It’s about being corrected.”

Jose’s father, upon hearing of the missing $100, tracked down his son while he was waiting for the school bus. He pulled him aside. He questioned him. He figured out his son’s friend was holding the money for him. He retrieved it. That took an hour. Then he took his son to school to admit his crime to officials, including a police officer.

“The taking-responsibility part is cool, but the rest of this is not cool,” said Florida psychologist James Huysman, whose practice has included treating children publicly humiliated by reality-TV shows and other media attention. “This is about shame. In the old days, we used to just shame people, hang signs around their necks in public.”

Children, even at 12, are unable to gain insight from this kind of public atonement, he said.

“We just press the shame deeper into them,” he said.

Gonzalez said his son was “pretty sad at first” about the discipline.

“But then he took it like a little man,” he said.

He has raised his son alone since Jose was 3 years old. And Gonzalez believes in the Bible’s command to correct your child.

A father’s role includes appropriate discipline, Huysman said, but the father’s most important role is protecting his child from the rest of the world.

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com