Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2 3

AIBU?

To take £60 of ds Christmas/ birthday money to pay for a new PE kit

55 replies

ReallyTired · 09/12/2015 00:51

Ds almost aged 14 has lost his entire PE kit for the third time. Excluding the cost of trainers, the bag, the PE top, shorts, socks with cost about £60 to replace. I am furious because he spun me a lie that it was in his locker for two weeks. He had had detentions from his PE teacher as well. I don't think he had made enough effort to find his kit.

I have had enough and I feel he needs to suffer the consequences of his inability to look after his belongs. He needs to realise what is belongings cost to replace.

OP posts:

Report

Brokenbiscuit · 09/12/2015 00:56

I'd make him pay with his pocket money rather than giving him a rubbish christmas, but I guess it depends how much you're spending in total. Yanbu to want him to experience the consequences.

£60 seems very expensive though for a bag, some socks, some shorts and a PE top. Are you sure that amount doesn't include the trainers? I guess if he has lost it that many times, I'd be buying cheap supermarket stuff and no branded items...

ReallyTired · 09/12/2015 01:15

He is at a normal state secondary school. I am looking at £20 for the rugby top he has lost, £12 for shorts, £5 for light blue rugby socks, £17 for an identical sports bag and maybe nominal contribution for trainers. State secondaries often have really expensive logoed kit.

He has some pocket money, but he needs his kit now. He doesn't get a lot of pocket money. I don't feel in the mood for upping his allowance when he has has been pissing off several teachers with his attitude. He is getting a Xbox from us for Christmas and birthday as well as other smaller presents. His grandparents, aunts and uncles usually give him money for Christmas and hid birthday. Last he he got in excess of £100 for both Christmas and birthday.

He needs to learn finanical reality. It is not the first time this year that I have replaced his PE kit. If I keep bailing him out he will never learn. He is nearly 14 not 4.

OP posts:

ReallyTired · 09/12/2015 01:21

Secondaries can enforce logoed kit and to make matters worst you have to vat on teenager boys clothes. The cost of kitting s child out for secondary is eye watering.

OP posts:

Senpai · 09/12/2015 02:49

If he's getting an xbox, then he's not going to feel the consequence of 60 lost. It might sink in that he's having to surrender Christmas money to pay for a kit, but if it's not money he's earned I doubt it will really sink in much.

Can you just not bail him out? He's lost it three times. I'd stop buying it. Let him face the natural consequences of the school for not having it.

GreenSand · 09/12/2015 04:36

Can you get second hand kit from anywhere? Or see if there is lost property unclaimed from past year in a cupboard somewhere to reduce the cost?

I don't think your being unreasonable to ask for a contribution, but I think it needs to be seen as a contribution, ie him give you something, rather than just a reduction in presents, iyswim? So give him everything already planned for Christmas, and then get some of it back. Maybe agree £10 a week til the end of Jan? Are you sure he is loosing it, and hes not been bullied, and being removed from him and has he actually looked properly?

hufflebottom · 09/12/2015 04:39

3 times since September?

Ask him half the cost don't buy him an expensive bag unless it's necessary.

MrsTerryPratchett · 09/12/2015 04:47

Where are all these kits going? I mean they can't just be disappearing. Is it his inability or is it people taking or stealing his stuff. Bullying?

I think it's much better to give him a chance to fix this. Suggest a bunch of things and then ask what his suggestions are. Christmas money, earning money, finding one of the kits, getting second hand.

OhWotIsItThisTime · 09/12/2015 06:37

Did he lose it or is he being bullied?

Badbadtromance · 09/12/2015 06:41

I feel your pain op. Have a ds like this myself

TaliZorah · 09/12/2015 07:14

Maybe he lied because he knew you'd totally overreact and try to ruin his Christmas? Just a thought

ToothlessAndPointless · 09/12/2015 07:20

YANBU.

If it's down to carelessness, he pays. My DD lost her travel pass last week. She has had to pay the cost of the increased fare due to not having the pass and the cost of the replacement.

When she lost her school jumper, she had to pay for a new one.

Hopefully he'll be more careful when it impacts HIS pocket.

GnomeDePlume · 09/12/2015 07:25

If I was giving money for Christmas then I would be pretty annoyed to find that it had been taken away from the recipient as punishment.

In a way that feels like you are involving GPs/aunts/uncles in a punishment which should be between you and him.

IMO you should stop his allowance until he has made up the money.

PeaceOfWildThings · 09/12/2015 07:26

I'd be wanting to know from the school if he could be being bullied. DD had trainers stolen twice (bigger girls just helped themselves right in front of her and she was too scared to say anything). I only found out years later. The third pair of trainers were cheaper and I melted her name on the outside of them. They didn't get stolen.

Helenluvsrob · 09/12/2015 07:35

Does he have a bank account? If so he takes money out of there and goes any buys his own replacement kit.

Unless bullied , mine are allowed to loose things once per school year. After that they pay AND go to the shop and get it- having to get on the bus, wasting precious Saturday hours drills it home more than anything.

Does the bag really need to be £17. We just got a cheap from sports direct.

And stuff the " nominal contribution to trainers " either he gets cheapies from sports direct or he pays the lot - but clearly I am harsh !

GloGirl · 09/12/2015 07:43

Up his allowance so you can use it as a consequence more. Buy cheaper things and offer him the option of buying his own. I wouldn't spend £20 on a sports bag for example if he'd lost two. In fact he could just use a carrier bag.

You can't really teach him personal consequences by taking money that he doesn't really want or need.

Sit him down before Christmas and say, your new allowance is X and I expect you to do Y chores to earn it. I'm going to stop paying for A and B and only get you basics versions of C and D.

It will hit home much harder than just taking away someone else's money they've given him.

Russellgroupserf · 09/12/2015 08:31

Has he actually been along to lost property?

At primary school it was so easy to pop in and check for lost property. DS secondary school certainly don't inform if lost kit found its down to the student. I would inform him he had to go to the school office and ask about it

The absolute worse thing you can do to a teen is tell them you will go in to their school to ask something because it is a total humiliation for them to have parents seen in school tell him you may have to go in if he doesn't ask. Tell him you are going to wear something he doesn't like or worse still something of his. I was seen by my sons school friends out in one of his hoodies as we live near the school. "Why is your Mum wearing your hoody?"

I'm never to do it again apparently

Anotherusername1 · 09/12/2015 08:39

Has he actually been along to lost property?

This. My son is the same. Comes home and says he's lost something. Has he been to lost property? No. Why not? Not worth it, it won't be there. How do you know if you've not been?

etc etc Grrrr.

It does seem weird that an entire PE kit has gone missing, he just needs to look harder I think.

My son's favourite trick is losing his goggles at swimming, and leaving his school shoes at school if he has PE after school.

Tokoloshe · 09/12/2015 09:25

DD is a champion at losing 'stuff', including school uniform. Even at 8 she pays for it - or at least something towards it - if it doesn't turn up. And she needs to explain to her teacher why she doesn't have that item.

ReallyTired · 09/12/2015 09:36

"Can you just not bail him out? He's lost it three times. I'd stop buying it. Let him face the natural consequences of the school for not having it."

In all fairness he has lost his PE kit three times since he started secondary in year 7. The natural consequence of not having his PE kit is that he ends up in detention. He he gets more than two detentions for not having the right logoed PE kit in one term then he has to spend a day in internal isolation. I really don't want my son missing lesons when he is starting GCSE work in science in year 9.

The threat of losing christmas or birthday money is doing wonders to engerise his brain to have a proper look for his kit. Like Anotherusername1 I suspect that my son has not bothered to look in lost property. He is just too lazy.

I am threatening him that if he does not find it that I will turn up at his school in front of all his mates and teachers and ask to look in lost property! He has told me that he would rather lose the the £60.

OP posts:

DrGoogleWillSeeYouNow · 09/12/2015 09:43

I'd present him with two choices...

He can go and dig a kit, any kit, out of lost property - regardless of whether it fits him or not. Buy him the cheapest pair of trainers you can find - you can get trainers on my local market for £4.99. He takes his kit to school in a carrier bag, don't see why he needs a sports bag.

Either that, or he pays the whole cost of a new kit/trainers/bag himself via his allowance, which is stopped until the kit is fully paid off.

blatantplacemark · 09/12/2015 09:50

I would be replacing the lost items with the cheapest possible non branded items and he'd be taking them to school in a carrier bag. I would explain to the school that I wasn't replacing his kit yet again with expensive gear and that this was the compromise. I wouldn't take money from him I don't think

blatantplacemark · 09/12/2015 09:51

Oh and id be at the school myself and I'd turn the place upside down. Chances are you'll find it

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

prettywhiteguitar · 09/12/2015 09:57

I would take him out to go and buy it again with his own cash. Handing over the money himself in the shop might make him look after it, again echo others cheap stuff in case some of it was nicked.

gamerchick · 09/12/2015 09:59

I'm chuckling at some of the suggestions. You can't just leave stuff like that to natural consequences, the kids don't really get punished. If the OP ignores it to the point of internal exclusion it's the parents that start to get punished.

Yo can't just buy unbranded stuff, it has to be the school brand and you can try to explain to the school all you want about the lessons you're trying to teach but you'll get the same response back. There is no compromise where the school is concerned.

OP ring the school up and tell them the score and ask if there's a lost property. It's likely you'll have to replace them but I would go cheap on the stuff you can.

Helenluvsrob · 09/12/2015 10:03

Also if it has to be official logoed stuff think about getting his name /initials put on the outside in a prominent place eg upper chest. At the kids school(s) they had to do this anyway. Kit didn't go mysteriously missing as it wasn't any use to anyone else and lost property came back to them.

DS got a severe ribbing from the teacher in rugby too as he didn't look very much like a H Singh, the day forgot and borrowed someones kit! That and the blisters from the trainers taught him to remember!

Flip

1 2 3

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.