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

I imagine your daughter didn't tell you because she was scared of your reaction.
Kids, indeed most of us, have accidents occasionally don't we? With respect, if you're that worried about £118, perhaps you are overstretching yourself financially with the lease car and taking your stress out on your daughter.

Oh my god she’s 10 and it was an accident!! Kids that age aren’t always logical and the distance from playing to the car clearly wasn’t considered.

Have you made her buy new kitchenware and crockery sets when she’s dropped plates when she’s been a bit younger too?

Has she financed your new sofa when spilling a drink?

This will make her not want to tell you stuff if you punish her for a mistake. The fact she didn’t confess is an issue and based on your behaviour, I’m not surprised honestly.

The fault is yours for letting her ‘sulk off’ at the thought of chores. She’s 10, not sure any of them would be enthusiastic. 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? I would likely make her do some chores because she still needs to regardless of the accident.

Given , as you say, she has gone off sulking, why is it the OP at fault? The daughter didn’t admit what she had done and then she went off in a huff.

Why does she get a say in what’s fair?

I agree with docking a couple of weeks to
put toward it as a consequence and be clear that if she had owned up to it straight away you’d have been less likely to expect a contribution.

We had to dock our child’s birthday money, which felt harsh, but he threw a pen so hard it damaged the walls, floor bedding and curtains in his room that will cost a lot to rectify and it’s far from the first incident of property damage, so we felt it was appropriate in those circumstances. He didn’t have any consequence for breaking a window kicking a football in the garden because my DM let him do it whereas we don’t (very narrow garden with low fences and he’s very careless with it so we ended up ruling it out and getting lots of other garden games).

I think the key is how you deal with it. As she’s gone off sulking I suggest that perhaps it could have been handled better.

What does the daughter think is fair?

Insist she helps to pay her debt … why on earth did you let her off? … but ultimately you'll have to pay for it.

This ffs of course.. it was a bloody accident!

Sounds like a shame response to me when she sulked off instead of doing the chores you suggested. I suggest you read some Brenee Brown and start working on helping her with this. Otherwise she will end up being one of those people who can't take responsibility for anything (i live with one, I should know!).

Thing about docking pocket money is that it is dead easy for you and it looks like "good" parenting but actually it sounds to me that your daughter needs more from you. You can still be a good parent without dishing out consequences for everything.

Personally I would take her for another chocolate and sit across the table, one on one, with her, and talk to her about it. She may find this more uncomfortable than losing a bit of pocket money and it will have more impact. You can discuss what she can do to make some repairs to you, but that would be chores for me, or an earlier bedtime, less screen time. Taking away pocket money is severe - they are so powerless at 10 and pocket money is so valuable. Use this incident as a way to bond with her, not make her bitter with you.

I’ve lost track of the amount of things that have been broken by errant footballs- fence posts, plant pots, even a window. Comes with the territory of having kids in my book. None of them were deliberate. I never punished the kids for it and as a result they were always honest about it.

Yes. Stop the pocket money. Make her do extra work.

That’s insane. She’ll be paying it back for months.

We have a rule in our house that no one gets in trouble if something was an accident. Most of the time if something is broken the person who did it is really sorry & is told not to worry about it. I appreciate this was an expensive accident though & if it happened here we would have words about trying to make sure it didn’t happen again etc.

Absolutely this. She’s 10. She broke something while playing football outside - a nice wholesome activity when she could have been inside on a screen. She doesn’t feel able to admit it. Probably because she knows an unintentional accident will cost her 5 and a half months’ money!!!

Every child our kids were friends with that were afraid to own up to a mistake or an accident were a total pain in the arse. Spent weeks trying to identify a disgusting smell in the house - worried about serous drain issues, something died in the walls etc. Turned out a friend, only age 7 and with parents that were just like you sound, had split milk under the sofa. Our kids would have told us straight away, would have cleared it up while they carried on with their Lego, zero dramas.

All breakages must be paid for

Never seen that sign in a shop?

I’d give her £2 a week and take £3 towards the car until it’s paid off. Even adults don’t have to use every penny to pay a debt.

I would add a punishment too. Maybe clean and vacuum the car too.

Exactly this

I would use chores and tasks. Fairly arduous ones. Not the money. The money is fairly meaningless to a 10 year old, although I do think a fiver a week is a lot for that age, but what do I know!

Tasks and chores. Restorative work. Involving her in the work needed to try to get the thing fixed.

I know, it's shocking isn't it, that some parents still have standards.

From about this age we had a principle in our house that it’s not really an accident if it was caused by you doing something that you shouldn’t really have been doing. She knows that’s a silly place to play football but she was too lazy to go to the field. That was a choice and it means she should have been being much more careful and she wasn’t.
We also have always had a principle that being honest means you get into less ‘trouble’ than if you lie/cover things up (and essentially we’d be just a bit performatively disappointed and pointed out how silly they were). It has meant we’ve never had to put in place any significant consequences because they’ve been generally honest about who has done what and suitably apologetic.

I believe that children learn when we hold them, kindly, to some reasonably level of responsibility. Here, I’d expect her to ‘work’ to pay for the consequence of her laziness but it would need to be extras and it would be done without any negativity. Just a ‘We all make mistakes - I’ve done silly things too and they aren’t the end of the world but they do need to be fixed. Your poor choice in place to play has created an extra cost and caused me inconvenience in having to get this fixed and therefore I need you to help me out in return’. I would also be pointing out that, had she been honest about it in the first place, you’d be feeling a lot less bothered about it and that you’re a bit disappointed that she didn’t own up.

She’s 10!!
it was an accident!
for goodness sake - all kids damage or break things once or twice in their young years. Talk to her!

Because Costatesco seems unable to scroll up a few posts….