ds (12) is saving up his school lunch money to buy horrible clothes. How should I feel about that?

[tigermoth]

My son is in year 8 and is nearly 13. He loves clothes. I give him a daily allowance of £3.00 school lunch money. The understanding is that he has enough to buy something healthy (he needs to keep his weight down) but he can keep as pocket money any change left over.

He does not get other regular pocket money as such, but does get an allowance for clothes (and has quite a lot of clothes for his age, now). He also gets generous money gifts at christmas/birthdays etc. He has about 6 baseball caps for instance, all unspeakably horrible IMO, but he has paid for them out if his own money and wears them with pride.

Anyway, 2 or 3 times a week ds has no or very little lunch at school so he can save his money for yet more horrible hats etc. He won't eat breakfast or even take in some food from home, so sometimes he is going all day till 4.00 without food. He thinks this is great as it helps his weight and gives him more clothes money.

I have told him ad infinitum how important it is to eat early on in the day, how it will help him concentrate on his lessons and how he will burn off the calories, but it is falling on deaf ears.

So, what should I do? Ignore it? Limit his money? Make him take in a packed lunch?

For me, the priority would be to get him to eat healthily and regularly.

I think I would do packed lunches for a few weeks and limit his money, that way he's getting lunch (no guarantee he'll eat it I know).

Continue talking to him, and come to some agreement about how long you'll do this for and also that you're prepared to increase his daily allowance again once he's shown that he will eat more healthily.

TBH, I would insist on breakfast too, before he leaves the house.

Easier said than done, I know, my DS is a similar age.

well, I don't have a 12 year old, but I would say that as he is unable to manage his money appropriately, he should take in a packed lunch and be given pocket money separately. After all, by spending it on horrible caps instead of good food he is abusing the privilege.
It's probably just too much temptation for him - I can see that my eldest dd ( very little common sense!) would have the same problem. Thankfully the secondary schools here operate a prepay card system.

I'd be tempted to bargain with him. You want him to eat healthily, he wants money to buy horrible hats, not the worst thing he could be doing with his money int he grand scheme of things.

If he can prove to you that for two weeks he will eat a small breakfast and your packed lunch every day, then once the two weeks are up if he continues to do so, you'll give him a horrible hat allowance.

HTH

If he doesn't agree, then he gets a packed lunch and no allowance ever

How much is his clothes allowance ?

I give dd,15, a monthy allowance that covers clothes,mobile,magazines and trips to the cinema etc.

I pay for her school dinners seperately.

I also have a ds,13 and he still gets weekly pocket money and I just take him clothes shopping when necessary.

They have to have lunch so they can concentrate on afternoon lessons. I wouldnt ignore it if I were you.

I wouldn't let him keep the change from lunch money - otherwise there will ALWAYS be an incentive that not eating = money, which is unhealthy in many respects

Make a deal that lunch money is YOURS and NOT his, so he gives you the change every day, but give him a clothing allowance to compensate

I just knew this might be you, given ds' known propensity for challenging fashions.
I totally agree with MP - he must hand the change back over to you, not be permitted to keep it.
Or make him eat the hats.
Seriously, a small commiserative that keeping his weight down is still an issue despite all your encouragement and his sporting interests, TM. Life is a bit unfair on him on this front, isn't it.

I agree re lunch money and change coming back to you. If he doesn't get any other pocket money other than change from lunch, maybe agree lunch change comes back to you and give him weekly pocket money..just a small ammount. That he can save towards his hats

Do you know what the school lunches cost? Is there a vending machine there too?

DS1 (same age as yours I suspect - 13 next month) has £2 per day (lunches cost £1.20 and dessert is an extra 50p). So, if he has just a main course, he saves the balance for buying drinks or occasionally a packet of chocolates. On days when he does PE or outdoor games, he will ask for (and usually get) an extra £1 to buy a drink from the vending machines (schools don't seem to have drinking fountains these days - which probably isn't a bad thing from a health p.o.v.).

I do normally check what he has eaten for lunch and occasionally check how much money he has so that I can see if he's saving it up.

Could you compromise by promising him a slightly increased clothes allowance if he promises to eat properly at school?

Thanks for the feedback. I do wish they had that prepaid card system then I'd know that his lunch money got spent properly.

One of the reasons I have let ds keep the lunch money change and save it up for horrible hats is give him an incentive to resist buying sweets and fizzy drinks from the shops on the way back from school. Lunch usually costs around £2.00 but sometimes he needs more cash if he is staying later and I like to feel he has an emergency fund.

I talked to my son a few hours ago. I said that I trust him to have a decent lunch each day with the money he is given. If he stops doing this, I will stop giving him the money and he will take in packed lunches instead. It is only a threat for now but that's what the bottom line is. He seemed to take it well.

I wish I could get him to eat breakfast, but the problems we have there would mean starting another thread.

Hi, tigermoth

I don't know, these boys! Our school doesn't have those cards you can charge with money and then find out what they've bought either. DS2 has school dinner one day a week (on his year's priority day where they get first choice) and I give him £2.50 for that - if I don't have the change and have to give him a note it can take days to get my change back just from that. On the other days he takes packed lunch, supposedly, but he makes his own now and there hasn't been a lunchbox to wash for many many days so I suspect he eats no lunch either. (He has a very well-paid paper round though so isn't desperate for money)

Even if you insisted on the change from what your DS1 supposedly buys, there'd be no proof that he'd actually bought it and wasn't just stringing you along. I think under these circs I'd be inclined to give him a packed lunch to make sure he does eat, plus maybe £5 in lieu of school dinners to buy horrible hats with. (Or £7.50 if you are feeling generous.)

HTH

'Even if you insisted on the change from what your DS1 supposedly buys, there'd be no proof that he'd actually bought it and wasn't just stringing you along.'

How true, Janh, how true!

Ds1 is bad at lying to direct questions, thank goodness.(Or otherwise he is extremely good and has hoodwinked me into thinking he is an incompetant lier for the last few years). He genuinely wants to lose weight, which (hopefully) stops him filling up on his school's equivalent of Turkey Twizzlers. But I really don't like to think too hard about what goes on in the lunch hall.

What you are saying is true - packed lunch and pocket money for his hats is the only way to be 100% sure. Oh, how I hate making packed lunches! I know he is old enough make them but mornings are so painful as it is.

How about he makes them the night before?

How about "bonus" money (just a small amount) for every healthy breakfast he eats, even if he only makes the effort to eat some. His metabolism will adjust to a small amount of food early on then come to miss it if he stops having it. Or, if he does it for a month/6 weeks you'll buy him a horrible hat of his choosing. I'm sure there's plenty of info you could Google about breakfast being the most important meal of the day, if you haven't already covered that.

Godd luck.

Thanks for that suggestion bibithree. It's very interesting. Paying him to have a proper breakfast, I will ponder on that one.
I don't know if equating money with healthy eating has any downsides, I can't think of any for now.

Miaou, thanks. That would require a feat of organisation on my son's part, but it's an excellent last resort if we go the packed lunch route.

I'll see how the next week or two goes. If my son continues to have a large surplus of cash from his school lunch allowance, packed lunches will be on the horizon.