AIBU to report my son for 'tuckshop selling'

[marl]

Have just found a huge stash of chocolate under DS's duvet. It transpires he is making a good £20 a week by selling this at school which is against the school rules. His argument is 'the school don't care...one boy was caught to his knowledge and he was just 'told off'...and he 'doesn't see the problem'. As part of a small catalogue of teenagerish behaviours that have been escalating in the last 2 weeks, IDP and I are now too tired to be clear-thinking.

I recognise this is not exactly class A drugs, and some people might praise entrepreneurship. But I feel uncomfortable about it : 1. if he gets caught the principle is that 'I knew' so by letting him carry on I am condoning it. 2. I wondered why he was suddenly being a flash harry with cash - he has that over-confident tendency to talk about things that I think of as luxuries as being 'cheap' which doesn't feel great. He lives another very affluent life every other weekend with ex-h. 3. He has a £30 a month allowance to include phone top up. I remove some of it occasionally as a punishment. Obv now this holds now sway at all. 4. I don't think it's a great idea to be feeding crap to your 'friends'

WWYD? Remove his allowance on that basis that he no longer needs it? Talk to the school and get them to catch him..with the risk that I continue to be the 'poor parent' in his eyes if he realises it's me? Leave him to get on with it? I didn't get very far in talking about it with him - he remains condescending and scornful which is the norm at the moment.

Though of course, the upside is, as things stand, I now have a cupboard very full of chocolate :-)

My friend used to do this at school. Now at 28 he is a self-made millionnaire.

I think you should encourage him!

cauliflower wow what an over reaction

Fascinating how people are just ignoring the bullying potential. Even when several of us have said explicitly that is why our schools don't allow it.

Also fascinating how easily impressed people are. As if every child that does this is an entrepreneurial genius rather than just a kid jumping on the band wagon.

The one who went to the shops at lunchtime with orders might be an exception!

Also fascinating how easily impressed people are. As if every child that does this is an entrepreneurial genius rather than just a kid jumping on the band wagon

I'm actually unimpressed by the "customers". Surely secondary-aged kids with their own money can buy their own treats from the same shops yet they rather overpay another kid?

My grandson used to sell chocolate/sweets at school. He knew it was against the rules and I am pretty sure the teachers knew. He stopped when he got to doing exams and A level. He was very laid back and open about it when he was doing it. He and his best friend at school now have a business together but not selling sweets!

It's not an over reaction at all when you've spent many many hours trying to sort this kind of stuff out. And all the while there are parents "proud" of the endless issues this causes. Perhaps if they had to come in and sort them all out they might be slightly less proud.

Do it out of school - fine.

Bertrand I don't think they get it, unfortunately, because it seems they can't understand the wider implications of this practise and either refuse to believe what people have said, or prefer to ignore it as it spoils what is otherwise a really super way to extort money out of children, to the financial benefit of their own child.

Saying "it could be worse" "count yourself lucky" is ridiculous - it suggests that the you can be happy to have a really low standard because there is always worse that your child could do.

practice

Cauliflower Why would you have spent 'many hours' sorting this kind of thing out... what is there to sort?

I used to do this. I started off with a 'sweet shop' on my front lawn. I made so much cash (probably only about a fiver but I seemed rich at the time). My parents knew about it.

Started doing it at school with marsbars and such. Profit went up. Parents saw it as me learning to make money.

However it lead me to selling cigarettes. Much more profit..at least a fiver a day, usually a lot more. I would buy a pack of 20 for 3 quid (from the 'backy man') and sell them for a quid each. Sometimes I got through 2 full boxes. I was absolutely loaded. Unfortunately I didn't have the self-control I thought I did. I ended up smoking myself. I spent the profits on either more cigs, alcohol or drugs (mild..weed and such not hard drugs)

So yeah, it spirals quickly. My parents still don't know how far it got. They still talk about my 'business' when I was at school and say it was a good idea and very inventive.

Talk to him. Make sure he doesn't end up like me :/

My DS is 15 and he was doing this last year... better than his friend who was doing it with cigs!!!

My cousin used to do this at school and now he's 30 and a millionaire! Not kidding! He won young business man of the year in his early 20s and is doing amazing!

LEA What is there to sort?

I explained further up the thread - multiple issues mainly surrounding extortion, bullying, theft, short-changing, parents complaining their kids are buying energy drinks when they drop them off at school we should be discharging our duty of care to ensure this doesn't happen. Hours of shit to sort out. It's ridiculous.

The most recent one I can remember was a year 8 boy who was selling energy drinks. He had a whole hold-all of them. A year 10 boy said to him he could sell them for a lot more and told him to hand over his stock and he would give him all the profit (and the y8 believed him). Y10 then refused to give him any money at all and spent it all. Y8 brings in more drinks the next day. Y10 waits for him and takes the stock, telling him if he tells anyone he will get "shanked" (stabbed) on the bus. Y8 boy terrified and doesn't say anything. Y8 boy refuses to go to school. Eventually tells all.

Y8 boy's parents want school to retrieve all the money lost, saying their son was mugged. And they want y10 boy permanently excluded. Y10 boy denies everything and so do all his friends. He had chosen a spot outside of cctv view to conduct everything. Friends all deny everything and y8 boy's friends have by then been approached by y10 and warned so they "didn't see anything" either. Other purchasers deny it - said they bought their own drinks out of school and brought them in.

But yeah the whole thing is a real laugh and something to be really proud of. Not a bloody waste of my time whatsoever.

And that is one example. Probably about 8 hours of work for me and lots of lesson time wasted and disrupted with interviewing kids etc.

Another one selling lollies and one kid grabbed loads of lollies and didn't pay, another stole the money. Another massive amount of time wasted in trying to recover money / goods while seller's parents screaming down the phone that their son had been mugged.

Can you see how the focus is taken off learning in the classroom?

I used to do this. I was on free school meals, but used to spend it on Club biscuits in the canteen and then sell them to the kids who couldn't be bothered to queue. I used to make around £5 a week, which I would spend in town on Saturday.

I didn't get sucked into a spiral of illegal behaviour. But I did go to university to study Economics and learnt the theory behind why people would rather buy Club biscuits from me at an inflated price than wait in a queue and buy them more cheaply.

I used to do homework for cash

I used to do that too! And in primary school I sat next to a girl who was rubbish at spelling but had really strict parents - she used to give me 50p every week to let her copy my answers in the spelling test

I used to do this with Cigarettes! 40 odd years ago when attitudes were different. Learnt how to sell and subsequently make a career in sales. Good luck to the lad. He will go far.

I would tell him you're going to tell the school unless he stops it right now. The danger is, with having too much money, he could start spending it on drugs or anything.

I'm actually unimpressed by the "customers". Surely secondary-aged kids with their own money can buy their own treats from the same shops yet they rather overpay another kid

This is the foundation on which businesses are born. There is a lot in life we could do ourselves for cheaper but pay someone else to do it for us.

FWIW I did this at school, never got bullied, "shanked" or lead the gang life.
Made a lot of money, ate a lot of chocolate and was pretty popular for it too.

I did go to a naice Catholic School though, so technically was already part of a gang.

OP, one part of your post puzzles me - when you said that one of your concerns is that your son will be less dependent on you for money and you won't be able to take his money off him to punish him. At his age, surely a part-time job (even just a paper round) giving some independence is a good thing? Maybe he's fed up with having his money taken off him when you choose to do this, and this is spurring him on to earn his own money and develop his independence. He will then learn the lesson that money coming from someone else can be taken away, but money you earn yourself is yours - a great lesson for life!!
The selling at school thing does sound dodgy, but what's wrong with a 15 year old earning a bit of their own cash??

CauliflowerSqueeze that's a clear case of bullying! That wasn't the issue!

About 4 years ago, when my nephew was 14, he was doing something similar. He would stock up on cans from Farmfoods at the weekend and take them to school and sell them for a profit. He did know about the school policy of selling in the playground, but he took his chances. He was on the school and the local under 16's rugby team and normally always carried his kit around with him so no one took much notice of him with an extra bag. We kind of praised him because he came from a family with little money and he gave money to his money as well as spending some on essentials for himself.

Unfortunately, a year later, aged 15, he had a heart attack and died instantly, while playing rugby. He had an underlying condition that no one knew about and it could have happened at any time. (For anyone who watches Coronation Street, it was the same heart disease that Michael had and died from.)

It was so tough for everyone in the family, the school, the local community and his rugby clubs. We used to take comfort in sharing stories of how brilliant he was and how he was so shy, yet so cheeky, and everyone remembers him as the kid that sold cheap cans. So now I always smile when I hear of kids trying to make a few quid selling in the playground, it always brings a smile to my face and makes me think of him. Our children are only ours for a short while, and they will soon be grown up or simply not here anymore. Cherish the moments while you can, don't have needless arguments and don't fallout. Get him to talk to you about it and why he is doing it, because there has to be an underlying reason. Just communicate with him and know that he isn't really breaking any laws, he's just being himself!

To be honest I'd be too impressed by his business skills to be angry.