Hi, I am new here so bear with me.
On Boxing Day I had a family over who we've been good friends with since nursery, their daughter and son are same ages as ours- 9 and 12 respectively. They left late that night and my son came down stating that £30 from his £40 Christmas money was missing from his wallet as well as his phone. He checked every where- we checked everywhere, we checked our daughter's room- tipped literally everything upside down, opened unopenable piggybanks as well. As dd was in a foul mood that evening (because her friend wasn't allowed to stay over that night) we really thought she took it from her brother out of spite, however his friend wasn't allowed to stay over either so there was no reason for her to feel that way.
We eventually found the phone in our bedroom under a drawer unit (why?!) but not the money. We decided to sleep on it and spoke to them the next day- again we asked ds whether he had taken it out to pay for something I was going to buy or whether he had hidden it himself to get more money!! We also asked dd again to owe up now so we can put it to bed and move on. She denied taking the money again and certainly there were no traces of guilt, only tears of being seen as a suspect. We stated to them both that we would now have to contact the parents- our friends- and ask them to check with their kids- essentially accusing them- which would put their kids and our friendship into jeopardy. Still denial from our kids- which makes me think that our kids genuinely have nothing to do with it, especially dd as she was horrified to find that she would lose a friend through this! We also suggested that both dd and our youngest son (6 year old- exonerated by virtue of checking all his piggybanks and room too!) should give him £10 of their Christmas money to him so all then have £30. They were happy to do this!
So, however we've gone ahead and asked our friends to check with their kids to see if they knew where it could be but they also denied it and now their mum has texted that we should not meet up anymore for Hogmanay and perhaps meet up on New Year's Day for the run....
I think we've lost a friendship now but I hope that one of the kids owe up. Does anyone feel we could have done it differently or any suggestions or thoughts?
Thanks very much!