Ds is 14 and recently started hanging out in town with his friends a lot more than he did before hes got a new friend group which im not too happy with as i know some of his new friends vape, drink alcohol and i suspect weed use. iv told him to stay away from that stuff and that his new friends may not be a great influence on him but he tells me he doesnt do any of that stuff. he gets a small amount of pocket money but thats not nearly enough to cover all the new things he’s been bringing home lately, clothes, sweets, cans upon cans of red bull which ive told him he cant have in the house, and shops shouldn’t even serve him anyway, but he doesnt listen. im pretty sure he is shoplifting as thats the only way he would have the money to afford all this stuff, he really doesnt get enough money to pay for it all. when i ask him he just says that either it was on sale, or that one of his friends bought it for him, but i dont see why they would be continuously buying him stuff when he doesnt have the means to pay them back. i know that shoplifting has been an issue in his year group because the school emailed parents to say that groups of kids have been caught shoplifting in the local supermarket that’s right by the school and that they all go to in the mornings and after school.
my question now is how do I confront him about this? i could ground him, but since he walks to school and leaves the house after i go to work I can’t actually stop him going out before school and meeting up with his mates. I also had an email around a month ago saying that he was showing up late to his tutor period and im pretty sure thats because he meets up with his friends before school. grounding him and stopping his pocket money won’t really help if he is shoplifting, especially since i cant stop him going out before school as ive gone to work by then. obviously i will stop his money, but im not sure how to stop him from going down this path