to insist my son spends his birthday money on replacement PE kit

[Snorbs]

My DS has managed to lose his entire PE kit from secondary school. It appears that he didn't bother to put it in his school locker as he was supposed to, he just left it on top of the row of lockers. And I only found out about it, by chance, a week after it went missing. That means he lost it all within a mere two weeks of starting at secondary school(!)

Coincidentally he's just had his birthday and got £70 in birthday money. It will cost at least that to replace everything.

So, WIBU to insist he spends his birthday money on replacing the kit? We don't have much spare cash at the moment so if I financed the replacement kit myself then it will mean tightened belts for the next couple of months.

I'm so pissed off that he was a) so careless in the first place, b) that he tried to conceal it from me, and c) has only started trying to find it now I've got on his case about it I thought he was smarter than that.

One poster has asked what would have been your response if your son had had his birthday already, in January, say. I think that is part of the answer. I think it would be unfair to make him pay even half of his birthday money to replace the kit. First find out more about what has happened, check about lost property and possibly buying some of it second-hand. Ask him for a contribution from his birthday money, and get the rest from deducting his pocket money for the next couple of months. If he ends up paying a large chunk of his money out, he will have had the consequences twice - losing the kit (and having to face his parent about it), and losing his birthday money which is a once-a-year treat for him.

Doesn't make sense to me.

Why would he go to the bother of putting all his kit on top of the lockers, instead of in the locker directly in front of him ?

More is going on here, it seems. He is missing PE ? How does this happen ?

How does he feel about PE ?

If he really enjoys it, presumably wouldn't be missing it, and find some way of joining in.

I'd be far more worried about the real reasons behind this than the cash.

Focussing on precisely how to divvy-up £70, just provides a distraction to the real issues.

Out of curiosity, did he get anything else apart from £70 ?

I agree with those saying make him pay half and earn the rest in chores. However if he's a repeat offender I'd make him pay for it all - might sound tough, but he's old enough to take responsibility for his stuff & also respect the fact that if you replace them it's going to cause you all hardship for a while. Money & PE kits's don't grow on trees & he has a locker - he was just too lazy to lose it. Above all else my goal would be to nip this "can't be arsed" behaviour in the bud now.

use it even

Finding

But the odd thing is it probably takes less effort to use the locker than mysteriously "lose" every piece of PE kit.

At one of my dds' schools the tops of the lockers are regularly cleared into lost property because parents have complained that stuff has gone missing from there. Students have to lock their stuff in the lockers. Check lost property first. Also make sure he hasn't lost his key or padlock.

I don't have a magical solution to the missing kit problem. I do remember once being when my DS1 at the time in prep not even senior school told me he was glad I had named his £11.50 rugby socks as someone who'd forgotten his own had grabbed them as they were getting changed and it was only because DS1 could prove they were his that the culprit reluctantly handed them back.

After various lost boots I always get them from here. DS1's rugby boots (size 9.5) were under £15. They have some football boots with screw in studs for £9.99 if he is a size 5 or less

m and m boots

YANBU

Some children can be too spoiled these days and it leads to them thinking there are no consequences to their actions because mum and dad will sort it, they always do...!

He's learning a valuable lesson for life. If he was an adult and lost his belongings due to carelessness he'd have to pay to replace them. He needs to learn that lesson. he's is old enough to understnad that mum and dad are not a bottemless pit of money and that times are hard at the moment. Make him pay for his PE kit with it.

He wont be psychologically damaged because of it! He'll just have to wait until Christmas for what he really wants

A1980- 'Some children can be too spoiled these days and it leads to them thinking there are no consequences to their actions because mum and dad will sort it, they always do...! '
what?? This child has been a victim of crime,Ok he has been a bit naive and unstreetwise, but not 'spoilt'

I would have a good look at school though,, i can't imagine why any kid would want to nick second hand PE kit , the idea of someone else's sweaty kit makes me feel grossed out!

well he may be a victim of crime, but lockers are provided for a reason (there's a key in the word 'lock') to keep the child's possessions out of a thief's way. He didn't use the locker, he didn't look after his kit, and it was stolen (or possibly/hopefully cleared away to lost property). If he'd used the locker provided he'd still have his kit. Is this not a lesson worth learning?

Finding

So say,
1.DS pays £70
2.New kit purchased
3.Thief caught

What next ?

i would sent out a round robin email to all parents in his class and ask them to check that no one had picked up his kit by accident

go to the lost property office and have a really good check through

talk to the teachers and double check the pegs/above the locker yourself

my ex dc went to a private school where pe kit was over £100 and he lost parts of it 2nd week in and i went to the changing/locker room and found most of it on other pegs/on the floor /screwed up behind radiator

but yes i would make him pay half as he DIDNT use the locker and if it wasnt his birthday then he would lose pocket money/do extra jobs to earn it

brassband
what?? This child has been a victim of crime,Ok he has been a bit naive and unstreetwise, but not 'spoilt'

I don't think it was actually established that his kit was actually stolen or whether it was carelessness. It's a bit melodramatic to call him a victim of a crime!

Either way, the point is mum and dad can't really afford to replace it and he has money to replace it with. He's old enough to understand this and that life isn't always fair. Chirstmas is around the corner, he'll get over it :)

So I still would like to know how much the thief should be "fined", if the victim of the theft is "fined" £35-70.

My estimate is theft is notionally 50 times worse than alleged carelessness.

£500 for thief.
£10 for careless-one.

Why does he miss PE just for not having kit? Seems a bit daft to me.

Check out lost prperty, teenagers are useless at searching for things, plus there might be things that are unclaimed and unnamed he could borrow. Ask the admin staff when they plan to do a lost property clearout (they tend to do one every half term at my school, anything unclaimed goes to charity, and there is always LOADS of unclaimed stuff)

Seems a bit tight to take all his money, but he should contribute.

What I would love to see is some of the posters on the OP-accidentally-broke-camera-thread come over to this thread and post their views as they appear to have a very slightly different view about the culpability of an individual carelessly causing a circa £70 loss.

Oh, hang on a moment, here they are :o

He They could have done it just as easily as you. I think he is they are being a total gits for treating you this way. I don't think you should have to apologise at all - it was an accident. You haven't done anything wrong.

If the camera PE kit was that precious to your DH parents then he they should have been looking after tagging it

DS, please do not apologise again
Make it clear to him them it was an accident and you won't tolerate his their behaviour over a camera PE kit, noone is hurt and yes they are expensive to replace but it doesn't have to be!

and my favourite

Tell him them to get a fucking life. It's an accident. Things DO get broken go missing.

Discuss

cumfy... it's a bit different.

The camera thread involved (if I remember correctly) the OP picking up a normal item which her DH had placed a camera on. Bit of a silly thing to do with a camera really, but she apologised and he was refusing to forgive her.

This thread involves a boy not putting his PE kit safely in his locker and having it go missing (which could have been avoided had he used his locker). He then tried to conceal this fact, and doesn't seem to have apologised.

On the surface they may seem to be similar cases, but not if you actually compare them.

My central case is:

Here are 2 people who carelessly cause about £70 damage or loss. However, their financial culpability is perceived in almost polar opposite terms.

We can cherry-pick aspects of difference (since all cases are different) but this does not change this central issue.

Perhaps the primary extraneous issue is the infantile response of DH to his broken £60 camera,:o and I see that this is the central point in that thread.
But no-one on the camera thread is suggesting the OP is in anyway whatever financially culpable for her accidental act. Quite the opposite.

There is no indication that anyone feels OP would be financially culpable if DH had responded more maturely.

Nor, in the PE kit case is anyone suggesting that if DS hadn't hidden the loss, he would significantly ameliorate his culpability (indeed some suggest that his anticipation of negative parental response is precisely why he hid the loss).

The central issue still stands.

2 careless acts.:)
2 losses.:)
2 culpabilities.

agree camera thread was different, it was an accident

in this thread if the op ds had used his locker then the kit wouldnt have gone astray

i still think its weird that they get off pe with no kit, my dh used to do that at school (years ago) and he had a choice to run in his boxers or use spare kit - he didnt forget again

I'm a great one for the punishment being appropriate to the crime. I therefore don't think it's fair totake his birthday money.Pocket money yes, or jobs to "earn" the money back, but birthday money is from friends and family who wanted to give him a gift.

Also second those who've suggested making sure nothing more sinister is going on - and it really was just him being careless. If someone else is involved then it compounds it to punish him

Doesn't help you find the 70 quid though, I know.

Cumfy, you can't say they're the same then not allow us the point out the differences.
We're talking about 'two people who carelessly cause damage', according to you. OK:

The OP in the camera thread's only 'careless' act was to move a coat. She was unaware the camera was there, which is quite possible since it could have been hidden behind material. So, the careless one was the husband, who left his apparently precious camera in, lets face it, a bloody stupid place. Without telling the OP.

The boy in this case was responsible, during school hours, for his own PE kit. He did not choose to put the expensive kit in his locker to be safe, he chose to fling it on the top of the lockers, and it was stolen through his carelessness.

My point about the reaction to the loss is that on the camera case, the OP was a grown woman who'd made a mistake and apologised, and the husband was childishly not forgiving her. In this case, the boy hid the truth from his parents. Now, because he's still young, they are still trying to help him learn responsibility for his things and to be truthful, and nearly all the responses reflect that.