Should our 10-year-old contribute to replacing the broken car charge cover?

start teaching now that actions have consequences.
The first one is no ball games except on the field.
The 2nd is that she either misses pocket money for a couple of weeks completely, or she gets half (or a quarter or a pound) docked for more weeks.

And that she clearly understands that if something gets broken, deliberately or by accident, the consequences are worse if she doesn't tell you right away. For me that is the most important bit of this. She knew she had done something wrong and didn't tell you. Honesty is essential.

If people really advocate total confiscation of a child’s pocket money for months on end (an eternity to
a child), why don’t we also:

• Make Boris Johnson pay for his Partygate defence: he could easily afford it, and he never got past the age of ten in his head anyway; he’d probably never heard the word “no” in his life. More money than brain cells.
• Make wealthy career criminals pay good money for their prison sentences (is it £50k per year per prisoner, or 60?), with no reduction in the sentence. For many of them, prison is a “temporary inconvenience”.
• Dock Liz Truss’s extremely generous prime ministerial pension. Her “accident” cost us all dearly.
• Make Paula Vennels pay the postmasters back, personally. They were made to pay back everything they were accused of stealing.

Let these people face the consequences of their actions. It seems that on this thread, children are held to higher standards than our overpaid politicians.

We often get rentals and there’s not a chance would either of my kids be allowed a football anywhere near it. Why didn’t you tell her to take the ball elsewhere?

I would make mine contribute. One or two months' loss of pocket money is probably enough though for a small person. I appreciate that doesn't cover the whole cost, but £5 a week would have that paid off in 6 months which is probably a little too long. They do have to contribute though.

as a mum of 4 and EYP for over 20 years i absolutely agree with someone who said shes 10 and an accident and seeing as u know the cost id say it is too late to start again as she wont be hung up on that moment. however if the problem is continuing behaviour issues then definitely explain that her behaviour will need to change and from this point on the situation will be 50p from her money every time she miss behaves. trust me for example, 4.50 instead of 5 looks massive for a child in there hand. its like someone giving you 1000 and taking 250 its a huge difference even if it doesn’t seem that way to you

I’d dock her for two weeks minimum but make it clear that I’ll revisit if she apologises properly

This! It sounds like it was an accident and I'm sure thar everyone did stupid things at this age (I recall at around age 7 or 8 throwing stones over a neighbour's car simply to see how far I could throw them, never dreaming that one of them might have actually hit the car... and then being surprised at the loud noise this resulted in - mostly from the neighbour). A couple of weeks' pocket money and/or some household chores will be a good learning experience

@BananaPeels I agree about not calling it chores, it’s a very negative word. Jobs, helping etc are more neutral words. My mum used to refer to these things as “duty”, which I think is even worse than “chores”.

Oh for goodness sake, accidents happen. Would you dock money from an adult relative.

It's like parents screaming at their kids if they eg knock a glass over and break it but if their partner does it, they just shrug their shoulders and help clear it up.

Surely expecting better behaviour from children than from adults is back to front?

are you absolutely sure it was her? I used to be accused of all sorts when I was a child, and gave up denying when it was apparent my parents had already made their minds up..

It was an accident, but she doesn’t seem that bothered by it

I would possibly give a half pocket money for 2 to 3 weeks to show an impact

Especially if she doesn’t normally play there

sure. standards for punishing a child who had an accident

Maybe start with what you want. If you want a daughter who owns up to making mistakes, takes responsibility and thinks about how to make things right, and feels confident coming to you when something’s gone wrong or she’s messed up, this is an opportunity to take a big step towards achieving that. She’s 10, and this is a fantastic learning opportunity for both her and you. Currently she is not demonstrating the behaviour you’d hoped for. It’s now about what you do now to help her get there, and my personal view is that punishment is unlikely to achieve anything very positive. You need to separate out your financial issues from her behaviour. If you could sit down with her and have a positive conversation that goes look, this thing happened, and accidents happen in life - it’s how we deal with them that matters. What worries me most is that you didn’t feel able to come to me to say what had happened. Ask her how that feels, and listen to what she says. Talk about how much you want to be the person that she can always come to as she grows up - and be honest if you may have made it harder for her to come to you, because reflecting on your behaviour is important here. It’s not about mistakes not having consequences. You can talk about what she feels might be appropriate as a consequence for her mistake in playing too close to the car with her football, if she has actually previously been told that she shouldn’t play there. (If she hasn’t been told that, there are no consequences because she did nothing wrong. At 10, it’s a straightforward accident). But I would be inclined to think with a clear head about the consequences of what you do here, because incidents like this shape relationships going forward.

I agree 100%. Couldn’t put it better.
Some really weird comments on here.

I have 4 kids. Age 14 to 6. They do not behave like that. If they break something, they tell me and apologise, not sulk off and give me attitude.

If they did give attitude over it, they would be docked half their pocket money every week until its repaid.

If they were apologetic and offered to contribute, I would probably say don't worry about it or dock them £10 to £20 depending on what it was and whether it was obviously preventable or they had been told before not to play there.

It's the attitude that is disgusting.

She's 10 it was an accident point out the error of her ways tell her off for it but I wouldn't be making her pay. If you can't afford to fix things on a lease car then don't have a lease car.

I think you forgot that you’re the adult and you’re in charge. Why did you let her play football next to your car? Why didn’t you tell her you required her to assist with the chores? Why did you allow her to sulk off? You are the parent so you should behave accordingly. It was an accident that you allowed to happen. I wouldn’t punish the accident but I would deal with the behaviour that followed it. She didn’t own up to the breakage. She needs to know that being truthful is important and that if you ask her to do something it isn’t optional.

If the field is only two steps away then surely it’s something that could happen easily from anyone playing football on the field?
Yes, I think I would deduct something from her pocket money, especially if you had warned her not to play there. But I wouldn’t go over the top, like expecting her to pay for months and months. Perhaps she didn’t think it would break easily. She was careless rather than deliberately destructive which makes a difference I think.

This

Because you can give the football back and it’s a limited time period as a repercussion of her not doing what’s been asked of her.

Taking money permanently for an accident is both a different reason and justification.

Me saying I don’t charge my child for accidental breakages is not remotely comparable to saying it’s the Wild West with no discipline and rules.

It’s for you to say “get back here or I will confiscate your football…” Why did you let her get away with that in the first place?

Out of interest, why is it OK to confiscate her football but not her pocket money?

The parents are responsible for the the child not feeling like they could tell them. Probably because the consequences are clearly too harsh.

Exactly. We have a completely open policy at our house. We’ve always been light on punishment but as a result we got full honestly about pretty much everything from the children growing up. Stuff happens in life and I wouldn’t take the children’s money away myself. I don’t want them to hide things like the OP’s daughter for fear of punishment. I want them to apologise and try harder and learn not to do it again. Knowing that their error cost me over £100 was enough to make them think twice about doing something like to again.

that said, I never made my children do anything called chores at home. The kids just did what needed to be done when things needed doing. Dishwasher full, empty it, put clothes away, tidy room etc. none of those were ever called chores. They just did it because it needed doing.

Not for any accident, no.

Maybe 2 weeks worth, but the whole thing is far too expensive for someone 'earning' £5 a week.

Im wondering how you reacted when you found out - might explain why she isn't comfortable telling you things.
If you do take the full amount, I doubt she'll be telling you things in future either.

If only Boris Johnson and Liz Truss had been held to the same standards as some of the children on here, and been made to pay for the consequences of their actions, out of their own money. (Johnson is rich enough to pay a million or two, or three, towards his collateral damage.)