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

@Moonnstarz yes I think they do as we're in a high county lines area, and I'm sure they've mentioned it in the past when he first started.

@Mummyoflittledragon he knows I lost a friend in a car accident when I was 17, a lad that was only a little older than he is now, along with 3 of his friends all 16/17 or 18.

@eurochick that's what we're not sure on. Nothing obvious on the footage so far but I still have more to view as it captures in 1 minute bursts and takes an age to download each one. Going to try and get DH to get the SD card out and read it that way. He must've gone over a speed bump hard or something (although he says no). Could be very unfortunate timing but it was fine the night before we left and not fine the day after we came back

What if he’d knocked someone down and killed them? Or caused a crash and wiped out a family. Should allowances have been made then because he’s at a special school?

Society is a mess because there’s always an excuse for kids nowadays. That lad who killed those little girls in Southport had a string of diagnosed conditions, so should allowances have been made for what he did? Is it ok to go and harm or kill people if you’ve got ASD or are in a special school?

This has to stop. This constant excusing of antisocial behaviour.

You haven't failed at all.
He had learned the skills so to do, and if he has ADHD he will have very low impulse control and probably just thought I know even to have a try.
I wouldn't carry on with telling everyone and getting social services involved, he made a mistake, but thank goodness he wasn't dangerous, and likely is feeling lots of shame already.
Try to calm a little and have a conversation, if he's already in a separate school and has a reputation, I would walk very carefully to assure he knows he did wrong but you are supportive and love him, it could very well go the other way of everyone thinks I'm an idiot so I might as well carry on which would lead to extreme behaviours.
Wishing you all the best x

Yes this is a good idea.
In my area all sixth form/college students also get to attend a workshop called Learn2live. Not sure if it's a national roadshow but it's about young people and driving. They sometimes take mock vehicles that have been replicated to show what happened when a young driver was doing something dangerous. They also have real families telling their stories, often very tragic, where their teenager didn't make it home because of their or a friends dangerous driving.

As you also point out even reading local news articles usually throws up a tragic case every few months. Maybe this would shock the OPs son. Our local paper just had a report about a group of teens leaving a pub and the driver in the car at the back took a bend at high speed (over 60mph), flipped the car and died. Was not wearing a seatbelt. There were no passengers (so no distractions), no drink involved and he wasn't on his phone so it was due to error in speed and not having a seat belt on, so cases like this could show the son that it isn't always about doing other things wrong.

@Peoplearereallyweird if anything it’ll be a youth caution. Down to the police station DNA and fingerprints taken. He’ll get to speak to the duty solicitor. SS will call and talk you through the interventions that could possibly get involved, ask me how I know… 🙄

I was proactive and actually contacted the services directly and they engaged either me and DS. Glad I did because by the time the Youth Justice team got involved it was about 5 months later we could already show he was engaging with help. He got a 1-1 mentor as part of the intervention and then a Youth Justice mentor for another 4 months.

He’s older now and wiser and whilst there’s always some drama round the corner life’s not half as bad as it was and the caution and its outcomes were on the whole positive.

@Peoplearereallyweird how accessible were the keys? Reporting it could bring insurance issues and you being questioned on the supervision of your children while away. Also your safeguarding if the keys wasn't put away securely.
It's about not giving him the opportunity to do it again. My DD (ADHD) seemed to lack any conscience at that age. It's no surprise that the majority of the teenage prison population has ADHD. I don't think that involving the police, even unofficially would help.

You haven’t failed.
I do think reporting to the police would be good, he is old enough to have known right from
wrong and he will see there are consequences from his actions, but due to his age those consequences shouldn’t result in something severe.
I don’t know how it works if you don’t press charges for theft (for example) then do they not get a criminal record? In my line of work when we hear police checks there are often lots of “no further action” incidents that we hear about but as they have not been convicted I don’t know whether they are on their record.

Having said that, this kind of thing is common teen behaviour so don’t panic that he hasn’t been raised well- he will most likely grow up to be law abiding and remorseful. Don’t forget teen brains revert back to toddler brains in some ways but they do mature by 25!

@Pricelessadvice I agree - it maybe a reason why he's done it but I cannot allow him to use it as an excuse, especially when I know he knows right from wrong.

@Teanandtoast I am going to have to speak to his school. Again very outing so didn't want to mention - a family member has started working at his school, so I imagine there is still come kind of mandatory reporting to their DSL? Or he'll be a complete idot and try and bragg about it.

@Ponoka7 keys were on the key hook where they normally are.

He needs to pay for the exhaust

My cousin did this and got caught as he was speeding. His parents got the ticket with his face on it. They got a huge fine and he was banned from learning to drive until 25.

He is a perfectly normal functioning member of society now. Just a total hooligan as a teenager.

He could have killed someone. Or even hit/injured someone with invalid insurance. You should report to police and he should accept the consequences. Otherwise he will do it again.

My sons got adhd (he’s 9) and this is a big worry of mine.

i did go on a course about adhd and they did warn about this that children with asd or adhd have a much higher chance of ending up in prison, taking drugs and hanging around with the wrong crowd.

this is why there’s consequences to his behaviour everytime, he’s not allowed to to use his adhd as an excuse for poor behaviour, destroying things etc.

you don’t mention anything about consequences for this, I’m not talking about taking an iPad off him, I’m talking about proper consequences like working outside or within the home to pay for the damage etc.

your son planned this, it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, he saw an opportunity was coming up and he planned this in advance. That’s not impulsive adhd, that’s knowing something is wrong, planning it anyway knowing his asd and adhd will be taken into account and he will get off lightly.

He got a ten year ban for joy-riding? Can you link to the newspaper report of that, as people don't usually get that punishment even for death by dangerous driving.

OP, some people are trying to frighten you into not reporting but I think you should otherwise you are teaching him that he can break the law and you will keep his secrets. He needs to learn a lesson and it's better that he does that through the youth justice service than through the normal courts.

My 15yo has been on a Young Drivers lesson and knows how to drive a car. He has picked it up very quickly.

I hope you can talk sense into your DS as to how dangerous it was what he did. And lessons can be learned from it going forward. Thinking of you.

My DB did this at this age with friends. Once he came home with a broken nose. I knew it wasn’t from the “fight” he said he’d been in. Didn’t go to hospital either with it. I spoke to him either at the time or a few months later and told him I knew it was a lie as I had my suspicions as a 17 year old older sister. He admitted sheepishly to me that he’d been joyriding with friends and crashed into a zebra crossing post. His friends, who I knew too, were fairly nice, just bored teens that he went out with and later raving with. I wasn’t too annoyed with him just told him I knew his original story was a lie and not to do it again. I never told my mum as I knew she’d be upset and worried. A fight sounded better to her than joyriding. Lots of teens did this at his age. All from fairly “good” homes. I’m not minimising the seriousness of this at all, I’m aware it is and was a crime. I don’t think he did it again.

In this case I’d just be tempted to have a quiet word and explain why this isn’t good and also illegal. And it’s not to happen again, and ground eg for a month. As pp said if you get a police officer involved it puts them in a difficult predicament/position re their job.

Hopefully this should be enough to let him know your anger.

Just seen additional info. Don’t know what else to advise but try not to worry too much. Here’s a handhold from me.

My DH did this at the same age. He is also adhd. He actually crashed his dads car into a lampost in his joy ride, this was also on an army barracks which obviosuly caused a lot of issues for his dad who was an officer, so he was caught out that way and apparently grounded for months.
He has grown to be a relatively successful adult so there is hope.
Pick a punishment and stick to it.
Hide the keys.
Keep a close reign on him, i think 14 to 17 are the trickiest years, but there is hope.
We all have adhd in our house , dh, me and two kids, DH and myself had very turbulent teen years getting into all sorts beforr we became successful professionals and so we are keeping an extra tight reign in our two adhd kids based on our own experiences of being wayward adhd teens before adhd was even a thing.
We can see where we were given too much room to fuck up. Luckily we madr it through but some of the stupid shit we did, seapratrly as we didnt know each other then, could bave easily landed us in jail or hospital. We managrd to get through it thankfully and matured a lot later than others but now are pretty successful.
Adding that I dont think you should report him, he will grow out of this phase and then be stuck with a record or caution and or a ban. Mine or my dh parents reported us and we learned our lessons. My current career would not be possible with a criminal record. I am a massively over cautious goody two shoes as an adult. This should be dealy with in your family. Very seriously, you need to think how. Make him watch videos of car crashes if you have to. It needs to stick with him that it can never happen again.

How old is he in terms of 15 years and how many months?
In some areas if your under the age when you can get a provisional licence (15yrs 9 months) you can be diverted to receive an out of court resolution for driving offences, so he would work with the local youth justice service and do work around preventing this and similar from happening again.
this isn’t the case nationwide, some areas summons to court regardless and he would then get points on a ghost licence which would then kick in at the point at which he secured his. He could learn to drive and pass however would effectively be banned straight away due to the points (most likely 6).

It sounds like you’ve taken all the relevant steps to stop it happening again, you could also look at local youth services to see if there are any inputs coming up to do with road safety?

This was not in the uk.

I work in Scotland and processes are a bit different. Up here, early intervention is normally an alternative to prosecution. In theory, he could end up with a prosecution but I think it is really unlikely. Sorry if that doesn't sound very reassuring - hypothetical questions are difficult and ultimately it will depend on many factors. A big factor is the attitude of the parents and the child towards the offence, police etc so if you've approached them to report it, it's a good start, especially if you fully engage with the process. @adhdpunchbag has put it much better than me.

Good advice. My DB was very similar to your son. He’s a normal well adjusted adult now too. Married with 2 kids and working in a fairly good job.

Sorry your DH not DS!

Do not involve friends who are officers as there may be implications for them having knowledge of a crime.

Either deal with it yourself or formally involve police and notify insurance if you really need to but it's absolutely not something I would do as it could be a whole lot of bother for yourself

So far as your son's deterioration is concerned, it seems clear that the school is not meeting this needs and it could well be worth asking for an early annual review. SEMH schools aren't always suitable for children with ASD, and your son might be better off in specialist ASD school.

Definitely don’t involve a serving police officer. My friends and I used to do this at around this age 14/15. Usually one of the boys would ‘borrow’ their parents car and we’d all cram in. Would drive stupidly and dangerously. Looking back, we were so lucky nothing bad happened. This was 30 years ago. I’d be horrified if my own children did this now.