Kids that don't care

Son is 12 years old. Got him an iPad for his birthday. 3 weeks later he smashes the screen and doesn’t give a s@@t.

Don’t want him to be too material, but he needs to understand the value of stuff.

Lost my head with him, screamed a bit, then sent to bed early (him, not me). Over reaction ?

Last weekend he had burnt through all his money and needed funds to play tennis with his mates. I offered him £5 to wash the car, apparently not enough and he preferred to sit in his room.

Options:

A) continue with the bad atmosphere in the house, but make him realise that he needs to look after stuff and understand the effort required to earn a pound

B) life is too short. Give him a cuddle and move on …

Right now it’s is A….

Over reaction?

Are you mad?

He’d be washing my car for a year to pay for the ipad

Most definitely A

An ipad is an expensive luxury. He can’t think treating an expensive gift like that is ok

I’m annoyed just thinking about it 😀

A.
If my daughter had done something similar to her tablet I wouldn’t be in a hurry to repair or replace it, nor would I let her access the internet with any other device.

Presumably the iPad was his not one you bought and were letting him use? Secondly, kids don’t always know that age how to react or necessarily display their true feelings.

Did he want an ipad? Or did you just get him one? My kids 24, 22, 18, 17 have never been given computers, iPads, cars or owt expensive – we have all these things in the house but they are “tools” to be used/shared and not status symbols.

The generation behind me seems to delight in showering their kids with materialistic sh**te – this is creating a generation of lazy brats and when I try and recruit graduates for my business they can not be arsed to spell check a CV or background check my business or the job role.

Bit of a mix of A & B. Life is too short, give him cuddle and move on but don’t buy him any more expensive stuff in future. I’d take the approach that the iPad was his to do with as he pleases, given that he’s smashed the screen he’s just deprived himself of a working iPad and he’s not getting another or having that one fixed for him.

If he wants to earn some pocket money to get the screen replaced, or to play tennis or whatever then there’s a list of jobs he can do to earn that money at which point he can spend it on whatever he likes. If he doesn’t want to earn the money then he’s welcome to sit in his room and mope.

Basically let him make the choices but continue to offer the carrot of earning some extra cash for odd jobs.

Son (11 years old) currently ahs his Ipad confiscated and is on a screen ban (other than when we are all watching TV) so no computeres for him. It was a months screen ban due to a bout of particularly bad behaviour. He has rediscovered his lego and has started reading and doing crosswords.

He is still being a pain in the ass though.

has started reading and doing crosswords.

He is still being a pain in the ass though.

Yeah, but at least he can express the myriad of ways in which you are ruining his life with a more varied vocabulary.

Did he have it in the middle of the windscreen?

I’m wondering, did he “smash it” or did it get broken by accident? And by excess carelessness, or by reasonable stuff/bad luck? All pretty different. Stuff does break and a delicate expensive gift for a 12 year old always has a risk, we all broke toys. If he was clamouring for a replacement I’d throw him in the cellar but it’s his toy, his loss and he’s reacted his way… Would you be happier if he was distraught, or demanding a replacement? There’s a whole extended background here mind, did he nag for it for months then instantly lose interest, all that sort of thing…

But at the end of the day- if he can break it and not be too bothered, possibly he wasn’t that into it. You can give people gifts but you can’t make them love them. (question for you- is that possibly the issue? Not the breaking, but the lack of appreciation for what you thought was a kickass gift?)

“Last weekend he had burnt through all his money and needed funds to play tennis with his mates. I offered him £5 to wash the car, apparently not enough and he preferred to sit in his room.”

Honestly, is this even a thing? You gave him a choice and he didn’t take it. What’s the loss- are you bothered that he didn’t want to work? Just means he wasn’t that bothered about playing tennis. Or are you bothered that he sat in his room instead of playing tennis?

Personally I think the combination of unfettered easy access to ipads, the drug dealer style pushing of the frankly banal content (Candy Crush Farmville etc) and unformed minds has become a curse and corrosive to family life, often seen as a right not the privilege it should be.

Parents kid themselves that homework is being done on them (some are quietly happy with the pacification) when in fact there just a portal to more on-demand TV/video/games, extremely addictive social media, which IME can be all consuming! Next thing you know no one leaves the house and you all sit in separate rooms (sometimes the same room) with a glowing screen under your nose, living your lives online instead of in the real world, just existing to go to work/school in between.

I’ve seen the fallout from it too many times, with teenagers you have to have a war with just to get them to take part in any other part of life thats not delivered via a phone or tablet. Fights involving social services (not my family) erupting over phones and social media access, suicide groups and all sorts of unhinged shit.

There are of course positive aspects but the easy self-obsessed sedentary lifestyle pushed, seems irresistible to most people, especially the young easily influenced.

If you spoil your kids they generally behave this way, easy come easy go

draw up a list of tasks with monetary value attached

wash car 5
do dishes 2
and so on.

up until a healthy weekly total (say 25 quid)

this then becomes his ONLY source of money.

he wants to do stuff, he earns it.

he wants the screen repaired, he pays 50%.

My auntie and uncle are going through hell with my cousin atm after gifting him a life where losing an iPad was met with an instant replacement with few questions asked.

They do not give a shit about the value of anything, I suggest you do whatever necessary to avoid such horrible children.

At mt son’s school, amongst the kids from richer families it seems to be normal for a phone or device to get broken when it is no longer the newest technology around.

Northwind nailed it.

There are many pressures on kids to conform these days and the commercial world we live in does not help either. But IMO the lesson here is not how you react its how you teach, he has to learn that he cannot simply get everything he wants when he wants it!

This is a good opportunity to teach him about the value of money and that it always has to be earned.

He broke the ipad, it is for him to save up and fix it. In the meantime restrict access to the internet to what he needs for school. Make him come up with an offer of what jobs he can do each week around the house/garden and agree a price for them. If the job is done satisfactorily each week then he gets paid, if not, obviously he doesn’t.

As for “accidentally” breaking things, if you value something for the work that it took to buy it then you are naturally careful. As an example:

At the same age as your son I *really* wanted a Canon T70. I poured over adverts and managed to get one as cheap as possible. I combined Christmas money and took a loan from my mum. I worked every weekend, paying off that week’s money before anything else. It took me 6 months to pay off what I owed. Now, 30 years later, that camera is on loan to a friend who uses it regularly. It is still in perfect condition because I understand EXACTLY what it cost to earn it.

Some good stuff to think on. Going to try the following.

1) List of jobs versus pay. His choice if he does them. His choice what he uses the money for.
2) Screen replacement kit from eBay. £9.99 – he pays for it (if he wants it fixed) and we do it together.
3) Screen / device curfew. Recognising the start of sitting in separate rooms, all browsing our little patches of interest. Need to nip this in the bud.
4) Take him and his brother camping today, with a box of matches being the most technology allowed. Life is too short.

Cheers. Feel oddly calmer now, and the need to shout has leaked away.

I think he can be rescued from the spoilt brat path.

2) Screen replacement kit from eBay. £9.99 – he pays for it (if he wants it fixed) and we do it together.

that’s what we did with a broken iPod screen. Disaster-> great fun and learning

Good skills mountainlight 🙂

I offered him £5 to wash the car, apparently not enough and he preferred to sit in his room.

He’s learned the value of haggling, at least. Wait till he’s absolutely broke and coming back cap in hand, and then tell him he can wash the car for £4.

Aged 12? On the cusp of puberty then so you’ve not too much to worry about, it’s just a phase, he’ll grow out of it in about ten years.

Parents kid themselves that homework is being done on them

That’s hardly a trait of the iPad generation though. I was “doing my homework” on a ZX Spectrum in 1983.

4) Take him and his brother camping today, with a box of matches being the most technology allowed. Life is too short.

I await the follow-up “son burnt the tent down and doesn’t care, what to do?” thread with interest. (-:

In honesty, I think that’s the best course of action. The only problem I can see is it might be construed as rewarding good behaviour.

Back to basics sounds like a good approach and a defined source of income sounds good. Life can be hard and often doesn’t go the way we’d like it to, it’s best if that lesson is learned young.

I think the materialism is already there. the problem really is more to do with why he thinks sitting in his room is better than making a £5 from washing the car to pay for tennis he wants to do. The reliance of the lender of last resort has already set in and someone will bail him out.

See this at school a lot. Kids with lots of stuff tend to treat it with little respect. Parents will buy them anything, and replace it when broken, so the kids just assume they can break it and there are no consequences. Social class or wages earnt seem to make little difference, as there are kids from poorer families who get given everything (probably bought on finance) who treat their stuff with as little respect as those from more well off families.

I stopped 2 girls playing catch with an iPhone the other day. The response – ‘Doesn’t matter sir, my mum will buy me a new one if I break it.’

Teach him the value of things – no more free stuff, and limit his pocket money. If he wants to sit in his room then so be it. He will eventually get bored and venture out. Or not, but he might learn a lesson.

It’s his kit, once broken it’s his problem.

Incidentally, that ‘washing the car’ route may need supervision. I remember two early teens cleaning the windows with scratchy muddy sponges after having done the wheels and arches.

I’d kick my son’s butt.

Or ground him and make him do chores if he randomly smashed it.

I’d also find out why he did it in case he was having problems with anything.

Christ an iPad for his birthday?! I always thought my parents were generous but there’s no way on earth id of gotten something as expensive as an iPad for my birthday. He burnt through all his money, tough luck on the tennis game then surely he’ll have to learn to budget if he wants to play tennis in future rather than you offer him a get out of jail chore. Otherwise surely you’re just portraying that when he’s older and has no money a job will simply present itself rather than him having to achieve it? Just my thoughts.

Christ an iPad for his birthday?! I always thought my parents were generous but there’s no way on earth id of gotten something as expensive as an iPad for my birthday.

Did you only get an Orange for Christmas too?

mountainlight….My lads the same age and similar! Im sure your boy is a great, thoughtful kid that’s already realised his mistake and learning from it.

Great ideas with your son.

We were all young and carefree once. 🙂

@ b r

Not everyone can/could afford to give their kids such expensive (and apparently disposable) presents for birthdays.

Christ an iPad for his birthday?! I always thought my parents were generous but there’s no way on earth id of gotten something as expensive as an iPad for my birthday.

Mini Cooper has an iPad, she’s had it for a couple of years (she’s 5 now) – not sure I’d agree that it’s completely an extravagant thing, as she’s used it a lot for educational games, and is now obsessed with nature documentaries on iPlayer. We have a rule that books aren’t presents, they’re educational, and this falls into the same category. Besides, it’s my old iPad 1 I stopped using when I got a 3rd Gen one 😉

Did you only get an Orange for Christmas too?

Flash b*stard I only got the leftover peel, joys of being youngest:-(

The reliance of the lender of last resort has already set in and someone will bail him out.

Your son is Greek?

Lost my head with him, screamed a bit, then sent to bed early (him, not me). Over reaction ?

Nope. As a kid we got the rotan/rattan cane when we broke expensive things.

Last weekend he had burnt through all his money and needed funds to play tennis with his mates. I offered him £5 to wash the car, apparently not enough and he preferred to sit in his room.

We don’t bribe them to do chore. It is their duty.

Ans: A.

You need to put kids in their place. The are very low in the pecking order in the family. Simple.

Lost my head with him, screamed a bit, then sent to bed early (

Must be frustrating when you have a tantrum while your kid sits there impassively.

TBH if you gave a 12-year-old an ipad, you have to accept that 12-year-olds break stuff. It’s a bit odd that he’s not that bothered about it, but that’s fine, don’t fix it, and when Christmas comes around, don’t provide him with any other electronics to destroy.

Your son is Greek?
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<checks whether OP is MrNutt>

There’s some good stuff on here, Chewkw is spot on among others.

It boils down to the fact that quite often, kids know the cost of everything but the value of very little.

You need to put kids in their place. The are very low in the pecking order in the family. Simple.

Are you Mowgli?

A pecking order in a family how very odd.