I was in the same boat which is why I have the same problem with too many belongings. I enjoy having a lot of everything. Five complete sets of china, 50 pairs of shoes, even buying 4 things of peanut butter when I only need one and keeping an entire closet full of toilet tissue.
I think that deep down I didn’t want my children to feel as resentful as I did and in turn, ended up going to the opposite extreme.
Oh, yes. Now that I’ve read the continuing story, he knew exactly how wrong it was AND PLANNED IT WITH A FRIEND.
Foxy40, you have to do something direct and now.
Otherwise, nothing you have will ever be safe.
In other words, if you press charges, he loses his trust - unless he can stay on track to graduate while fighting felony charges. If anyone else presses charges for this sort of behavior, he’d lose his trust.
Have the trustee explain that. If its between his grandparents and the trustee, ask his grandparents to have the trustee explain that. But it should be the trustee that does the explaining. I’m guessing that the trust is one that once put into trust, the grandparents have no control over. They can’t wimp out and change the terms - the trustee has to follow through with the terms of the trust.
I’m sorry, Foxy40. Your friend may know you and your son better than we do, but he is not a brat. A brat takes $20 out of his mom’s purse to go to the movies. Someone who engages on a systematic, planned, hidden course of action - including intercepting and hiding the credit card bills - is a thief.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the chances are very good it’s a duck. You can call it a pony if you like - it still quacks.
I think you are going to have a hard time changing your son’s behavior unless you come to terms with what that behavior is. Dear, this is way beyond bratty - you haven’t told us the total of his little spree but I get the impression that he blew quite a bit of money. This probably could have bankrupted some families. The fact that your son is getting an “attitude” with you shows that he is not remorseful about stealing from you - he’s just resentful that he got caught and that you are semi-punishing him for his thieving behavior.
I hope some kind of repayment schedule has been drawn up. I hope he is working. If he is not, he needs to be out of your house. He has no respect for you, and by letting him get away with this you are teaching your daughter that you are a doormat.
So your kid went into your purse, took a credit card of yours and used it to rack up purchases. He then hid the purchases from you.
When he maxed out one credit card he’d move on to another one, often times going to old and/or “abandoned” cards he knew you had to help avoid detection.
He then hid the credit card bills from you to not only ensure you didn’t see them, but also to guarantee you’d be late on payments to multiple card companies racking up hundreds of dollars in fees.
When you discovered the credit cards, he moved onto checks. He’d take checks from your checkbook out of order to avoid or postpone discovery. When you finally did discover this new scheme, he became bold enough to steal entire checkbooks so that you wouldn’t find missing checks.
He did all this repeatedly, over several months, and with the help of a friend and to the tune of several thousands of dollars.
I’m not going to say any more. No advice. No suggestions. I’m stopping right here and asking Roxy to read through this and tell me if this is an accurate retelling of the facts.
Foxy, sorry.
I think I’m going to have to walk away from this thread - either Foxy is trolling us, or we’ll be hearing about her son on the news in a few years. Either way, I’m disgusted by the whole thing.
I have to admit, the 5 sets of china kind of did me in. Not sure there’s anything left to say.
A classic line from The Cosby Show. I love it. Certainly put Vanessa in her place, didn’t it?
My take-away is simply a reminder that just because people ask for advice or feed-back, that doesn’t mean they’ll do anything constructive with it.
It was Theo, talking about how he didn’t have to do good in school because “We have money.” “My Wife & Kids” made the same speech to Claire.
When someone asks for advice and then says “Yeah, but” to all the advice you give them, they are not looking to take your advice.
The tale he told Vanessa was just as apropos.
It was about a wonderful meal - a fine cut of steak cooked just so. Potato brimming with fresh creamy butter. Crispy greens. Everything prepared to perfection.
Served on a garbage lid.
Plenty of the people who wind up in prison have college degrees and money.
Yeah, gah. My eyeballs get a headache every time I drop in here. I’m right behind you.
I’m sorry you have to go through this, my sister has put my family through some pretty horrible stuff. Your son is a thief, you need to kick him out and you need to do it now. Nothing good will come of him continuing to live with you.
A little anecdote:
When my uncle was 14 he left my grandfather a note saying that he had gone to Florida and would be back in two weeks. My grandfather took his bed outside into the yard and put all his belongings on the bed and set it on fire. When my Uncle came back home he asked where all his stuff went. My Grandfather said “Stuff? You don’t have anymore stuff.”
I am in no way defending his behavior. However, in the little shits mind, I really think he sees the money that he took in the same way you see the twenty bucks taken out for the movies. THAT is what I created.
Close but no. All these things were discovered essentially at once. He wasn’t caught with one thing and moved onto the next. When the card didn’t work, he took a check. When the check book was empty, he took the next pack so when I went to put the next pack in, it was missing and I reported it as such. It all hit the fan at once after the phone call from American Express. It took about six weeks for him to burn through $2500 or so about two weeks after that for me to find out.
I have been cordial to you and your snide remarks so I agree, walk away from the thread. You have nothing of any substance to offer.
It sounds to me like since this was a “plot” to intentionally steal from you and his buddy to steal from his parents I am not convinced this was a adult behaving like a brat. This was plain out theft. And whether he thought that mommy would just stomp her feet and scream about it is beside the point. It was a deliberate act.
Exactly. Now my kids would never say that because there is never extra money but other than their basic needs I have taught both of my kids that they have to earn money to be able to buy things they can call their own.
Every time they would fight over the couch, chair, computer, TV, VCR, DVD etc… I reminded them the items were mine not theirs and if they could not come up with a compromise on their own then they would lose the privilege of using my items. I not only said this but I followed through. It may seem harsh but it was effective.
My son is almost nineteen, in 18 days in fact, and he has moved out and is working a full time job. He would never ever think of stealing from me and the most he has asked to borrow since he moved out seven months ago was $40 which he paid back promptly.
I would respectfully request the mods close this thread now. I think I have vented sufficiently and have been fortunate enough to receive some very good insight, advice, recommendations and useful similar stories. I do so sincerely appreciate the help. Thank you to everyone that contributed with something useful; negative or not. For those who offered nothing but snarky remarks, …yawn…your redundancy was very boring.
I never had children, but one truth I have installed in many a child (to the astonishment and relief of many a parent) is that people are more important than things. The minute they start fighting, I let them know “You’ll have thousands of whatever in your life. You’ll only have one whoever.” If they kept fighting, I took the item away. “I can’t stand this fighting. WHen you can play with it nicely, let me know.”
Any person who considers possessions more important than people is showing signs of sociopathology.