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.

Based on my experience working at CAMHS obviously Bloody autocorrect

This is utterly bizarre. I thought you were going to say he was stealing to feed a drugs habit or something.
I don't really see it is for the headmaster to police whether your son goes into the dining room. Maybe he feels sorry for him, given your approach - if he even had the thought process 'ah yes. There is that kid who has packed lunches, why is he in here?'.
I am out of touch with buying school dinners - and this prepay system is news to me - but yes, £10 is a lot. Sounds like an act of rebellion from a very unhappy kid. Maybe he is buying stuff for others? Is there a kid there who cannot afford to eat?
Instead of going 'all guns blazing' to the head (whose fault it is not), turn the mirror to yourself and ask yourself what you could have done differently to prevent this. That is AFTER ascertaining the reasons behind this behaviour from your son.
I hope that in that conversation you will listen to him, not seek to defend your 'organic diet' ideas or pull he up on his 'agreement'. It sounds like he needs to be heard and not interrupted.

The high school is not interested in upholding your personal food neurosis. That's your business. Like they haven't got enough to do.

Have you spoken to your eldest child about it? It's possible that he knows something regarding the situation - k8ds talk, watch & listen.
(And it won't do anything harm to show eldest that you care about his sibling, too.)

t33jay, I have been following this thread since yesterday and it troubles me. Rather a lot.

Otoh I have some sympathy with the fact that you have one slim, well-behaved, clever, sporty son and one stealing, overweight and generally less pleasant to be around as we have a similar dichotomy with our 2 older boys. My DS1 is not trouble, DS2 is very hard going and we have all as a family suffered from the consequences of his behaviour at times.

BUT - I love him, he is funny and loving and I am very, very proud of him. Life is not always easy for him, he has low self-esteem and some of his worst behaviour is a matter of 'attack first before you get hurt' scenario. I would love to give him a personality that allows him to tolerate the harshness of life a bit more easily. He also overeats and comfort eats - he knows it, I know it, he cannot help it just now.

There are SO many issues revealed in your posts that I agree with PP who suggested you seek some professional family therapy.
By all means speak to the head and sort out how your DS can access money without your knowledge.
Stealing is very common in teens/preteens - I am not justifying it, I am simply pointing out that he is not alone in that kind of behaviour.
And the whole organic food thing? Whether people eat exclusively organic or not seems to make little difference to their overall health and we all feed our children whatever we think is right. You seem to have some strange misconceptions what organic food can and cannot achieve - it certainly has nothing to offer in the management of being overweight. And your intensity about it is really quite off-putting - I can just see how that would make a pre-teen who feel self-conscious and undervalued dig his heels in

I think you all need rather a lot of help to understand the entrenched positions each member of the family has ended up in. You know: Golden Boy, Trouble Maker, Exasperated Mother. I am unsure how the boys' father features in any of this?

Best of luck. I think you have a long, hard road ahead of you. Try and SHOW your DS that you love him and value him and LISTEN to him.

Op why not start a thread in parenting to get some constructive advice? Aibu is very harsh.

Calling her vile and being so judgey will not ultimately help this child.

I suspect the OP thinks that eating non-organic meat and dairy with added growth hormone might be contributing to her son's weight problems.

She may or may not be right, there is no harm in wanting to eat organic food, of course it's going to be better than non-organic on several fronts. But to restrict a child to organic only as a way of controlling their weight is plain daft. Apart from anything else it massively restricts the range of snack foods he can access and I think this is why he is buying and binge eating in secret. The OP's plan to allow him organic only and to have ultimate control over what he eats have backfired massively on her. It is also a massive mistake to single him out for different treatment from his brother - he will very much feel he is being punished for not being as perfect as his sainted sibling.

Once children are old enough to make food choices without a parent present and have their own money to spend you just need to accept that you cannot control what goes into their mouths. They will make bad choices if they are obsessed with eating junk and there is very little you can do about it. It's how you react and what you say that is key at this point.

The only thing you can do is to make sure you encourage healthy (but not puritanical) eating at home as a family, treat your children all the same fat or skinny. Either you all eat puddings or no-one does. Don't keep too much junk at home but don't ban it outright either. Maybe have 'treat nights' at weekends only or something. Encourage as much outdoor family activity as possible, but do it by stealth. Don't force a non-sporty child to take up football or running if you know they hate it and have no confidence in sports. Find activities such as going to the beach or the woods for a long walk, building dens, camping, climbing trees, learning to sail, archery, scouts - anything that is an out of doors distraction that involves moving around a bit. In itself it may not burn as many calories as a fast paced sport like hockey or football or whatever, but children will tend to overeat when they are bored /lonely and remain static in front of a screen at home. Anything that breaks that pattern will help to take their mind off endless eating of junk food.

We all do it - indoors all day in front of the TV or laptop we can keep picking at crisps or endless trips to the biscuit tin in spite of having eaten proper meals. Whereas I've noticed if I go out for the day and I am very involved or distracted in something (clothes shopping for example) I can go for hours and hours and suddenly realise I haven't eaten much or anything all day. Boredom and a sense of hopelessness is a massive factor in weight problems.

Boredom and a sense of hopelessness is a massive factor in weight problems.

I could not agree more with that.

It is not the head's job to police what children eat...or any other member of staff for that matter.
You sound bonkers.

Aren't most kids short and stout before they hit puberty? Comparing him to his "older, slim, taller brother" isn't going to be helpful
I agree that there is a bigger picture that you aren't seeing. Perhaps time to work on YOUR attitude to your son, rather than his aattitude to you.

This is a problem between you and your son, and it sounds like a rebellion over 'organic food only'.
Find out why he is spending apparently large sums of money on food daily, and ask the school to investigate what is happening to it.
Your child is thieving from you.
Your responsibility.
Actually, how dare you speak about the school like that.

I think this goes beyond the stealing and overeating, or the school giving him the facility to buy food. Your son sounds either very unhappy, if he needs to act in this way , or he is being bullied or trying to be popular (is it actually him eating the food or is he buying it for others). I think maybe you need advise about diet and portion control (pudding?) too, as a way of a managing his weight. Organic food on its own is not an answer. Nor is getting angry at the head. Perhaps one day he had forgotten his lunch and needed to buy some, would you have preferred him to miss lunch instead?

Does he exercise, it doesn't have to be in public or a team sport, but something he can stick to regularly. What activities does he do other than football? Do you drive everywhere , could, he walk instead? Maybe he could do something physical like mowing the grass or cleaning windows for you and neighbours as a way of starting to work back the money he has stolen.

Reading this I feel so sad for your son that you say you hate him. Talking to him is the best bet here. If he's over eating you probably can't control that other than trying to address the psychological reason why. Calling him fat and saying you hate him will only make him worse. He's obviously desperate to go to the lengths he goes to.

I think your ds has a very unhealthy relationship with food - it's hard to know how much you have contributed to this but it is the thing you need to address because it is the cause of all his problems - the stealing, the overeating....and it will be the cause of many more things to come unless you get him the help he needs. Forget focusing on him losing weight, it's way past that stage.....there are countless books out there about healing overeating but I think a 12 year old with this issue might need a good therapist.

They fingerprint kids at school??

Mind you if they could link it in to the Police computer data base it would clear up a lot of crimes in the future Mwahahahahaha

In dd's secondary, the girls are all fingerprinted too so they don't need money to pay in the canteen - they scan their thumb instead! I top up dd's ParentPay account from my computer when it needs it. There is a daily limit for each child - £6, I think.

We can get a list of what dc have eaten but the school prefers not to give us this info as they want the dc to make healthy choices by themselves. The dc are treated much more as adults and their food choices are not policed!

OP's school sounds v odd in that it has Parent Pay and cash too.

I think OP's original post was confusing, though: if I have it right, her ds stole £500 from her purse/his dad' s wallet over the past 7 months. Not sure why this wasn't noticed before now, though. Incredible amount of money to lose.

Your poor ds sounds like he's very unhappy. I'd recommend lots of love, and a good therapist.

We have Parentpay at school but there's no option to top up manually and neither is there an option for packed lunches. On Parentpay you can see exactly what they are buying and you can then discuss this with them. Our school cap at £6 a day but my son knows not to go over £3 a day and we have talked about how to keep to that I.e not buying bottles of water for 69p!!! He went through a phase of buying utter crap and carbs and he's still not great but I talked to him about the options and I keep an eye on what he's buying, remind him and adapt our evening meals at home accordingly.

He is very tall and this time last year, when he was 12, I was concerned about his weight gain but never mentioned it and as he has grown he has slimmed down despite eating for Britain.

Blindsided: our school is all fingerprinted too, it's how they get lunch, get through into different departments etc. Quite common I think

OP I can understand what a nightmare this is for you. It's definitely worth working through your own feelings of anger and frustration before tackling this with your son in order to get a constructive way forward. Weight is such a difficult issue in our society, we are under so much pressure and can feel so judged.

I think grumpysquash had some really great advice. I would suggest that at the age of your son you are moving away from an age when as the parent you can impose restrictions and are moving into an age when he will need to be able to progressively self regulate more and more aspects of his life.
It's our role as parents to help with this and I think grumpy squash has a great approach outlined - working together, and reviewing and learning each week what went well, what didn't work well and coming up with revised strategies together. Anger and blame don't belong in this approach, but taking responsibility does. Perhaps your son could suggest how to pay back the money or otherwise make amends.

I would also look to having some one on one regular weekly parental bonding time where you can do something enjoyable together and your son can feel appreciated and valued by you as it would be nice for both of you to feel closer. I wouldn't treat this as a privilege that can be taken away but as an every week part of your routine.

Parenting teens is a real challenge for most of us.

Op, if you're still reading the thread, you can turn this around, although it will be tough.

My DSIL had such tight reins on her eldest boy, he daren't even ask her if he could go and play football with his friends in the park at the weekend. We worried how her instinctive need to control his every move would affect him as he grew up. The good news, she has let go a little, and he had the guts to tell her he was missing out socially. We're stunned by the change in both of them. Still loving (it always was, just too close and controlling for a growing boy). She trusts him more and he knows it, and is blossoming into a teen she can be proud of, who is able to make good decisions for himself.

You can do it too, it sounds like you need to have a discussion with him about his happiness or lack of it. It might hurt but I'm sure it will be worth it in the end.

BECAUSE WE CATEGORICALLY TOLD THE HEADMASTER THAT HE WILL BE ON PACKED LUNCHES AND WILL NOT ACCESS THE CANTEEN!!!
The only way they can police that would be to have a photo of your son in the canteen witha DO NOT SERVE THIS CHILD note attached to it. This would be highly inappropriate.

In this situation I would be looking at why my son had done what he had. I do feel sorry for him. Something is definitely wrong with his world. Please help him rather than being mad at him

Our school has a system where the parent has to top up the card otherwise it won't work. So, yes, I see what you are saying. There is a flaw in the system and it cannot be that children can spend what they like. How would those on a lower income cope, if that were the case?

My daughter overspends on her card, too. She is officially on packed lunches most days but she never eats and, like yours, goes in the canteen instead because that's what her friends are doing and she wants to eat what they eat, which I can kind of understand as lunch is a very social thing and I agree with her in principle. I just think the canteen is too expensive to be used every day and I have explained this to her. If she doesn't listen, I don't top up the card for a while. Unfortunately, you don't have that option and that is bad. So the school is partly to blame because 12 year olds can be blooming irresponsible and, with the parent not present, they can't be in control all the time.

Good Morning OP, I hope you have a chance to rest, and are feeling a little calmer today.
I would urge you to re read this whole thread, there are some really helpful posts on here, especially those from professionals working with teens, and from parents who have teens themselves.
Please re read in particular, those from whatsthepointinwasps regarding projecting your choices onto your children, especially when those choices make them different from the norm, and the added stresses these could be placing on him.
Also, I would ask you to consider your relationship with your younger son. I too have an older one at grammar school and a younger one at the local comp. Is there are a little pArt of you that is a bit disappointed he didn't go to grammar too? Is he disappointed too, is he feeling inferior?
You say he has always been stubborn, this too is a characteristic of my younger DS, and it can make him a little less loveable than his easy going amenable older brother, is he picking up on this too?

What I am trying to say OP is that there are deeper issues here and I cannot stress how important it is to get to the bottom of them now, before they spiral into something far worse. I agree with the PP's who suggested some kind of family counselling. Your son is very obviously unhappy, and is shouting as loud as he can for help.
I wish you all well for the future, I am quite sure that with the right kind of help your family will get through this.

(FWIW, I also have an older DD who has recently been diagnosed with a personality disorder. Whilst there was nothing we could have done to prevent this condition emerging, we didn't pay enough attention to her warning signs, at times we dismissed her as difficult and stubborn, or just a stroppy teen. This resulted in her condition reaching life threatening levels before we "woke up". I am in no way at all suggesting there is anything like this happening with your son, but please start talking to him now, before this behaviour gets away with him and he finds he cannot change).