Son in Halls has been accused of stealing

[ShinyCaptain]

Son in halls has been accused of stealing drinks from someone else's shelf in the fridge. He's had a note left by his room door.

He is quite sure he's never drunkenly or accidentally taken anything & he's freaking out because the note said something like 'you owe me money for the drinks you've stolen' so its not even attempting to fact find or be reasonable.

Note was signed but he doesn't know which lad it is. He's a bit marginal in the flat. Doesn't know who's who.

I ran it by chat gpt which suggested a note in the kitchen which says:

"I’ve had a note left under my door accusing me of taking drinks and asking for money.
I haven’t taken anything from anyone else’s shelf.
If there’s a concern, I’m happy to talk it through calmly and clear it up."

Son is shy, quiet & freaking out. He has drafted a note which reads

"I've had a note left under my door accusing me of stealing drinks from the fridge, and asking me for money.

I haven't stolen anything from anyone.

I've bought some ciders, they're in the fridge. Feel free to grab a couple.

If I get a note like that again, I'm going to take it up with Unite"

Which I think would be disastrous. Buying ciders looks guilty and being threatening is upping the ante. I think this note is a bad idea.

He doesn't want to involve Unite (yet).

I think on balance that he probably didn't take anything. It sounds out of character. I don't 100% know though.

YABU - let him handle it his way

YANBU - your note is better

Or can you think of a third way?

I imagine that’s the name of the company running the Halls, not the Trade Union. 🤷‍♀️😁

Just a note on the fridge saying the accusations have wrongly aimed at him. Don't encourage him to buy ciders for someone wrongly accusing him of stealing

This happens literally all the time. Ignore.

Please tell him not to leave a note. Either ignore, or talk to one of the flatmates that he passes the time of the day with.

If he genuinely doesn't even know his flatmates names, I'd suggest you help with strategies for getting to know them a little better. Setting up a flat chat group (very surprised there isn't one already) would be a really easy way to do this if he doesn't feel confident to say he's forgotten their names and was too embarrassed to ask earlier.

(As an aside, I told my daughter before she went to university not to leave anything she cared about losing in the communal kitchen, until she got to know her flatmates and could be sure they wouldn't take anything. As it turned out, they were the quietest, least troublesome group of people ever and her only complaint was that half of them never spoke to her. So, whilst I agree that things shouldn't be stolen, it's not exactly unusual).

The vipers are out again, aren't they? Do people really tell their young adult children to fuck off when they ask for advice? Do you tell any other adults to fuck off when they ask for your advice? I assume everyone posting here is older than 18 so do you never ask anyone for advice yourself? Actually going by some of the answers maybe some pp are not over 18.

Op, i just want to stress you are perfectly normal to want to help your son out. Your son is also perfectly normal to feel stressed by this unpleasantness and to ask you for your advice (in fact i think it's lovely that he is happy to talk to you about his problems) and I think the people who are baffled why you might ask chatgpt for suggestions don't really seem to understand how large language models work.

Having said that I think the best is to ignore it for now. If your son hasn't taken it he hasn't taken it. I wouldn't write any kind of note or show that you are taking this nonsense seriously. It's up to the note writer to put an effort in to initiate a conversation or do anything really if he wants to deal with this problem. It is not your son's problem and he shouldn't make it his problem. Definitely don't buy beer or cider for everyone. If he keeps getting notes maybe he can write something extremely brief like "Not me".

Tell him to say he did not steal the food
Buy him a fridge for his room

Also op you can tell your son that as others have said this is perfectly normal and will be happening in uni halls and flat shares across the world. I still remember my boyfriend's flatmate accusing me of taking his yogurt from the fridge. (I didn't)

This

Either the culprit will own up or someone nervous will pay up anyway

And hopefully the culprit will think again next time

And seriously? You had to ChatGTP it?

He's an adult. Let him handle it.

At university a couple of my friends accused my boyfriend of going into a wallet and taking change after he drink of their drinks.

He was very shy and nervous. I took his side and was upset with my friends. He admitted it later and I dumped him after he'd cost me a couple of friends.

I wouldn't be too sure ...you're not there.

Asking chatgpt 🤦🏼‍♀️

Can’t he just ask each person “Hey, did you leave a note at my door about stealing your drinks?” They answer yes or no. DS says it wasn’t him. Communication complete.

I wouldn’t be scared of someone who wrote a note like a chicken instead of asking. No way should he buy more drinks either.

Lots of people do.

Why leave notes?

Just ignore it or talk to them about it and check their names while he’s at it.

Ask how do they know it was him who took them. If any doubt it’s him, buy the drinks back rather than give them money, in case they’re doing it to get money out of him. They can’t cost that much.

Best not to threaten to grass them to the landlord. Just sort it out or ignore it.

Keep the note on off-chance it happens again/escalates.

Because she's his mum.

He's an adult

Me too

He's a teenager. But even if he was 40, people will always need to ask for advice at some point if they're unsure or worried.

Anyone who says they've never asked for advice or help after the age of 18 is a liar.

This! I could probably reel of the names of the people who live in my child’s halls. I can’t imagine how you couldn’t know who you live with by the second term.

My foster son was not given a cupboard as he arrived the day after everyone else. There were 10 students and 12 cupboards so he couldn't understand why. He found it was because 2 girls had taken 5 between them. He asked if he could have a cupboard on the WhatsApp group. No one responded so he took one of the girls stuff out of the cupboard and put it in her second cupboard he had seen her using. This girl gave him a daggers look but said nothing to him. He has to sort these things out for himself.

OP, sure he’ll come to you for advice but your job now as it was when he was small is to give age appropriate advice.

So talking through likely outcomes to his ideas - age appropriate
Drafting notes for him - not age appropriate
Tactics to stand up for himself- age appropriate
‘solving his problems- not age appropriate

If you’re not sure then point him to someone whose judgement you trust or ask here I guess, or dare I say it tell him you’re not sure and you trust his judgement (!)

This truly is one of those life situations that us dinosaurs 🦕 learned from by either screwing it up or getting it right on our own. It’s so low stakes that it’s a great way to gain some interpersonal confidence with that you should be helping him to navigate on his own.

I’m a HoD and first year course lead. I’d expect one of mine to talk to their personal tutor who can get in touch with our student welfare and/or SU staff if the students asks.

It is a shame that he’s so isolated in his flat. But whatever the situation the student accusing him cannot possibly know exactly who it was. First years can be very immature. I’ve seen behaviour that I wouldn’t have expected from a 13 year old.

Why do people ask stupid passive agressive questions like this? do parents and their adult dc not talk? do they not run things by eachother or did OP say she's going up to the university to confront the student?

I found university so scary and intimidating. It's really great that he feels like he can come and speak to you about this. I don't think listening and giving feedback is the same as solving his problems for him. So, maybe offer some alternative thoughts to help him problem solve but maybe not write it for him. I think dropping kids at university 200 miles away and deciding that there on their own is the craziest logic. I knew saw many kids suffer and not thrive because of this. The parents didn't realise that their parenting choices were shitty at the time because the kids didn't bother telling them (their irony - they went on thinking they were great parents and were none the wiser). I can totally understand how confronting this must feel for him and how his decision feels so big and life changing because of his anxiety. I would also agree with people that it has highlighted that he needs to get to know the people on his floor, and learn to to do some ice-breaking. I would focus on continuing to listen, acting as a sound board and building his confidence to get out there, do more and make friends

If he's been there since September and doesn't know his flatmates' names, he has bigger problems than this note. This is beyond "shy". It's a complete failure of social skills and it's going to cost him a lot more than a false accusation of theft.

I agree with you that his note is not likely to do him any favours. But he needs more than a way to deal with this one off and a new flat as a PP suggests might be a good idea if you also get him to get some help.

What was he like at a school? Is this the result of trauma, or something else? Is he getting any help for it? Have you talked to him about the consequences of poor social behaviour?

The only times anyone has left a cheeky not for me it was returned ripped in pieces to show a level of contempt. That takes real chutzpah.