Help with Creative Discipline
I have a problem with my DH's SS14. I have a business where we do remodeling. My DH does the work and on days off from school, SS14 goes with him to help. He doesn't really like it, but we do pay him for his time even though he really doesn't help much. Also, we don't trust him at home by himself (he's stolen money and alcohol, etc.).
On Friday, SS was with DH at a customer's house and this morning I get an email from the customer (WIFE):
"Just thought you should know about something that happened on Friday....When I got home from work, I talked with (DH) for a few minutes and then a young boy came out of the downstairs bathroom.??? I didn't question it, I just assumed it was his son. (DH) continued to work on the kitchen and I went upstairs to do some cleaning. After they left, I went downstairs and (CUSTOMER'S HUSBAND) was home, we checked the kitchen out--looks very nice and then I walked by the downstairs bathroom and noticed something on the floor---it was a piece of toilet tissue with "something" on it, it looked like poop, so I used a paper towel to pick it up and then I looked in the waste basket in the bathroom and there were Q-tips with ear wax. So, I of course yelled at (CUSTOMER'S HUSBAND) for leaving dirty Q-tips in the waste basket. Well, (CUSTOMER'S HUSBAND) did not do that and actually the two of us never use Q-tips for our ears. I opened the bathroom drawer and there were Q-tips, loose in the drawer --so we think it was either (DH) or his son who went through our bathroom drawers. I also have cough drops in the drawer and there was an opened cough drop in the waste basket along with a can of Dr. Pepper with some soda still in the can which of course spilled.
"This makes us both very uncomfortable knowing that someone was going through our drawers, so I thought you should know about this as I said at the beginning."
I AM ABSOLUTELY LIVID. This is my business and my reputation on the line. DH is a subcontractor and the name of his business doesn't get mentioned at all to the clients. For the record, DH is also very angry about this. I can't believe SS would do this. DH and I are at a loss as to how to punish him for this. We've already apologized to the customer profusely, and I don't want to make SS apologize to them because I think the customer would be very uncomfortable in that situation. Obviously SS will not be going to work with DH anymore; we will find some other arrangement for him, but it seems like that is just giving him what he wants.
Does anyone have any ideas on what we can do about this???
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Comments
OMG Using clients stuff,
OMG :jawdrop: Using clients stuff, how did he react when you confronted him about this?
As far as activities- 14...i smell community service. im sure there are plenty of camps thatll have him assist younger children. If you dont think hes up for being reliable enough for a community service project...there are summer camps for teenagers (some through colleges), but youd have to pay for them. Best of luck.
He is 14. I recommend some
He is 14. I recommend some completely unpleasant hard physical labor on your own property. Digging really deep holes then re-filling them, buy a dump truck load of gravel, dirt, sand, etc.... and have him move the pile of gravel from one end of the drive way to the other in 5 galon buckets back and forth for weeks, digging up the yard, sifting the dirt to get all of the rocks, sticks, etc out of it then mixing in 50/50 with sand and replacing the sandy loam mixture back in your yard, re-sodding the yard, etc, etc, etc.....
Manual labor manipulating a few hundred tons of material should get the point across.
This can go on and on and on. Oh ya. And don't pay him a cent. What you and DH have been doing with him to date is to teach him that he gets paid for doing nothing. So, teach him how to work then send him out to do it for someone else's company for pay.
He might learn something through the process.
Or if you really want to piss him off give him a pencil a sharpener and a thousand pages of lined paper to fill with "I will not search through other people’s homes or use their personal property." front and back. Each sentence not completed neatly resets the page count to zero, failure to fill 10 pages per hour (5 pages front and back) resets the page count to zero and any misspellings resets the page count to zero.
If he balks at any of these punishments then DH needs to take him out to the woodshed get his bare ass blistered.
He is 14 not 8. Make the punishment monumental in nature so he never forgets the lesson.
Couldn't agree more with
Couldn't agree more with everyone. Your SS obviously needs to learn how to respect other people and their things, and discipling him with some sort of labor is good. I would also suggest the good 'ol taking away of things - phone, TV, iPod, etc. Teenagers these days think they cannot live without all their technology, so forcing him to give those up for awhile will be harsh. That's what my DH & I would do with his kids when they were that age & it worked wonders.
Has he acted this way in the past? While this may just be a "typical" teenage thing, if it has happened before, or something like it, there may be an underlying issue to his disrepectfulness.
Good luck!
You are missing the point.
You are missing the point. The ss went through the customers draws and used things that DID NOT belong to him and left a nice piece of poop on the floor for the customer to clean up!!!
If you want to stay in
If you want to stay in business find a babysitter for your skid, you obviously can't trust him in your house what makes you thing you can or should trust him in a clients home? He's a law suit waiting to happen and he doesn't want to go so he's doing this so he don't have to. You also don't need the bad reputation for your business. As far as discipline I can't tell you what to do, it all depends if you DH is behind you 100 % or if he's a typical guilty daddy. Show your DH the email you got regarding his precious and check his reaction to see if he even cares if he don't fire DH too.
What BC said. Obviously
What BC said. Obviously cannot trust him. Plus potential legality issues depending on your states child labor laws. If you guys want him to help, help outside of the customers homes. Around the house/garage/shop.
Sign him up for daycare - he
Sign him up for daycare - he wants to act like a little one, he can join them.
**Disclaimer: See previous blogs. Last reative parenting DH & I did is currently costing us $30.00 a week co-pay for therapy.