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 :-)

Exactly, Hairspray. Anyway - impressed at his entrepreneurship? He's flogging some chocolate bars at school. It's hardly a new idea. He's probably seen other kids doing it. It's not exactly rocket science. I'm impressed at my children's efforts and abilities in their school work and extra-curricular activities, not their ability to break school rules and wangle money out of their schoolmates.

Has the OP said the school sells chocolate itself? I may have missed it.

Actually it would probably be more effective for the school to encourage choc selling rather than banning it.

If enough kids did it they'd quickly undercut each other and end up with no profit or not enough to make it worth the hassle...

Jesus, hairspray, it's chocolate - chocolate that the school already sells. Are you this mind-numbingly earnest in real life?

Actually it's chocolate that the school says he shouldn't be selling by virtue of it being against their rules.

Are you this mind numbingly rude in real life?

Well Hairspray ds did similar and lots more besides. At 26 he currently holds part of the LA's the budget for school support running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Luckily his profiteering in school didn't lead him into a life of crime so the budget is safe.

It is good that your son is so perfect insan1ty I am not saying that it will lead to a life of crime.

I am saying no one should be rewarded for or profit from breaking rules.

If your son is prepared to go with you to the headteacher and discuss whether he can continue to sell the stuff, then fair enough. If he is not then you should tell him he has to stop as it is against the rules.
If he says he won't stop then tell him you have to report it to the school. Don't go behind his back, tell him that is what you will do!

It is not something you should be arguing about or negotiating. He could be as condescending and scornful as he likes for me. As his parent I would be calling the shots,..not him!

My teen boys trainers and tshirts of a couple of particular brands, wears them a couple of times and sells them on at a crazy profit. Granted it's not in school and it's a ridiculous price to pay for secondhand clothes but I can't knock him for it, he has made a fortune.

Not saying he's perfect at all hairspray just think it's a huge fuss about nothing and it's sometimes best to choose your battles. I would have told ds that if he got caught then I'd support the school in whatever punishment they decided but nothing more however any disrespect and attitude like OP experienced would have been met with a roasting.

insan1ty it is nice to know your special snowflake grew out of his "bad boy" phase so well. Maybe if you had given him a healthy respect for rules in the first place he wouldn't have done it?

Or maybe a lot of teenage boys are cocky gits, and could do with being taken down a peg or two. The OP's son's behaviour the rest of the time hardly sounds pleasant. So why shouldnt she take a zero tolerance policy for rule breaking? It dosn't sound like being "cool mum" has worked.

Well maybe we just think differently, I'm definitely not a cool Mum though ds would tell you I was a strict but fair one. But rule breaking in school should be addressed by the school in my books and supported by home if required. I wouldn't expect school to intervene in any behaviour at home and so I wouldn't intervene at school. If it's such a strict rule they will be monitoring and have consequences in place if they aren't monitoring then it's hardly a life or death situation so no need to alert them as far as I can see. Seems form your aggressive response you are the one with the attitude problem though.

"I wouldn't intervene at school" So if he was in detention for not doing homework or something you wouldn't reinforce it at home? With no computers, or playstation or something for a week, I know my parents always did and I am younger than your son.

Not being aggressive I just don't understand why you didn't care if he broke rules? Surely if you dismiss one that creates a precedent to dismiss all of them?

Good on him, leave him to it. He is learning plenty of useful skills. It's a supply and demand society, and he has found a market.

I wouldn't punish on top of a school punishment or intervene in school if the school was already dealing with it. But this is different. If you know your child is breaking the school rules by selling stuff but the school doesn't know, it's your job to either stop your child or tell the school, not encourage your child to keep on rule breaking.

YABU. He's not don't anything wrong as far as I can see. If the school forbid it then let him get in trouble at school if not then it doesn't matter. This is why kids come out of school with no initiative or assertiveness. We don't allow them any freedom to develop this skills. It's a fantastic life skill he is growing.
Re. your concerns about the type of food he's selling then make him flapjacks to sell, even better teach him to make them. Or encourage him to try selling things like bags. A kid at my school earn money by getting discounted backpacks, shoulder bags and marking them up for a small profit.

30 a month pocket money is quite a low amount so it is good he is finding a way to have more without asking you for extra. I think it would be mean to tell on him or take his pocket money away from him for him having the initiative to earn some extra money.

No if he was punished at school with a detention that was it, he had been punished. Not doing homework only damaged his chances so why would I punish him again? We'd talk about it, sometimes there was a reason so I'd understand (he did lots of extra curricular stuff so didn't get time) sometimes he'd forget so I'd annoy him by checking his planner and reminding him once or twice or three times daily for a week or so to get the message across but that was it.
He had to learn for himself to meet his responsibilities because it was for his benefit not being brow beaten into meeting them by me removing his internet access or whatever. He's a manager now he works to meet his responsibilities not because there is someone policing him and that was a lesson he learned years ago.

I believe having good relationships with your children by talking and understanding rather than punishing and reprimanding is key to them growing into responsible and respectful adults and it seems to have worked anyway. That's not to say they were never punished ds says I was hard as nails and he knew exactly where his boundaries lay.

But for me selling chocolate at a profit in school even if it's against the rules isn't a big deal to me and if it's a big deal to the school then they would deal with it.

My parents would always come down hard if I had done something wrong at school and been punished there.

Are you saying I don't have good relationships with my parents? I respect them so much for being hard on me, I would have been a right tearaway given half a chance. Now I am an adult I am really close with them and we have a great relationship.

I work in a professional job now and haven't gone off the rails because my parents were too harsh. So I suppose both methods work depending on the particular child.

I'd be impressed with business skills lol. As long as it's just food I'd let him get on with it.

Not going climbing tonight anymore my belay partners MIL has just passed away, she was 94 and it was expected.
Will be going to MIL's for tea so I don't think today is going to be as golden as I originally planned.

Ooops wrong thread

No not at all just saying that for me not being hard suited the way I parented better. I had a very strict father myself and I was scared of him, I respected him as well because of his authority but I toed the line because I was scared not to rather than making my own decisions and choices.I wanted my children to make their own choices and learn from them. My dc are much more confident and sure of who they are than I ever was.I made some choices to keep df happy rather than what I wanted and I don't think that is ever a good thing tbh and some of it has made me unhappy long term so I don't want that for my dc.

mlb "30 a month pocket money is quite a low amount"

That's not a low amount at all.

How much a does 15 year old need?

Look at the bigger picture. Do you want to keep lines of communication open between you and your son? Reporting him for this will be seen by him as a complete betrayal for something relatively harmless - if he is ever in trouble with something more serious you will be the last person he will turn to.

Leave him to it... this is one of those school rules that i believe should be challenged. High5 to your boy!! I used to sell ringtones, 50p for a 30 second tune back in the days of infa-red. I layed down a substantial deposit on a house just months after turning 18. xx