Should our 10-year-old contribute to replacing the broken car charge cover?

[Bdayupset]

Hi. Dd, 10, broke the cover off the electric charge point on our lease car. She was playing football right next to the car, even though there is a field joined onto our driveway. Literally, 2 steps away. Where they usually play football.

I suggested she could help me around the house today, but she just sulked off. Also, she didnt tell us about the breakage, we had to find it ourselves.

She gets £5 a week pocket money. Should we make her pay for the replacement? It will be bloody £118! We've already had a lot of expenses come up this month, and spent a lot of money ok them (2 ds also) as it's been half term.

What would you do?

Thanks!

are you absolutely sure it was her? I used to be accused of all sorts when I was a child, and gave up denying when it was apparent my parents had already made their minds up..

Oh for goodness sake, accidents happen. Would you dock money from an adult relative.

It's like parents screaming at their kids if they eg knock a glass over and break it but if their partner does it, they just shrug their shoulders and help clear it up.

Surely expecting better behaviour from children than from adults is back to front?

@BananaPeels I agree about not calling it chores, it’s a very negative word. Jobs, helping etc are more neutral words. My mum used to refer to these things as “duty”, which I think is even worse than “chores”.

This! It sounds like it was an accident and I'm sure thar everyone did stupid things at this age (I recall at around age 7 or 8 throwing stones over a neighbour's car simply to see how far I could throw them, never dreaming that one of them might have actually hit the car... and then being surprised at the loud noise this resulted in - mostly from the neighbour). A couple of weeks' pocket money and/or some household chores will be a good learning experience

I’d dock her for two weeks minimum but make it clear that I’ll revisit if she apologises properly

as a mum of 4 and EYP for over 20 years i absolutely agree with someone who said shes 10 and an accident and seeing as u know the cost id say it is too late to start again as she wont be hung up on that moment. however if the problem is continuing behaviour issues then definitely explain that her behaviour will need to change and from this point on the situation will be 50p from her money every time she miss behaves. trust me for example, 4.50 instead of 5 looks massive for a child in there hand. its like someone giving you 1000 and taking 250 its a huge difference even if it doesn’t seem that way to you

I would make mine contribute. One or two months' loss of pocket money is probably enough though for a small person. I appreciate that doesn't cover the whole cost, but £5 a week would have that paid off in 6 months which is probably a little too long. They do have to contribute though.

We often get rentals and there’s not a chance would either of my kids be allowed a football anywhere near it. Why didn’t you tell her to take the ball elsewhere?

If people really advocate total confiscation of a child’s pocket money for months on end (an eternity to
a child), why don’t we also:

• Make Boris Johnson pay for his Partygate defence: he could easily afford it, and he never got past the age of ten in his head anyway; he’d probably never heard the word “no” in his life. More money than brain cells.
• Make wealthy career criminals pay good money for their prison sentences (is it £50k per year per prisoner, or 60?), with no reduction in the sentence. For many of them, prison is a “temporary inconvenience”.
• Dock Liz Truss’s extremely generous prime ministerial pension. Her “accident” cost us all dearly.
• Make Paula Vennels pay the postmasters back, personally. They were made to pay back everything they were accused of stealing.

Let these people face the consequences of their actions. It seems that on this thread, children are held to higher standards than our overpaid politicians.

start teaching now that actions have consequences.
The first one is no ball games except on the field.
The 2nd is that she either misses pocket money for a couple of weeks completely, or she gets half (or a quarter or a pound) docked for more weeks.

And that she clearly understands that if something gets broken, deliberately or by accident, the consequences are worse if she doesn't tell you right away. For me that is the most important bit of this. She knew she had done something wrong and didn't tell you. Honesty is essential.

I dropped the glass lid of my frying pan on the floor this week and it smashed into loads of pieces. I'm glad my husband isn't punishing me. I mean, I need to learn, don't I? I need some kind of consequence. If not money related then extra chores or not being allowed to watch TV for a few days....

Can you see how ridiculous it is to punish someone for an accident?!!

Don't be ridiculous. She's a child and it was an accident.

If a DH suggested docking his wife’s allowance for scratching the car, there would be the Mumsnet war cry of “LEAVE THE BASTARD!”

And that would probably just be for having the arrangement of an “allowance”!

Exactly. The fact the mum would charge a ten year old £118 for an accident, shows exactly why the girl kept it a secret. I wonder what the dynamic is like at home.

That’s exactly our home life too; none of us are perfect but we collaborate and learn together. My kids are adults now and we are very close and open and nobody is scared of anyone.

My children and now Grandchildren have always accepted, without question, paying fully for any damages caused by them doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. A month or so ago 12 year old GC kicked his football into the utility room through back door. It then somehow bounced onto the sink and cracked it. I’d no idea what a new sink would cost so asked him how he wanted to repay the cost of the damage. He offered to walk the dogs separately daily for a week. I thought that was fair and he got on with it with no fuss and I didn’t end up screeching. Truth be told his time is an hour a day for seven days, imo that’s plenty to give back but probably 7 hours work at £15 ph that a dog walker would charge won’t cover a new sink. However he thinks it will and also knows there’s been the consequence we’ve always had in the house

I would imagine if it was broken because you were kicking a football around the kitchen after being asked not to, your DH might well be pissed off and expect you to replace it from your own money rather than family money.

Not if it was an accident

Yes. Best teach her a lesson early.

But that makes no sense unless you had a dog walker you were paying £15 an hour to already thus saving the money.

just walking to dog means there is no direct connection between breaking the sink and paying off the debt.

and shouldn’t they be walking the dog for free anyway because they love the dog?

Accidents happen, the bigger issue is her attitude. Not owning up, not apologising as soon as it happened, and not being willing to try to make it right.

If she had owned up straight away, been genuinely sorry and willing to try to make it right, I would have docked maybe 1-2 weeks as a nominal recognition that damage costs money, even if accidental.

But with that attitude I would be removing the automatic pocket money for the equivalent number of weeks. With the option to earn it back by doing extra jobs (I presume at 10 she already does a couple small jobs - my DD10 empties dishwasher every day and puts away, DD7 sorts the recycling) at an agreed rate.

Surely the bigger issue is the parents attitude

I think I must be missing something, was there an update from OP as I can't see any issues with the parents attitude in the original post?

Seriously make her pay? Sheet happens get over it.

23 weeks isn’t a year.