Need some advice please re son

farmville

Hello,

I am hoping someone can give a bit of advice please, perhaps someone who has ben in the same situation.

I caught my 12 year old son with £20 this morning - from my purse . After a lengthy discussion I was told by him that he has previously taken £10, 2 x £5.00's seperately.

He said he was going to go to shop and get sweets etc then a hot dinner for the rest of the week. He goes to school with packed lunches as he claimed to not like the dinners???

My 1st thought was that he was being bullied :eek:

Anyway, I kept my cool but he needs to be made aware of how wrong it was. He does not go out with friends so I cannot ground him & he does not get pocket money so I cannot stop that.

Any suggestion's?

Thank you

brightonman123

suggest contacting school, ask if other kids/parents have reported such events..?

need to stamp out bullying asap- did affect a relative, until the parents clubbed together to confront the school who ignored / denied it was going on..

newcook

Is he bunking off school and therefore uses the money for a burger or to play in an arcade etc? its possible he might just want to have some money of his own so he can say to school mates ‘I’ve got x amount’ or it could even be that he is being bullied.

Have a chat with him and see if there is something going on. As a punishment I would say for him to work off the money by cleaning your car or doing the washing for a couple of weeks or something – perhaps even carry it on after and give him pocket money that he has earned for doing jobs around the house…

concerned43

My son did the same a couple of years back - he was not being bullied but was buying friends!. i had to have a word with his teacher who nipped it in the bud by making the boys pay the money back.

DaveLy

farmville wrote: »

Anyway, I kept my cool but he needs to be made aware of how wrong it was

Teach the child the value of money. He has taken, from what I can read £40.

Tell him, a typical adult that didn't do well at school earns £800/month for 160 hours work (40 hour weeks). Taking away rent and groceries then excluding entertainment you will be left with about £200 spare cash a month. Therefore you actually have to work 160 hours to have £200 free cash, which is the same as 32 hours for £40.

Now, your going to make him do house chores for 32 hours.

This teaches 2 things

1. do crap at school, and you'll have crap all money
2. the real value of money he is stealing off you

Pollycat

Hi
Did you ask him if he was being bullied?

Did you ask him why he didn't ask you for the money rather than just taking it?

Is there a reason why he doesn't get pocket money?

neneromanova

I hate to admit this, but I used to steal money from my parents. Little at first, then bigger and bigger amounts. I used to go to the local tuckshop and buy loads of sweets to share around with people so they would be my friend. Sad I know but I just wanted friends.

He maybe doing it for this. I stopped though after my parents found out. They didn't go mad or anything like that, they just acted embarrassed and ashamed and it worked a treat. Also they said they would tell people that I had been stealing and tell them to hide their bags. I'm not too sure if they did do this but it definately worked for me. Might be worth doing this with him. Good Luck.

McKneff

At 12 he should be getting some pocket money and also given the chance to
earn more by doing chores.

To be quite honest if he has no money at 12 to call his own its a big contribution to him stealing from you.

You have to take some of the blame Im afraid.
Is there any particular reason that you dont give him any.

Spendless

Def get to the bottom of why he's taken the money. My friend's son started with similar at around the same age, 6 years on and they've found out there's a drugs connection going back to the time he started secondary school. Now I'm not in any way saying that IS what your son's upto, but suggesting you establish that it ISN'T.

I was always skint at around that age, and though I didn't steal from purses, asked to go shopping I wouldn't bring back exactly the right amount and would save my school dinner money and manage on a pack of crisps, cos I needed a little bit of money of my own to spend.

I'm a fan of relevant consequences to actions so working to earn to pay you back for what he's taken would be my choice of punishment.