Ds11 stolen hundreds from me

[Workinghardeveryday]

I don’t even know where to start.

he actually is a lovely boy, very loving, caring, helpful. My friends always commenting how sweet and kind he is.

I worked out a few months ago he tells lies. Just silly little lies but I explained how it makes me feel, how wrong lying is and how it makes the other person feel etc.

today he went to the park to play, saw someone from school who had a penknife (!) played with it, lied about it.

it’s the lies that bug me, so extravagant.

we talked to him about lying again. He promised he would never do it again.

there has been money going missing for a while. I then asked, ‘have you been steeling mummy’s money?’. He started crying and said yes. Turns out it’s about £400 I think. Spent on PlayStation vouchers, sweets and drinks for him and his friends. Been going on for months.

I am so disappointed and angry.

what would you do?

I’m sorry to hear that your DS has had such a difficult experience of being bullied by this friend and I’m happy for you both that all this has come to light. Keep focussed and keep those lines of communication open.

@Workinghardeveryday I have three boys. One considerably troubled and was a tea leaf. If I had my time over I would remove any access to the Internet (you could restart it tentatively when he starts new school) no headset etc with PlayStation just ability to play games if he must have an hour and no phone.

Some children are almost encouraged to grow up too fast too quick. If he likes knifes etc I would not be enabling him to look at them.

He is 11. Reset your boundaries. If he has been bullied and intimidated then he may appreciate the headspace and being 11 again. Have a quiet and peaceful summer.

And it's not the end of the works. Ds1 just grew out of it but it took time and got a lot worse before it got better.

World gah!!

Sounds like normal parenting, not a punishment.

Some posters seem like they get enjoyment from giving children harsh punishments. Its quite nasty to see the almighty authority some people are advocating parenting with. It’s very clear from the OP’s posts and posts in the past that this child is going through something very difficult. Arbitrary and unduly harsh punishments are not good parenting, especially when they bear no relation to the infraction. The OP has dealt with this in a sensible way that seems to have helped her son and made it clear it’s not acceptable.

Given there is barely a week gone by where yet another child has been stabbed by another child, I found it almost chillingly naive how op added he has an obsession with knives and guns so flippantly almost like an 'oh yeah, by the way' throw away comment. That alone shows a worrying lack of insight into how these obsessions with horrific weapons develop into the next tragic headline. OP, please for the love of God don't be the next parent at a televised news conference telling us all about how he was just a normal boy and there were no indications something terrible would happen.

And what else would you suggest I do?

police have taken him out of class today to talk to him about it. He is banned from looking at any knife/guns online. We have discussed it at length with him.

please give me your advice if you can think of more?!

To be fair to PP, the way you wrote it sounded like the knife and fun fascination was something you'd known about for a while rather than it being a shock or something new.

That might not be the case but it sounded like you knew about that previously but hadn't addressed it with him.

he does have a fascination with knifes and guns, I can tell by YouTube history. Obviously I am not happy with this, does this have an resemblance on the steeling and lying?

Gun fascination not fun fascination, obviously!

I’m surprised at how many people are advocating arbitrary punishments unconnected to what he did. Speaking to school, police being involved etc is all part of learning a useful lesson. I’d have probably had a more direct way of him paying back the money (as others have said, chores are part of being a family member living in a house) and direct supervision of screen time with parental controls but the OP hasn’t “let him get away with it”

What does any parent want to come from something like this? For the child to learn, not to do it again, to have a better understanding of why , for the parent to understand their own mistakes and how they could have contributed, and for both move forward with an intact parent/child relationship. That’s what I’d want. An arbitrary punishment doesn’t often achieve that in my experience.

Perhaps invest a bit more time finding out about his online activity BEFORE it becomes an unhealthy obsession at 11 years old.

Honestly your lack of insight into your own child's online activity is staggering. Why aren't you controlling what he has access to? No 11 year old in my house would be accessing videos like that because I make it my business to know exactly what they have access to.

You really did mention that almost flippantly. Most parents would have been utterly mortified.

Sounds more likely op's son would be intimidated and manipulated and end up a victim of County lines whose classic tactic is to involve someone in crime in a small way and use that hold to reel them in deeper and deeper until they are trapped and too afraid to tell anyone.
Op I think you're handling this really well and of course you're horrified and hoping your worst fears don't come true so just keep being an approachable parent upholding good values with clear boundaries and hang on in there.

Restricting internet access as a punishment misses the point, that the OP wasn't monitoring content sufficiently and her son isn't emotionally mature enough to deal with the content he was viewing.

By definition this means assess is going to be restored. It doesn't really address the underlying problem that he's clearly not mature enough to be spending that much time on line. It needs to be a parenting decision to admit this and be much more restrictive indefinitely until he is considerably older.

Parents need to parent. This isn't a punishment thing to apply to a child who lacks emotional intelligence and streetwise knowledge to engage in an adult world.

Its great that the OP seems to have opened her eyes and realised that this issue isn't about the money and goes much deeper. But again, in order to steal £400 unnoticed, the amount of attention the OP is paying needs to be noted. If you just have £400 disappear and you don't notice it, you have too much cash lying around and you aren't paying attention to your kid enough. Probably because the internet is a good convenient babysitter and substitute for this.

What is required is a really big change in attitude and the relationship between mum and son. Not "punishments."