How would you punish your 15 year old son for skipping school and the same day caught shoplifting?
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at
3:34 am
During school hours,and was in a convenient store and caught trying to steal a bunch of magazines, on line pharmacy cops were called but the owner gave him a warning and did not press charges. How would you react, what punishment would you use?
First of all, don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Once you slip into freak out mode a child will begin to discredit everything you are saying and just become angry himself. Disappointment is the best tool, but also communication. Sit your son down and talk about the motives behind his actions. Kids aren’t stupid they can be reasonable. Next take away privileges. Instead of him hanging out with his friends, your son needs to come straight home and do his homework. When he is done with that maybe a family game night is in order. This gives you a chance to reconnect with him. Make sure you also monitor him for the next few weeks, do whatever you can to make sure he is going to school.
pain is a good teacher. i’m gonna whip him.
I would put him in jail a day or too.
That’s a tough one, because he probbly won’t listen to you anyway. Just swat the crap out of him and threaten to do it twice as badly next time.
Hard one… You don’t want him to hate you too much… soooo talk to him and tell him grounded for a wee bit and tell him if it happens again it will be waaaay longer. Hope this helps
- ground him and take away any privileges eg. phone, tv, going down town etc.
- do some jobs around the house
- spend most of time on school work
Make him do choirs around the house.
come supper time, tell him you were supposed to make dinner but you decided to skip it. then steal something from him.
Ground him until he is 16 then kick him out
wow! am sorry for this happening in one day! kids can be hard work. i suggest ground him for 6 months. take away his most prized pocession. then maybe get him to do house chores. all that you can think of. and he should be in bed by 8 or 7 pm. no allowance. and get him a part time job somwhere. or he should get one. i hope this has helped you. and please talk to him and tell him how you feel.. lol
wow. one time i read in a news paper that this girl got caught stealing and her parents made her stay out the store and hold a sign that said "i got caught stealing" it really embarrassed her and she probably wont be doing that again
. ohh my cousin stole once and my aunt took him to the police department not to get him introuble but she had the cops scare the crap out of him. [ i don't know what they did. probably talked to him and showed him real stuff like pictures or videos]….and her other son got caught stealing and they put him in jail, he was only 15 and now he is really straightened up.
he probably wont care if you take his things away or ground him that wouldnt really teach him anything.
5 months of grounding (come straight home from school and have no contact with outside world including tv computer phone video games) and daily chores with a threat of double the next time
I think the best punishment I remember any of my friends getting was that his parents took away all of his clothes save for what he had on so he had to wear the same thing for two weeks straight.
You can ground someone, but they’ll probably sneak out anyways. If you smack a kid around, they either won’t care or will rebel even more. The thing that hits home is when you spank their social interactions.
I would react seriously: Removal of privileges such as computer games, mobile, hanging with friends (his likes)
I would request he addresses and delivers (U must go with him) a Formal letter of apology to the owner who was nice.
Make him write and research an essay on the punishments/legal sentences of shoplifting. 750 words
i would talk to him and listen to him
First of all, never hit a child. There has already been research that hitting a child is not good for their well-being and may make them not do it again but in the long run it will Mentally and emotionally scar them. Your children will also not respect you as much. Grounding a 15-year-old boy will not teach him too much. Instead have him do chores but pay him when he does chores. It doesn’t have to be much it could be like 50 cents or a dollar per day. then he will learn the value of money and why stealing doesn’t feel as good as purchasing items with his own hard-earned money. He will able to tell his friends that he bought items himself which will make him feel better about himself ( because boys that age like bragging rights) and in the end he will become hard working.
make them do 150 hours of community service
some kids get that as a punishment for stealing
and itll look good for college
2 birds 1 stone
Don’t ground him, that won’t work — trust me, I am a teenager. I have not done anything of the sort, but taking things away from me does nothing but make me more lonely (like taking away computer, phone, and friends). Plus, he might be the kind of guy who sneaks out anyways. So make him do things for you. Make him do simple things like emptying the dishwasher and clearing the table, but make him do the harder things, too, like mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage, etc. Also, sit down and do his homework with him. Make the cleaning his stealing punishment and the doing his homework with him the skipping punishment. Tell him you will stop doing his homework with him once his grades improve and his report card shows less absences, and you will slow down on making him do chores after a month or two, but if he ever gets caught trying to steal again, then you will make him get a job and pay for a portion of the rent (a small one, though… Don’t be TOO harsh…)
I dunno, ignore or moderate my ideas. I’m just saying what comes to mind.
Tell him as it’s the first time he has done this you are going to let him off lightly, spank him firmly over a chair or your knee and tell him if it happens again you will spank harder.
I got caught shoplifting and wagging school when I was in my early teens and at boarding school. The headmaster made me ring my parents and tell them, and that was shameful enough. But then, a couple of days later, my brother told me that it made my father cry. I had never known him to cry. It filled me with so much shame and devastation that I never stole again.
But why did I steal and wag school? I wanted to hit out at the adults at the boarding school that I perceived were treating me unfairly. I couldn’t yell/swear at them, I couldn’t spank them, I couldn’t ground them, I couldn’t get them to listen to me, I couldn’t get them to respect me, and I couldn’t get them to protect me or care about me.
The town where the boarding school was located was freezing cold in winter. Our uniforms were totally inadequate. They made us stand outside in the freezing cold until we were numb before they would open the doors to the eating hall in the mornings. No doubt due partly to this I was ill many times with bronchitis, colds etc. So I missed a lot of school. I was left alone and sick in the boarding house with no-one to care for me or reassure me for the entire school day, except for lunch being dropped on the end of my bed. When I got back to school some of the teachers would insist that I sit tests on lessons which I had not done because I was away ill. Some of the teachers would humiliate me in front of the class when I questioned this. Our math teacher taught us algebra the entire year – no geometry – and then when it came time for exams half the exam paper was on geometry. Everyone in my class failed – no one questioned it. The prefects (two years older than me) were allowed to punish and humiliate us in the boarding house. The list goes on and on and on and on…
And when I tried to stand up for myself by going to an adult in a position of authority I discovered that no-one cared enough to listen, and they criticized me for complaining. And that made me very, very mad. So, because I was a child and had no way of gaining any power or control over what they were doing to me, the only avenue left to me was open rebellion.
So I wagged school and shoplifted little things. Symbolically, it was my way of saying "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth".
I beg you to at least try to help him right any injustices in his life, if there are any. This, in the strangest way, may be your child calling out for help.
A good spanking on his bare and when the school is on holiday, take away ALL his clothes so he has to stay naked at home, that should dissuade him from going out shoplifting!
Let him sit in jail and not bail him out.
This is very serious. I would ground him for 5 months. 2 for skipping school and 3 for shoplifting. No phone, no friends, no computer, and no extra-curricular activities. The first 2 months he would be confined to his room except for using the restroom and for meals. The last 3 months he would be given daily punishment chores.
Cool owner, he rather let the parents kick the kids ass ha ha.
(Sounds like me at that age), i am 16 now, but a lot more calm. I got straight B’s and A’s!
Be patient, and as hard as it sounds try not to be a "helicopter" parent, like watching him 24/7 because it will drive him crazy (like my parents did to me) and he will find a way to cause mischief. Try talking with him and saying that if he continues like this, he will be like those old guys with tattoos that are homeless and are on the show "Cops".
Umm.. if he is those teenagers with all kinds of electronics, like a phone, mp3/Ipod, laptop… take those away for a while. Don’t let him go out with friends for a few days/weeks and don’t let him go on MySpace, Face book, whatever chat thing he has. Making him do hard things around the house is good too, like helping you move things, clean the garage, mow the lawn, things like that.
Press charges yourself.
Edit: He’s to old to spank, but I really like the letter of apology idea !