To ask for advice? I’m out of my depth…

[Chocbuttonsandredwine]

Totally honest, posting here for traffic. Apologies:

ill try and keep it brief:

DS is 15, single parent although dad lives a close by and we have a fine relationship. No issues: no other kids. Wonderful kid, no problems, grade A’s, goes out to football, no where else.

last week I discovered that ds had taken £5 from my purse. He denied but eventually admitted. There was another £10
that was unaccounted for which he wouldn’t admit to. I was really shocked and disappointed as this was our first real “incident”. Tried to move on however after suitable punishment:

Parents evening tonight and it transpires he’s been caught forging a letter to pe teacher to excuse himself from PE and forging my signature: no idea why as he’s fit, plays football and enjoys sport. Teacher disappointed, as am I.

I speak to his dad about it (he knows about last weeks money), we chat and I say I do T really understand where any of this is come from. He’s got plenty of money in his bank, we have a good relationship and it’s just odd. And disappointing… blah blah

However, about 6 months ago I had some work done in the house. Took money out to pay builders and at the end was about £400 short. At the time I thought I’d over paid/miscounted. I mentioned this to his dad, and said that now it kinda throws an uncertainty over the money and he said that similar had happened at his house, and that money he’d been saving fo Holidays etc was potentially £1k down…. Although he couldn’t be certain. Neither of us are actually certain… but with everything else it all just seems a bit odd. And horrible. And I actually don’t know what to do. My lovely kind funny boy who’s a modal student and never been in any trouble at all is now looking like a liar, thief and god knows what else.

his dad is coming over tomorrow night so we can talk to him about it, he doesn’t know anything just know, I feel awful for suspecting him, and awful that he might have stolen £1400 from us. He never goes anywhere or does anything without us so I’ve got no actual clue where the Mike’s could be if it was him. I guess it might not be him… and then things are awful too.

its such a mess ☹️

Girlfriend?

same age and found out my boyfriend of the time had been taking the odd fiver off his parents In order to treat me! His parents rang mine to give them an update.

so we stopped going to the cinema and eating out and went back to blockbuster videos!

Don't think Scottish suburbia or St Anywhere is immune from drink, drugs and the usual goings on.

Plenty ways he could have deal with the money, bank account you don't know about, has he acquired a new flash phone, or bought one for anyone else?

I think it's really odd that both of you are missing cash.

If you want to check the PS5 spending you don't need his password - just turn it on and take a look. Instructions in the image. Your ex may have done this already.

I disagree you’ve been “lax” with money

if you can’t leave money lying around on your own home, where the heck can you?!

my view is that nothing serious but you have him a little on a pedestal “model student” and he feels under pressure and just bucking it a bit to treat a girlfriend or save or just spend on whatever

that money he’d been saving fo Holidays etc was potentially £1k down

he needs to be damn sure of the amount and no “potentially”.

None of you can be 100 percent sure that your son has taken the money so I would not accuse him, what I would do now is count the money and see if anymore goes missing if it does you will definitely know then you will have something to talk to him about.

No OP should not because

• They are not even certain that £1400 did go missing or if they made errors in their calculations. So it is not an established fact that any money is missing.


• They have no evidence that he has more money than he should


• Helping yourself to a fiver to buy a sandwich is incredibly minor and in many homes would not be considered stealing.


• Getting out of PE through forging a note is not relevant really to the question of stealing but is a red flag that something may be happening to the boy (ie bullying).

one lie about one small miscreant act and his reputation can be shattered.
This is not true. One’s reputation is the sum of everything about you. Not even Boris Johnson’s reputation was “shattered” due to one lie about one small act…it takes a snail trail of multiple lies to do that.

Because he has been shown to be a petty thief and a liar and they have no idea how long he has been like that.
No he has not. He’s been shown to have mistakenly thought it was ok to grab a fiver to buy a sandwich. He’s been shown to have an unaccountable desire to avoid PE which needs to be gotten to the bottom of.

Ignoring this, not having that conversation is a ridiculous idea. "There's no proof" is a childish way of seeing this.

No one has suggested this be ignored. It’s just not a wise idea as a parent to go in guns blazing accusing him of stealing money you are not even certain is actually missing. There’s no proof isn’t childish at all, our entire justice system is based on needing proof at every step of the criminal process. You can’t even arrest and charge someone without some modicum of proof they have done a crime much less find them guilty.

You say he’s not in the house much? Where is he? My son is shortly due to turn 15.

He is either at school or 3x a week he does sport or matches until 7 and then home for dinner and homework, and then on other two days - back home, homework, dinner, tv/gaming

so I pretty much always know where he is!

Could he be giving money to his dad?

How recently did you and your ex split?

How long until he’s 16? Is it possible he’s keeping the money until he can open another bank account you don’t know about?

actually hate thinking this about him. It’s been me and him since he was 5, we genuinely are a great wee team, and up until last week I’d have trusted him more than any other person alive

Really, really don't change this, OP. All you know so far is that he took a fiver to buy a sandwich and tried to get out of games. I'd want to get to the bottom of the latter (although it's hardly unusual behaviour) but the former just seems to require you to remind him to ask in future.

Equally you don't need to start hiding your purse. Best not leave huge piles of cash lying around anyway- nothing to do with your son.

Taking a fiver for a sandwich is really a very minor and common thing. I think it would be a huge mistake to let it change your relationship at all.

Some people on MN can take an idea and really run with it- going from "some money might have gone missing" to "it's definitely missing" to "it's definitely stolen by your son" to "he's definitely using it to fund a porn/gaming addiction". I really wouldn't let any of it affect your relationship with your son or make you distrust your years of experience as his mum.

The kid is not Boris Johnson @Discovereads

But, if most people agree with you I can see why there is so little credence given personal responsibility and why so many adults act like doormats with their kids. The urge not to offend is great, it seems. Bit that leaves adults not knowing how to deal with feeling offended.

It seems sad to me that parents are being advised to not speak to their kid when something like this occurs. Because what? You don't want to offend him? You don't want to get to the bottom of the matter? You can't make him feel uncomfortable, teach him any life lessons?

If @Chocbuttonsandredwine has that conversation in a way that meets the way her family is set up then nobody need be permanently scarred by it. But by not having it she has no way of finding out what the hell is actually happening and how she can help her son - even if that help hurts!

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist

Do you have teenagers?

People are advising op not to talk to him yet not because he’s a snowflake teen but because an absence of evidence!

Forging PE is absoloutly not related... its normal and frankly if my kid wanted me to I would sign it myself.

I dispised PE because they made us all get changed and showered naked together which was traumatising as a teen (especially a highly bullied one surrounded by girls who hated me). Frankly it is abusive and perverted so unless they have segrigated it into private changing rooms now then I support my child not wanting to be any part of it.

The money thing is definately a much bigger issue. Did you post about the missing money months ago? there was a thread like that a while back.

@Chocbuttonsandredwine -if it does turn out he's taking the money, I think it is quite likely he has used it for buying things in connection with his gaming.

They are hugely addictive and my DS just loves playing games and wants to buy all sorts of add-ons and extra costumes and bits for the games he is in to. He's 9 and we have everything locked down with passwords so we can't even get onto the iPad without one of us putting the code in and then it times out if he leaves it and if he wants to buy anything he has to come and ask us and we put in ID for that.

But I am not sure how this is going to pan out when he's older as clearly the level of control you can have over a 15-year-old is much less than a nine-year-old. But what I'm really saying is don't take it that he doesn't love you or that your relationship with him isn't good just because he might have got to a point of overspending on these games as I think they are really persuasive at getting money out of children. It is a big problem. They are really insidious - and some of the amounts they charge for what is effectively a few pixels on the screen is absolutely criminal really.

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist

I too wonder if you have any teenagers.

Speaking of personal responsibility, it is the parent’s responsibility to be certain of the facts before accusing their child of wrong doing. To launch wild accusations with no evidence to back them up is never the responsible thing to do as a parent.

But even put aside anything to do with parenting

On a basic human level - some kind of evidence is needed before you talk to anyone about them thieving

I need to remember that posts like this require a mindset I don't have.

Apologies.

Accepted

If he's out of the house a lot, do you know where he is? If he took the money little by little, it could be gone on junk (food) and gaming cards.

It's relatively easy to convert cash into something you can spend online - all you need do is pop down to a supermarket and spend the cash on giftcards.

I think you need to be cautious about the £1400 - you cannot prove how much was stolen, if it was stolen, and who was there when it happened.

I had a similar situation once - was visiting a family member to fix something of theirs, left my handbag in the living room while I did the work. A few days later I was thinking "Odd, I'm sure I haven't spent that much money" and guesstimated I was at least £50 down. My thoughts immediately went to the teenage son as he had a bit of reputation... turns out years later it was likely taken by the mother of the household as she was a secret alcoholic and her kids had started sleeping with their money under their pillows to try and stop her pilfering. As I wasn't able to prove when/how the money had gone I'd kept silent thankfully, as I would have been heartbroken to have caused a problem for the son by making a false accusation.

He’s not out of the house a lot. Sorry might have mistyped that.

School bus, achool, home at right time, football twice a week, dropped at pitch. Literally no where unaccompanied.

gone through ps5 stuff. Nothing untoward. Has my bank card registered, which I knew, and he always asks

I recall you from recent thread talking out STBEX

is it a recent separation?

Does he have a boyfriend or girlfriend? Someone that he feels he has to “help” if not spend money on nice things..?
The thing is, the feeling that the £400 was gone missing was a first instinct and then you reasoned yourself out of thinking it was taken.
Playstation etc not giving you answers- and if he plays in front of you/your ex then it’s possible there’s someone significant he’s taking money for.
Not saying you can accuse him directly but your instincts were spot on with your purse money…