1) Last week Ryan comes up and asks me if I have seen his wallet and tells me he lost it, I ask him if it had all his money in it because several days earlier I told him to take some out. He had around $30 and I don't think an 11 yr old needs to have that much money on him, well he didn't take the money out so now it is all missing.
2) On Sunday I washed some of his baseball cards and he got upset and we had a huge conversation about how it is his job to empty his pockets not mine (this will be important when I get to #4)
3) yesterday he comes to me and lets me know that he has now misplaced his brand new Nintendo DS that we bought him for graduation. When I tell him to go look for it he says, "well I would have found it when I looked for my wallet if it was here." Quite frankly I didn't think he looked all too hard for his wallet anyway. Ashlyn keeps lending him all her money so he doesn't care.
4) the topper is today, i am doing laundry and when I take the clothes out of the wash I find his Ipod. I called him at my mother's and he really doesn't seem to care at all. He asked if it still worked and when i said no he was like oh well.
This boy has literally lost everything of any value that he owns in 1 week and he doesn't care even one little bit. I have no idea how to even handle this or know where to begin. His father knows about the wallet but I know when I tell him about the DS & the Ipod he is gonna flip a shit. He really needs to learn a lesson from this but I am at a complete loss, I really just want to strat screaming and yelling. HELP!!
Now that I'm done ranting, I want to wish my niece Amanda a Happy 16th Birthday!! It is so hard for me to believe she is 16 already, I was only 16 when she was born, my how time flies :)
9 comments:
I have this problem with my boys & they are younger than Ryan.
I think first of all I would put a stop to Ashlyn giving him money, it's not fair on her & really it is only teaching him to find someone else to bludge off rather than look for his wallet.
I wouldn't be buying replacement ipods or games for him either.
See if that fixes his ideas about responsibility for his own property. If it doesn't I really don't know because I am quickily getting to this point too.
I remember an episode of the Cosby show where they took away all of Theo's things and he had to buy them back... like even the bed... I'm wondering if that would work...tell him you have to take it all away till you know he can be responsible enough to take care of it...
I love Amy's idea!
You might even find his wallet in the clean out process. ;)
Good luck with whatever you choose to do.
Jenn we had this problem with DS, it must be one of the things they go through. It is reall tough when it happens but we handled it by just not replacing anything he lost and, if he wanted anything of value he had to pay for it himself. All presents were 'sensible' and reasonable in price for a couple of years. Yes he got more presents but if he lost one then it wasn't so hard on us. I agree with Katrina about Ashlyn too, we didn't have that problem!
I wish you luck and I hope he learns his lesson soon.
Lots of great advice here. Sending you lots of hugs!
First of all,
You've been TAGGED! Check out my blog for details.
Second, UGH! That is so hard! Will's DS went through the wash too. We did buy him a new one, but he knows better now and he always keeps track of it.
I like the idea of him "buying stuff back" I certainly wouldn't buy him a replacement for his things, especially since he doesn't seem to care that they are gone.
I hope it gets better.
I just came here to tag you but see Tracy got you first! :D
We've had the same problems with Olivia (age 13)
She was told MANY times NOT to take her PSP into the bathroom with her (b/c of the water) and she did...she dropped it into the tub! Fortunately it started to work again.
We constantly find her new digi camera laying around where it can be broken or lost...she did the same thing with her eye glasses and they eventually did get broken.
She had an "I dont care" attitude as well. Maybe we should take their things away and let them see how that feels...and buying it back sounds like an awesome idea!
Big Hugs to you Jenn.
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