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 think it's relatively common for children this age to " help themselves" to money they see lying around, but £400 seems a lot. Did you really not notice at all?
I think him being caught should hopefully stop it. Children lie, adults lie.

Stealing from you seems to have had little consequences

Stealing from other people, will have consequences

Give him some chores, so that he can earn some pocket money (not £400)
Spend some
Save some
He needs to understand the way money functions

This is more serious tgat you realise OP, and you keep going on about what a lovely boy he is, but he's not atm, is he?
So step up to the mark and parent his properly.

The ‘I didn’t see him’ is the bit that is off. Kids are weird, impulsive, compulsive, pressured and not fully anchored into reality. The theft isn’t great but isn’t massively unusual either. They lying usually comes from a sense of inadequacy. You have a sad little boy who has made bad choices in response to the environment you left him in. He needs to mature along side you. You need him close and to work on your relationship as well as boundaries. Find ways to manage your disappointment so it doesn’t cause you high more grief. One of mine lied and stole at this kind of age, his asd was largely masked at school but the effort that took made him bubble over later. He is much more happy these days and is lovely, reliable and very honest. The biggest help was more time spent with him. Keep challenging that ‘attitude’ from your sixteen year old too - I know mn seems to suggest it’s fine coz their brains don’t mature until 21 but I my house you are polite to me like I am to you. Expecting respect helps them respect rules and values and allows you to show that you respect their growing independence. It let’s you communicate honestly about mistakes and keep going forward together.

Name change here

I was the girl equivalent of your DS. Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth but I stole, lied and was in turmoil.

Please seek professional help. There maybe something going on that you’re not aware of.

I’m in my 50’s now and only realising what a mess I was inside until a few years ago … outwardly people think I’m successful and have a lovely life !

I will talk to him. I will tell him how upset I am and how it has made me feel
Please don't do this. Its just not fair on him to place your disappointment and feelings on to him.

He needs to learn to regulate his own behaviour. Tell him straight - that other people should be able to leave their belongings, food or money lying around. That if he can't leave things and people alone, he will face consequences that you can't bail him out of.
You need to regulate his internet access and use because he is unable to.

I agree @Thelnebriati
OP your feelings are yours and it’s not your ds responsibility to help you deal with them. Very easy to call I to guilt tripping which isn’t going to help

what I have noticed is that he took the money little little, not all in one go which would have been easy for him to do. And you wouldn’t have found out for months too.
The best you can do is to make him work to replace the money. It’s a straight forward co sequence of needing to replace money he has used and wasn’t his.

Ive also noticed you sort of pushed/encourage a friendship with another boy. And that that boy was probably hard to deal with. The fact the boy sent 30 texts whilst you were having dinner should have raised alarm bells. This was a great opportunity to teach your ds about boundaries and how to deal with people so controlling (incl stepping away).
id want to know more about what was going on there, incl about understanding if your ds was somehow controlled (as in a controlling ‘friendship’) by the other boy. How to deal with that sort of situation. He might well also need support in establishing friendship if he was happy to ‘settle’ fur a friend like that.

So basically it’s a two prongs approach. He is punished by having to do some work to replace the money he stole. You make that behaviour unacceptable.
And you are sorting out what’s going on behind the behaviour because that’s just as important.

Finally as some PP said, he is still a child. A child that is making silly mistakes. Don’t treat him as an adult that cannot be trusted ever again. That one is on you only to deal with.

I haven’t read the full thread but have read the Op’s posts.

I don’t have much advice I’m afraid, my youngest is 11 and while he doesn’t lie (he’s actually very honest) he has stolen from his siblings. This happened at his dads house where they spend 50% of their time but aren’t patented or supervised while there. He also will try to bribe and blackmail his siblings into giving him money. It’s a trait I absolutely hate and am lost as to how to deal with. If I don’t give him pocket money due to behaviour but give it to his siblings he will either steal it or threaten to tell on his siblings for some minor event. This always happens at dads, when I have them they tell me about it and then I have to try and somehow punish him whilst being fair to the other two. Not giving any of them
pocket money isn’t fair on the other two but if I don’t give him any the other two suffer anyway. I’m completely lost with it. He is under cahms and has been having sessions and is now starting to engage so I hope we can get to the bottom of it. He has had a very difficult childhood.
But I just wanted to say I don’t think you’re a bad mum or not parenting as others have said. I think you sound like a loving dedicated mum who has been hurt by her child’s behaviour. You’re human, we don’t always understand our children behaviour and sometimes they hurt us. I hate to say it but I react like your dp, I hate seeing him so upset by my reaction I tend to minimise how I feel but I know that isn’t helping him so I’m trying to come down harder.

The story about the friend and the money seems plausible. The fact that he burst into tears when you challenged him and he admitted it straight away would tie in with him being pressured and unhappy about it. It would also explain why the 'friend' didn't have any friends before your DS, if he's pulled similar behaviour with others.

Then there's the lies. If you think back, has he always lied or does that tally with this friendship? If it's the latter then hopefully that too will stop. If it's the former then you need to get tough with him. Not just nice chats about how it makes you feel and how you don't like lying, but actual punishment.

The guns and knives I'd say it was a matter of degree. Stereotyping or not, a lot of boys do go through a stage of being interested in them. Is this within normal parameters or more extreme? Either way you need to monitor his use of tech more closely.

Taking your posts overall it sounds like you go for a fairly gentle parenting style. I think it might be time to be tougher on him.

Consequences are better than punishments. He has stolen £400 which needs to be repaid- what does he have that could be sold to go towards that? The PlayStation seems like a good starting point, it helps to give some context to the value of the money he has stolen. If he’s been taking £10 a week he probably doesn’t really understand how much he’s taken- selling the PlayStation and him still probably having a debt to settle will help him to understand that. Since some
of the money was spent on PlayStation related stuff all the better, it’s a much more sensible and tangible reaction.

Same with the gun/knife interest. When someone had a knife he made a bad decision to play with it (which he knew really, that’s why he lied) but he still made that choice. That shows he’s not mature enough to be exposed to content about knives, so he needs parental controls and limits on what he has access to.

Remember, everyone lies (anyone who says they don’t is, well, lying) The lies he has told aren’t nice, but they’re actually completely logical in the sense that he's covering up what he’s done. He’s not lying for the sake of it or for fun, it’s not a sign that there’s something wrong with him, that he’s a psychopath or a future criminal, it’s what most kids his age would do if they wanted to cover for something they’d done wrong. The problem is that once you start lying you need to keep doing it and it can quickly spiral into a situation you didn’t envisage- especially if you are an immature, impulsive child. Once the dust has settled it might be better to talk about what he could do differently in situations where he recognises he has made a bad decision.

This stuff written on here is really a bit alarmist and unhelpful. Changes in the teenage brain explain all his behaviour: immature pre frontal cortex making poor decisions, super-activated reward centre in presence of peers

www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/05/teenage-brain-behaviour-prefrontal-cortex

Yes, his behaviour needs to have negative consequences but he's not the finished article. He needs to understand the corrosive effect that lying, stealing and other breaches of trust have on relationships with others. How all things he's hoping for - trust, respect, freedom - are jeopardised by this behaviour.

My oldest son lied and lied his way through his teens. So much that in the end, the punishments had no meaning. But now at 18, he's someone I can be proud of. Scouts was really good for him - opportunities to use pen knives, build fires etc in a safe environment.

No, dont put your inability to regulate your emotion on him.

It was irresponsible of you to have all that cash in the house in the first place. You are the adult.

I agree especially with first line

Theres no need to be dramatic about how you don’t know him and can’t talk to him etc, you sound like it’s a harsh crime from older dc

He’s young, this is where you help him and parent responsibly so he learns and changes behaviour

If you need it get support so you can help him

Take and sell some of his stuff (the PlayStation?) to recoup the money

OP, why are so reluctant to punishment your son, or so conflicted about it? That's important for you to think about. It's not easy, but it's your job. If there are no consequences to bad (criminal?) behaviour, he's not learning valuable lesson that he needs in life.
I also think, gently, you need to stop making this about you. Withholding cuddles, explaining why you are upset. You are entitled to those feelings, but it's quite unhealthy to put that on him.
You can be compassionate, loving and matter I'd fact at the same time. This should not be about your emotions, but the fact he knows its wrong, ask him what he would suggest as punishment if he was in your daughter's shoes. Kids want boundaries- grounding, restricting social media might be a relief for him.

Attach a worth to each job you assign to him so that he can see the debt go down, otherwise a continuous round of chores with no end point will be pointless and possibly counter productive. I wouldn’t make it last longer than a month or so. It might be worth selling the PlayStation to make a big initial dent in the debt too.

concentrate on victims feelings in general, rather than your own specifically. Ask him how he would feel if people stole from him etc. If someone lied to him, would he b3 able to trust them in future? Then say that you know he’s a lovely boy, that he’s made wrong choices but you trust him to learn from those mistakes and will think about making better choices in the future.

Join scouts or cadets to help him with better friendships.

You have a recent post that suggests you are in a - at minimum - verbally abusive relationship. How long has this been going on?

OP, a previous poster has noted this from your history, is it true? Because it’s pretty important context for your kids behaviour if so.

OP I’ve read some more updates
he sounds pretty troubled right now

and you DO NOT
dont sound like a shit mum so please don’t even bother to defend yourself x

sometimes it’s when there are worse they need the most help . and his friendships sound very challenging 😥

I’m not going to trawl your posts to see if you are in an abusive relationship

I’m two years out of mine and I can categorically say it ducked my elder son up
he’s also autistic

it does mess them , and you don’t see it until afterward IMO

look after yourself

Yeah I hadn't realised until a PP flagged it that OP is unfortunately in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man who says disgusting things, breaks things in anger and apparently only does so with her (not work etc) so is perfectly capable of controlling it when he wants to.

I know OP will say this is all hidden from her kids and they never see it but they're living in a household where abuse is taking place and that causes toxicity and constant low level anxiety for all involved, which I think could at least in part explain some of the behaviours / frustrations / confusion etc that her son is going through at the moment.

What is a draw?
It's called a drawer. Drawer.

I think you need to remember that if you withdraw affection from him, he's not going to feel safe with you. It sounds like there are certain things in his life which have been making him feel unsafe/worried/stressed, including his friendship with this boy, and part of him is probably relieved to have the stealing out in the open because you, the adult, are now in charge of a situation which was spiralling out of control for him.

Tell him you're his parent, you need to keep him safe and you need to be able to trust him. So this is what is going to happen. Then set out the consequences for stealing and screentime limits you're going to impose and what you're planning to do about the toxic friendship. Tell him that he needs to come to you in future if things are going wrong or there are friendship issues he can't handle. Then make it clear to him that, as far as you're concerned, that's the end of the matter, you still love him and you won't mention it again. And that once he's finished his punishment, you will trust him again until he gives you a reason not to, but if it happens again, you will be very disappointed and the consequences will be much worse for him. I agree with not loading your feelings onto him - he needs you to be the adult here and to give him a sense of safety.

Crikey, no need to kick OP when she is down.

What a helpful post.

Life's short, don't be an arsehole when you know exactly what someone meant.

I have a ten year old. I have been mulling over what I would do if he stole that much money from me and I think I would have to call the police. Stealing is stealing and I'd rather he learned sooner than later that there are actual legal consequences to actions.

It's one thing if it was a one off impulse. But this kind of habitual lying and stealing leads nowhere good and I think I'd explain that I didn't trust him he'd broken the law and it was down to the police now. Then call them. He needs to know that there is a line and not only did he cross it, but it's currently so far behind him that your trust is a speck in the rear view mirror.

If he'd stolen this much from a shop the police would be called. Why is stealing from you any better?

Yeah, that's the thing to focus on here. 🙄