DS has admitted shoplifting and drinking...

[AnonyName]

...what do I do?

I'm a long time poster, but NC as I'm so ashamed of him and me and my reaction and everything in between. If you recognise me, don't out me please.

He's nearly 15. He doesn't know his father, I have no partner and DS has no real or proper male role model in his life.
He's recently had his year 10 work experience and seemed to benefit from that immensely in terms of growing up although he's always been ahead of his age in maturity.
I allowed him to go away for the weekend camping with my brother (DS usually dislikes his uncle) and his cousins and he apparently had a great time. Good! I'm glad he did.

Last night, a conversation comes about with my DS about me being oppressive and not allowing him to be himself etc (DS was 2 1/2 hours late which wouldn't have been such an issue, but he had his much, much younger (8 years younger) sibling with him) and did not have his phone on him. I was worried.

I often catch him out telling lies, he's rude, has a bad attitude and has no respect for me although some of my friends seem to think he thinks the world of me and respects me greatly. I think it's lip service from him to make himself look good....and it works!

I have found that he's stolen money from me in the past which was over £30 and last night, he decides to tell me that he sometimes steals from a supermarket and that he's been very drunk in the past which resulted in some of his property being stolen. He must have sobered up as I had no inkling.

He does a 'job' for me looking after his sibling before and after school and is paid very well for it really, but he mostly wastes it.

He tells me that he 'wants to find his own way' even if that means getting caught. That I wont allow him to 'find his own way'.

To be frank, I'm absolutely gutted that he's doing these things. I'm ashamed of him stealing and the lies and the couldn't give a crap attitude I get from him.

I thought we had an open and honest with each other relationship and maybe we do as he decided to tell me? but he's also relieved because one of his cousins kept holding this knowledge over him threatening to tell me.

My DS is in a very good school, he's intelligent and articulate. I love him very much and apart from this stuff have been so proud of him and told him so at every 'milestone' and achievement and I've encouraged him all the way to try to get him to focus and learn at school and aim high and try to look at uni. He has few friends at school and is disliked by most of his teachers. His friends are outside of school and apparently range from 13 to 22. I don't know any of them. He wont allow me to know them.

I feel like a dreadful parent. I've screamed and shouted at him because I don't know what to do with him. I've said awful things like I can't wait for him to leave home (which I really don't want) and that if he doesn't like it (whatever it is), he knows where the door is. I don't mean any of it of course and I make sure he knows that, but I still say it. I feel like I've let him down in some way though I also think I've done my best under some difficult circumstances.

I do see my own mother in me and the way I've brought DS up (very strict and until recently a short leash) and I recognise some of DS's feelings as those of my own from the same age. I hate that he feels like this, like I did as a teen, but I don't know how to make it better, I don't know what to do about the stealing.
I'm actually in tears writing all this down and I know I'm going to get some 'Disgusted of Dorking' type posts on here, but actually, I need help, I just don't know where or how. I'm not wealthy at all and have a long term illness which I try not to allow to impact on my children.

Sorry it's so long.

Sorry to hear this. My daughter is 13 and I caught her out for stealing recently. She did it with a friend every day before school. She would not have told me but I found texts about it on her phone. (I have to look at her phone sometimes to check her usage etc, she knows that).
I know she is younger but telling her what happens when you are caught seemed to help. It stays on your record! I did also fess up that I did it too when a teenager.
Not expecting to help really, just letting you know you're not alone!

Thanks curlycatkin
DS knows the consequences of getting caught, but informed me last night that because it is under £5, that he'd 'just' get a ban from the store and no police involvement. I don't know...but he's home, so I'll go for now.

Well, tonight he has said that he has not stolen anything for 2 months. I have asked him not to do it again and he says he'll try not to.

I keep wondering how I've failed. I have never considered stealing; why would he? This is beyond me and I feel really crappy.

'I know I'm going to get some 'Disgusted of Dorking' type posts on here'

Not from me. It is possible to be a very good parent and still have a teenager who goes off the rails at some point.

Yes, I know you are right there Abra1d, but I think it was really thinking that about the way I was shouting at him and how I don't know how to deal with it all. I do feel such a crappy mum right now.

AnonyName, I understand and have experienced that sense of shame - and felt an accompanying grief at the loss of trust and the feeling that 'my baby' was not the person I had thought and hoped he would be...

But stealing is very very commonplace and 'normal'. It is not in itself a sign of moral collapse, honestly... It is (probably) something to do with teens testing their own sense of invulnerability and boundaries. It's 'just' experimenting with their own sense of self - seeing what they can get away with, seeing how it makes them feel... I know this because I am one of the most moral, honest people I know, but aged 9-11 I stole every penny I could get away with from my parents, and aged 13/14 I stole lipstick from Woolies!

You're not a crappy mum. Teenagers don't come with manuals and we all have to make it up as we go along. If/when they throw something like this at you, you can feel totally out of control...

What you need to do is detach. It's not personal, it's biological - part of 'growing up' and growing away. If you can see it like that, from a bit of an emotional distance, you won't be driven to shout...

Have you read this book. I recommend it all the time... I found it really useful for helping me understand how the teenage mind works...

Wow! thank you, thank you, thank you flow4. I have just read the preview to the book you linked to and found so much in just those few pages. I'm grateful for that and off to order it right now!

What you say above ...grief at the loss of trust and the feeling that 'my baby' was not the person I had thought and hoped he would be... hits the spot with me big time. DS did in fact say that to me yesterday that he isn't the person I think he is/was. So true.
Thank you again

the OP is indeed not a crappy mum - as others note, some teens are like this no matter how good the parent.

But stealing is not 'natural and normal' once you are past taking toys from another toddler in the nursery. This toddler teenager needs some consequences. Has it occurred to him why people at school don't like him? Is there any chance he might just accept that it is HIS FAULT and he can do something to change it?

do the police still do a 'scare the shit out of arrogant brat' service? (without actually giving him a record). Is there something that he wants that his behaviour is jeopardising? What happens if his stuff vanishes, does he not care?

good luck. Hope he sorts himself out.

Thanks specialsubject. I think he has been set apart by our/his lack of money during the last 5 or 6 years and been picked on because of it. He's been unable to join in a lot of things since year 7 and that is of course when they make their friendships etc. Most of the peers surrounding him at school have wealthy parents and exclude DS because (we) he does not fall into their bracket.

As far as the teaching staff go, I feel that DS said and did some daft stuff (silly, not serious) in his first year at secondary and has been picked on constantly by his form tutor since then. Every silly thing that occurs it's immediately assumed that DS is involved and this is throughout the school. DS has been seriously assaulted by a boy when they were leaving school, but it was never dealt with properly by the school despite my getting involved and being assured it would be. DS clapped a boy on the back when he saw him in town one Saturday morning and the mother of the boy reported DS to the police for assault. Eventually the police dropped it as a silly event and I got the police to give DS the 'scare the shit out of arrogant brat' service just to give him the general idea that it wasn't a game. I did that because I did n ot want DS to think that he was/could get away with things like this. DS is a pacifist, he's not a brawler at all.
DS has tried to change his attitude in school, but for example, if someone in DS's direction whispers in class, DS gets the blame.
DS never wants me to get involved with any of this because 'it'll just make things worse for him' but he hates school because of all this kind of thing.

When stuff goes missing from him, DS is distraught because he has to buy these things himself. The item that was stolen from him in my original post, was paid for by saving all his Christmas money, so basically, he had nothing but a few bits for Christmas because what he really wanted was taken (it was returned because DS got a PCSO involved a couple of weeks later, but it was, by then broken) and this kind of thing just floors him and his confidence both in himself and others.
He doesn't have the latest gadgets; he has an old laptop, a mobile and contract which he has to pay for himself and it's imperative that he has a mobile due to his escorting his sibling to school and collecting-people need to be able to contact him. He has not much else in all honesty and certainly nothing to be taken away.