To hate my pre-teen (12yo) right now?

[t33jay]

Having checked Parent Pay Transaction History we've realised he has been stealing money (sums approx £500) from us, then using the money to top up his cashless account in school via the machine. Sometimes in cornershops to buy sweets, but mostly to buy school dinners.

He is on packed lunch as we have told the school that he is on organic diet only to find out that he has been given a 'canteen access card' in school and this is what he has been using to buy ridiculous amount of food. He does not have the fingerprint access, hence the access card.

So gets his meals at home + snacks & pudding + packed lunch AND gets sweets + at least £10 worth of food from the canteen ON MOST DAYS!!!

Surely the schools should put a limit on the amount a child can spend on a day!?!!!!!!!

I have a meeting with the headmaster tomorrow. Give me more ammos, am going there all guns blazing!!!!

To say that I am livid is an understatement.

[CocktailQueen]

??

How can he get £10 of food from the canteen every day? Our girls are limited to £6, I think.

And why doesn't he have finger print access?

How did you find out he was stealing? And do you mean he's stealing from your purse, or just via parentpay?

What does he do with the food? Is he being bullied?

[Ineedmorepatience]

Wow! This is not a school issue, this is something you need to sort out as a family!

Hating your child over food is pretty scary

[redwhiteandblueberry]

errr... calm down! Is he just hungry? Fed up of eating only organic food? Wants to eat what his mates eat? No justification for stealing, but have you thought about handling this calmly?

[ilove]

Organic only???

[LaceyLee]

Surely you should be angry with your son and not the school? Although maybe he was stealing cos he doesn't like his lunches...'organic only diet'...

[Summerwood1]

Organic diet??

[OddBoots]

How has he taken £500 without you noticing?

[HoppingForward]

Step back and breath.

There is no way he is eating £10 of food a day to himself. DD spends waay more than I like per day but that's breakfast lunch and snack and still totals max £5 per day.

Is he happy at school, any chance he is buying friends lunches to make friends or being forced to pay?

How did you not notice money missing regularly?

[StillStayingClassySanDiego]

Do he's not on board with 'organic only'?

[RidersOnTheStorm]

Guns blazing?

Your son is a thief and you are angry with school?

Don't make a fool of yourself.

[steppemum]

well, before you go in guns blazing to the school, I think I would want to know what is happening to the food.
Is he being bullied and having to hand over food or money?
Is he rejecting your organic diet and chucking his packed lunch in he bin?
Does he have an eating disorder and is binge eating?
Is he buying and giving away treats to make friends?

basically, there has to be something behind this.
£10 is a huge amount of food to be buying anyway.

[StillStayingClassySanDiego]

*So

[mudandmayhem01]

Is he overweight, bulimic?being bullied? Why does he feel he has to steal from you if wants school dinners and a few sweets. Does he have pocket money/ chore money so he can make small purchases ( sweets, music downloads etc) You need to calmly talk to your son before heading to school.

[Ricksheadtilt]

[Ricksheadtilt]

Oh sorry it is an "organic" biscuit

[Spandexpants007]

The card limit is £5 at our school

Your son is the responsible party. He stole the money. He has been very greedy and deceitful. He needs to pay all the cash back. Remove the canteen acess card. Cancel the parent pay set up. You can write cheques from now on.

However why was he given a canteen acess card? You didn't give permission. You weren't informed that he had the card.. You haven't recieved any emails about his usage.

How is it actually possible for him to withdraw cash? Then use the machine to top up his card?

[NerrSnerr]

Your son steals from you and this is somehow the school's fault? How did you not notice this missing money? Why is he organic only?

[SchnitzelVonKrumm]

Not sure why you think this is the school's issue. If your son is hungry enough to steal from you, his 'organic only' diet isn't working for him. I have a 12-year-old DD who had never been a big eater but is suddenly scoffing constantly - it's puberty, they need the fuel.

[daydreamnation]

You hate your 12 year old son because of this? Wow, just wow. Don't worry, he'll hate you a whole lot more in the years to come if your attitude remains unchanged.
Organic only diet? We eat a lot of organic food but I have only ever sent my dcs to school with food that 'fits in' with their peers (within reason) It's important to them, especially when the go to secondary school.

[ForTheSakeOfFuck]

Organic fingerprinted lunch money fraud?

So… very… confused.

[silvermantela]

Okay £10 is a lot, and ywnbu to politely query why there isn't a limit to avoid such problems. However, without such a limit in place, you can't reasonably expect the school to monitor how much every single child is spending each day and working out, on an individual basis, whether this is an appropriate amount. The school sees a payment on a card - they don't know whether he is paying for a friend, or younger sibling, eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner as he's going straight to an activity after school and won't be home until 8.30, or just doesn't get fed at home, or if he's going through a growth spurt. Neither is there any way for them to know that he stole it - they have to assume all kids spending the money come by it honestly.

You are going to look like an absolute tit if you go in guns blazing to the school. They are a secondary school with presumably hundreds, if not thousands, of pupils. They are encouraging children to grow into responsible adults. This does not involve policing their lunchboxes to ensure they eat mummies home packed food and don't buy sweeties. Even if they did think this was a reasonable thing to do, there would be no way of monitoring it for the sheer number of pupils in their care.

You are also going to make your son look bad if you raise it with the school - why do they need to know? He stole from you so it's a family matter, what he spent it on is almost irrelevant. It's going to influence their opinion of him, and not in a good way. He will be there for the next 4-6 years, you don't want to him to get a reputation as a thief.

Your son is the one mainly at fault here. You, the parents, are also partly at fault - even excluding why he stole the money and disobeyed your rules, you could have checked the transactions earlier just to keep an eye on it, and kept better track of £500(!) going missing. The school is the only one of the three parties involved not to blame.

[MySordidCakeSecret]

i think you need to talk to your son.

[t33jay]

Thanks for all the replies.

I accept that the stealing has to be dealt at home. No argument. Read on and you will know why I am not happy with the school.

First - seems that most of you are not familiar of organic diet - it is when you eat 90% healthy and 10 % c*ap - especially for puddings and sweets. Organic means - organic meat, dairy, bread, flour, bottled water. It doesn't mean it's not tasty, it's just means they are more expensive because of no (or less) pesticides & toxic & hormones in meat. In fact, they taste much better.

Second - fingerprints. We did not want his prints taken. Full stop as this is a story for another day. It is just as easy to use an access card than to use fingerprints.

Third, why I am blaming the school. - BECAUSE WE CATEGORICALLY TOLD THE HEADMASTER THAT HE WILL BE ON PACKED LUNCHES AND WILL NOT ACCESS THE CANTEEN!!! I only got my login details to parentpay for him (I have account for my other older son who is a year older) I have already spoken to the Headmaster today and we agreed to disagree that they should not have given my son the canteen access card as that had opened avenues for him to get what he wanted!! And no spending limit??? Are they nuts???

Fourth - the stealing. This started since Sep 2015 until 3 days ago. He has been in trouble many times and was grounded many times about stealing. All the time, he's promised he will not do it again. When he was asked why he stole all that money, he said that if his older brother is in school dinner, then so should he!

Yes you can see what the purchases are on parentpay, I dont usually check this but out of instinct, I did yesterday.

[ilove]

So you treat them differently? Why is one child allowed, and not the other?

[Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost]

Yes there should be a limit to what they can spend. However youre not going to get anywhere creating screaming and shouting like a banshee youll get nowhere fast. Infact Theyd be likely to escort you out the school abd tell you to come back when youve learned to speak to us properly.
You hate your child over this. Good God.
I echo Muds post.