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 :-)

I don't think it is unethical or worth reporting. Your relationship with your son is more important and so is respect for you.

This boy will go far..

From the boys perspective he will dislike you a lot if you interfere.
understand a parents job is not to be liked, but given the other issues you could probably do without sweating the small stuff which IMO this really is.

My friends 15 yo is out all night, trying mdma, smoking weed etc.

My DH was shooting rabbits and selling them to restaurants by 11!!
When I was 15 I was buying job lots on eBay and reselling individually at a profit - then going out clubbing every weekend, smoking and drinking!! We have both turned out law abiding reasonably successful citizens
I think in comparison that's why I think this really is small time. It won't last forever, school will probably catch him soon anyway so I'd definitely stay out of it!!

In a positive light he will be learning essential life skills. Profit, loss, calculating risk !

For goodness sake leave him alone, good luck to the boy!

He is taking a calculated risk. Yes he might get caught but as long as he knows the consequences (and if it's a telling-off, then on balance I can see why he's prepared to take the risk) then leave him to it on the proviso that you don't condone it and you expect him to abide by school rules.

Most entrepreneurs do not make money by not taking risks. Every big money earner I know took risks to get where they are. Those risks are usually legal and would only hurt themselves by the consequences (as in, speculating money to accumulate money rather than breaking laws) but when the rules and consequences are seemingly lax (and the items being sold are fairly innocent in themselves, and the amounts being made are fairly modest, as in your son's case, then that particular venture doesn't really seem too bad. It's not as though he's handling stolen goods or forcing people to buy from him.

In some ways I think the schools should encourage this and channel the skills. These are the skills you need to run a business - a lot of "adult life" stuff like how to set up a business is missing from the classroom.

That said, I remember recently reading about a lad who started doing this and told his Dad. Suddenly the Dad saw an opportunity and was basically bankrolling it, taking the kid to Costco for crates of stuff.

Not on at all.

Well I've been on the other side and don't think it's ok. I've seen parents give their kids money for a school lunch and not expect them to just have a red bull and a cookie. I've seen older kids extorting money out of younger ones "just lend us a quid" and weaker boys selling who have a bully steal their whole "stock". I've seen kids making huge amounts of money out of other children and flash it around. I've seen older kids selling and then when the younger one offers the 50p, a little group of "sidekicks" steal the rest of the buyer's money, warning him that he can't tell anyone because he will get in trouble himself. I've seen sellers give away a bar of chocolate and then hound the person who accepted it "you owe me" with threats getting bigger and bigger. "Pay me back by tomorrow and it's double". I've seen those sellers' every spare second at school focused on making money out of others - zero focus on the reason they are actually there.

So no, I wouldn't be proud. It's not the often the innocent Twix.

I'd tell him to stop immediately.

And yes I had a parent at another school where I worked buying in trays of drinks from a Costco, huge hold-alls of sweets. And pushing drugs as well we found out.

Cauli Maybe it depends on the individual school environment. In my old school for example, it would have been as simple as someone selling chocolate bars. There would be no element of extortion, no bullying, no tricks, no drugs .

My dH did this at school and got suspended. It wasn't so much the chocolate bars. It was the fact that he'd started a little money lending operation on the side for kids who didn't have cash on them there and then and charging a small amount of interest for it. The school objected to that and he got punished. But not before he'd made a load of cash and gained a few life skills. He never threatened the kids.
He's very successful now with a senior city job and a few businesses on the side

I'm not impressed with the comments on here at all. As a teacher of teenage boys - what happened to respecting the rules and authority? And the way he speaks to you is not acceptable either.
Selling contraband is a massive issue in school and stops teachers from doing their jobs as the boys eat it in class and don't concentrate - what happened to the healthy eating brigade that prevail when we talk about toddlers? If parents wanted their kids eating chocolate at school they would provide it.
If he were my son I would pack in that scornful attitude and teach him some respect. Rules are rules whether you agree with them or not.

My DS did similar with cans of drinks. I decided to leave him to it in the hope that he would be 'hoist with his own petard'. School found out and the Head rang me and asked if I knew about it. When I explained she said it was much better for him to be caught and punished, because he was one who always learnt lessons the hard way. He didn't do it again.

DS primary school gave them a lesson in "business" which involved the class making cupcakes, packaging them, and then selling them for less than the cost of the ingredients
DS thought he could find a recipe which would let him sell home baking for a profit, and did. We were OK about this because we thought it fell within the ambit of the lesson. School were not happy, and said the purpose of "business" lessons was just to teach them about accounts, advertising and packaging. They didn't want the kids to think the purpose of a business was to turn a profit.

DS wasn't in trouble as such, he as just told to stop because they didn't want younger kids spending money on sweet stuff. With the cupcakes sales, the teachers were in control of who bought what.

The school then specifically told the kids that they weren't to use what they'd just been taught in real life!

I don't really care about kids selling stuff in the street if they want to (although it's illegal of course and not as attractive with a captive audience of ravenous kids with lunch money in their pockets) but I do really object to it in school because of the endless incidents I have dealt with, which have often only come to light due to associated issues. Once you've dealt with a few terrified and crying year 7 or 8 boys, who are undergoing quite serious bullying by Big John's sidekicks over this, and have let it go on for ages because they've been too frightened to report it, you'd understand.

Hooray for cashless catering systems and bus passes. The less money swimming in schools about the better.

He should respect the rules of school!!! I would tell him to sell outside school hours the remaining chocolate and that's it. I'm sure he'll disobey though.

I'd rethink removing his allowance for punishment. He sounds a bit materialistic possibly because he's been given the message that money/possessions are important (you take his allowance = money is very important above all else). I'd be tempted to have him fess up.

As a teen I didn't have pocket money stopped. I got grounded usually or just told off.

I wouldn't even consider punishing him I would talk to him and try to explain why we should follow rules even if we get more out of it by not following them.
Deciding a rule isn't worth following isn't impressive, finding a way around a rule you don't think is worth following is.

There was a kid in my school who's mum made the BEST COOKIES EVER!
We ALL used to buy them for 50p each, most days he had sold out before school even started. His mum made stock drop offs at lunch.
He's a well established pharmacist now. Probably raking it in again on diabetes medication

There was always someone at my kid's school doing this, pretty much someone in most schools will have been doing it as long as chocolate, crisps and pop weren't available to buy at school. It isn't a new idea. If he doesn't do it someone else will, if he gets caught he will likely get detention.

I wouldn't report him but I would certainly tell him to stop before he gets into trouble, and if he goes you won't bail him out but will support school in whatever punishment they give.

I find this really depressing. Schools make these rules. Various people have pointed out reasons for the rules. But loads of you just think "stuff that, why should my kid stick to the rules when he can make some money instead". Selfish and entitled.

Didn't Alan Sugar do this?

"Once you've dealt with a few terrified and crying year 7 or 8 boys, who are undergoing quite serious bullying by Big John's sidekicks over this, and have let it go on for ages because they've been too frightened to report it, you'd understand."

Yep. This.

I've seen parents give their kids money for a school lunch and not expect them to just have a red bull and a cookie.

Surely at that age children should be old enough to be responsible to make healthy food choices? If I had a 15 year old and they were eating like this every day I would say something about it but also accept that they can eat what they like. I did the same thing - someone in our school was selling treats, some days I'd buy, some days not. I knew how to manage my own diet.

So everyone is completely overlooking the fact that anyone who buys multi-packs then sells them individually is breaking the law?
If a shopkeeper did it, he'd be taken to court and hit with a massive fine. It's no less illegal for some school kid to be doing it.

"So everyone is completely overlooking the fact that anyone who buys multi-packs then sells them individually is breaking the law?
If a shopkeeper did it, he'd be taken to court and hit with a massive fine. It's no less illegal for some school kid to be doing it."

Not true, actually. I had to look this up recently, and I was surprised. Hang on.......

Not all kids in secondary are 15 and 16, some year 7's are only turned 11 a few months ago, and they can be very naive!