15 year old son stole my car and took it for a joy ride while were away

[Peoplearereallyweird]

Name changed for this as could be outing and don't want it associated with my other posts.

Sorry posting for traffic - basically as the title says. Myself and my husband went away on our first holiday without DS1 (15) and DS2 (10) and MIL was looking after them while we were gone. Just got back and went to go out in my car today and noticed a couple of things felt "off" like the seat felt different, the radio was not on what it was normally and my husband noticed my exhaust was louder. When he checked it, it was broken. My MIL doesn't drive so I knew it wouldn't have been her so we checked the dash cam and to our horror, found our son had snuck out in the middle of the night while she was asleep and taken my car for a joy ride! DS1 is diagnosed ASD, very likely ADHD although not officially diagnosed yet but he knows right from wrong, there's no learning difficulties. He is in an alternative SEMH learning provision as he couldn't cope in mainstream, behaviour was not good at all and got so many suspensions but it took us years to fight for SEN place for him. He seemed to be doing well there to start but the last few months have been awful with his attitude and behaviour both in school and home. I've gone made at him tonight and so far I've removed his phone and gaming consol but he just doesn't seem to realise the seriousness of what he's done - he was lucky not to kill himself or someone else! I haven't yet called the police as I only found out a couple of hours ago so still trying to get my head around him being so stupid and reckless. I have a few friends who are officers - would you ask one of them to come and give him a talking too or make it offical and file a report? We feel like we're failing, even though everyone says we're "doing everything right", so also considering speaking with social services and asking school to see if they can arrange a pyschologist as I need to do something to address the underlying causes to his downward spiral. Just feel so lost right now

This. The first thing I would do is make him pay for the exhaust.

It's difficult because you know he has broken the law. He has put you in an awful position.

I can't decide whether I would take him to the Police Station and expect him to tell them what he did. That is the responsible thing to do really I suppose.

What does your DH say about it @Peoplearereallyweird

Do you talk about all criminals this way? Do the people they endangered not matter?

It depends how close they are. My eldest stopped something as a late teen, because his granddad was disappointed in him, he didn’t care I was disappointed also. Also, sometimes pointing out how it affects others is sometimes all it takes. Different people have different motivators, if it wouldn’t change you, great, but 1 size doesn’t fit all.

Teacher of 30 years here. Teenagers are not designed to do "shit like this". "This" is particularly odd behaviour from the OP's son.

He did all that, sure. And in the future if handled well, he apply that amazing initiative to saving lives or doing other amazing feats more meek kids wouldn't dare.

There hasn't been great outcomes for the vast majority of teenage car thieves I've worked with over the last 38 years.

Im not wanting to upset the OP but neatly all of them that I know about went on to commit more crimes as they went through their teenage years, some getting violent and a lot were jailed. Many of them got drug or other substance addiction and at least five that I know of died before they were 30. There have been some success stories. And I see some of them now in their forties happy married family men. In fact two of " My young people" are now middle aged men that drink in the same pub as ne and do the quiz on Wednesday nights!!

Op, I think it is important to have professional intervention now, especially if he thinks he's been hard done by. I dont think you and dh can do it alone. It is such a serious offense and he is not remorseful. If he was, you would have something to work with.
Good luck. I know its a challenging and worrying time gor you.

@TheCobbleCreekMonster infuriatingly not much, other than he needs to suffer whatever the consequences are. He is definitely the calmer of the 2 of us but it borders on passive at times (such as this) and that infuriates me. I could bet any amount of money that he wouldn't be so passive if ir were his pride and joy that was taken so I've told him he needs to find his voice and have words with him too.

And just for the record, I do NOT think this was a cool teenage thing for him to do. It was reckless and downright dangerous and nothing to do with any small amount of skill he may have, that prevented him from seriously harming or killing someone. I have seen first hand the damage that does, so this isn't going to just go away because "boys will be boys" and do stupid things and he said sorry.

I really, really wouldnt report him to police. Hes lucky that he got away without serious harm done and it doesnt need to impact the rest of his life, whereas if you report to police he could end up with a criminal record that could prevent him from getting jobs and shape his whole future. It could even be classed as something like robbery on his record, which would make him basically unemployable. I know someone this happened to as a teen. He already has ASD which can make it hard to find and keep employment. I'd think about acting proportionly and finding a punishment that wont shape his future, and definitely take some time to cool down before doing something that could have unforeseen consequences.

@Peoplearereallyweird
i think you absolutely need to escalate this to the police it’s illegal and he needs to know it’s wrong. I also feel this would be better done through the proper channels if you “ask a friend to have a word” it then puts them on the spot to not report it properly too which is an unfair situation for them.

Your poor MIL too what a position to put her in - I wouldn’t be doing that again!

Thank you. We will definitely be seeking outside help, we just aren't enough now. He seems more remorseful this afternoon which gives me a small amount of hope he is not completely lost yet. Sometimes he needs time to process so I've asked him to think about what he thinks are fair consequences to try and open up discussion, now that I am a bit calmer. Obviously there may well be more serious consequences soon that are out of my hands and he will have to deal with those.

We're definitely not asking a friend, it wouldn't be fair and MIL has said she can't look after him again, which is totally fair. We will be seeking advice from school on Monday regarding the school liaison officer and MASH for any external help that we can get.

Maybe it would be helpful and possible for him to speak to a victim of TWOC? Or watch a video clip showing the impact it could have if the above is not possible?

With his ASD, it might be helpful to show him how his actions could have impacted others, rather than just himself, had he made a mistake and crashed.

Perhaps also make him calculate the cost of crashing and not having valid insurance e.g. how many hours of work he would have to carry out to pay for the damage to his own car and perhaps another? Even a rear-end shunt nowadays can result in a £6000 bill.

He’s a deceitful idiot, not some kind of superhero ffs!

I quite agree! Nothing cool at all about what he's done

Unless you want him to have a criminal record and make his ability to get a job even harder - do not tell the school or the police. It’s not like a 10 year old who needs a talking to. The police can, and will, arrest a 15 year old.

Deal with it at home.

Well how relevant are his issues when he's done something that directly threatens the life of other road users?
You posted his issues as part of the overall incident, but if it were me that he'd run over I honestly wouldn't give a shit about his issues.
I think you've minimised this totally by talking about his needs and diagnoses. HE is not relevant, it is about what he has DONE. That is how the law and civic responsibility work. If anything had happened and it led to court, then how you describe him would be a matter for defence and mitigation only.
Therefore you have mitigated the gravity of his acts from the get go. As his parent sure this might be your natural inclination but if you do continue to back him up in this way, what is he supposed to learn about responsibility to others?
Parent him!

You think we've not been parenting him?! He's not a kid that's allowed out whenever and wherever to do as he pleases! I have not once excused what he has done due to his medical diagnosis, so please tell me where in any of my posts have I? Telling me to "parent him" is neither helpful or constructive when that's exactly what I'm trying to do!

I’d be phoning the police too - this really needs dealing with from a legal point of view.

I know it’s hard and it’s your son but hopefully some tough love now will mean that he gets a chance to think about his choices and can move forward from this.

I do feel for you tho it’s a situation that no parent would want to be in. My colleagues brother broke into another family members house and they had to call the police too it was awful but people ultimately can’t think that this sort of behaviour is ok.

OP, just popping in here to say that you shouldn't beat yourself up for going on a holiday and hope that this won't stop you from having them going forward. Once the lad turns eighteen, he's an adult and won't be shielded from life. So hopefully he'll learn this lesson and move on.

I think you should report it to the Police. He is old enough to know how serious this is and will need to deal with the consequences. If he gets away with it ge will emboldened to do it again.

I can empathise so much and can fully imagine this could have been my son. He's 14 asd and adhd and at a semh school after being at a PRU and alternative offer setting, has done several of those under 16 driving courses and loved them and he wouldn't immediately see the seriousness of the situation.

My son would definitely down play the whole thing especially as there was no damage, no one hurt and in his eyes a successfully executed night time jaunt. It would take him a few days to process the potential dangers and the what ifs. He would go into defensive mode straight away though and act as if he didn't care. He is able to understand what is being said but would need lots of time to process the alternative viewpoints and why you are feeling angry.

I would use the school route and not police at this stage.

You, his dad or Nan had no way of knowing he would do something like this and have put lots of things in place to ensure it cannot happen again. I hope Nan will reconsider her childcare offer because parents need a break, especially from children who work at a different mental and physical pace to a neutotypical child. It is exhausting.

I’m sure you can reassure her that you’ve learned lessons as well that you didn’t think were needed - but DS needs to apologise to her for doing something so stupid while she was in charge of him.

If the police aren’t made aware of this that’s an offence in itself for not reporting such a serious incident. If it then occurred again and he said yeah done it loads of time or done it before questions would be being asked so for this reason alone, it needs reporting for his own good.

Schools are not the police.

He’s still young and he absolutely has chance to move on from this - but he needs to realise the consequences. He could have killed himself or other people and then his poor grandmother looking after them while the parents had a holiday would have got that knock on the door.

@Peoplearereallyweird please do the right thing for your son and for your family. If you address this now you might not be visiting him in hospital/prison or worse - attending his funeral. That’s the reality here.

My brother used to do this a LOT and if it's any consolation stopped after some time away in the military 😅

I have saught legal advice on if we would get into trouble for not reporting and as we are the "victim" of the twoc and there was no accident to report, there is no obligation to report it. That's not to say we're not going to, just to say we wouldn't get into to trouble for not doing so straight away. He is very contrite this afternoon, defensiveness and couldn't give a shit attitude is gone, so I think the gravity of it is setting in

If you're telling an officer friend this buts them in a dubious position.