18 year old son stole from friends- now what?

[Eleanor61]

Our 18 year old son has always had a tendency to make light of our values. He is indifferent to religion, anti-intellectual, a skillful liar, materialistic, uncommunicative, and prone to jealousy, although raised in a household where absolute honesty and openess, anti- materialism, generosity, and intellectual pursuits were all taken for granted. I am not saying that we are perfect. Our complete openess and sharing of possessions did reveal some pretty serious problems a few years ago, and we have often failed in the more perfect practice of the faith, but we have provided a safe, wholesome environment with two very dedicated parents and a comfortable, not luxurious, standard of living. He is the fourth child, third son of five children in our family. He and his younger brother were adopted as infants, so there have not been other influences in his life.

While visiting friends ( a close friend of his, but also a family that we know well) he stole $85 from the Mother’s purse. He then pm’ed his friend on Facebook basically justifying what he did by ranting about how wealthy they are and how they think they are better than everyone else and specifically slandering their father. Almost everything in this was an outright lie or gross exaggeration. The father had one time said some unkind and untrue things about my husband and son, but this was years ago and my son continued to exploit their hospitality whenever he could although we had asked him at that time to limit the association.

The primary problem here is the theft, of course, but it also represents, jealousy, greed, materialism, dishonesty, and a willingness to use people that frankly disgusts me, I have Aspergers syndrome, and do not handle dishonesty well at all. My husband is handling this, I cannot bring myself to talk to my son, and that will probably be the case for quite a while, if you are familiar with Aspergers you will understand why this is.
Our son will be 19 this summer. He has completed his first year of college, with a lot of help from us as he lacks motivation and dedication although he understands the monetary value of a college degree for his future. We are paying for college. We provide him with a car, a tank of gas each week, and some lunch money. He is responsible for buying his books, clothes, and entertainment, and is supposed to be paying us for part of his iPhone. He is also supposed to be saving for a new car as his is 14 years old and will fail inspection in a year. This was our arrangement with all of our other children although they had scholarships and costs have more than doubled since they graduated, in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

I am looking for advice for my husband. He has a good relationship with this child, has put more time into him, his sports teams and helping with his schoolwork , than with any of our other children. Our older boys have often resented this as they did not get this kind of attention from their father. Please, if anyone has been through a similar situation with a child who is legally an adult, in your home and receiving considerable financial support from you but has completely rejected your values and is creating problems in a somewhat closed circles of friends and acquaintances I would welcome your advice.

He will obviously pay the money back and will issue several apologies in writing to the parties involved. We are revoking or limiting car and cell phone privileges, but it is the daily living with someone who rejects, in a quiet yet definitive way, everything that you value in life that is getting to me. We feel strongly that we are responsible to see that he gets through school, but we cannot afford to send him away to school, and if we could he would probably fail out. He is simply obsessed with jealousy and materialism.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Has he ever had any counseling? Been evaluated for mental illness? A person who would steal from the family of a friend, and then have the temerity to brag about that in public, has problems, but you already know that.

I would let your husband handle this for now. Whatever he decides to do, support him. If he decides that your son needs to leave your house, support him. Unless, that is, your husband decides to coddle your son and “love him out of this.” Then, I’m afraid you may have to take the “tough love” stance.

I have little advice except to pray. Go up to the top of this forum and you will see a thread to St. Monica, which is for our wayward sons and husbands. It really helps!

 

[Allegra]

I think the consequences are appropriate and I agree that you might ecourage him to seek counseling. What you are descibing seems like antisocial behavior and could be a sign of a serious issue. 18 is a funny age for boys especially because they are legally adults but quite often they are emotionally still very imature. A good therapist might be able to evaluate if your son needs further treatment or whether this is just an a really unfortunate, but isolated incident of acting out.

 

[Eleanor61]

Thank you both for your responses. I do think counseling is in order, as there are a number of warning signs here. My husband worries that he will lie to the counselor, he is a very plausible liar, but I still think it is a good idea.

I do not think he will coddle him, but we are both afraid of the tough love stance backfiring.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Thank you both for your responses. I do think counseling is in order, as there are a number of warning signs here. My husband worries that he will lie to the counselor, he is a very plausible liar, but I still think it is a good idea.

The counselor will likely know when he is lying or trying to manipulate. They are trained to get to the bottom of that kind of thing. You have to get a counselor/psychologist who works with antisocial behaviors. It’s no guarantee - he could have a lack of conscience. That’s hard to fix.

 

[EasterJoy]

Read “The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout. My take on the book is not that it matters whether or not 1 in every 20 Americans really lacks a social conscience. My take on the book is that it teaches a person with a conscience how to think about a person who doesn’t have one or who chooses not to use the one they have.

Your son is not entitled to have you pay for his education, not unless he does his part. If you get him counseling, make sure you find someone who has experience with manipulative personalities. I would suggest that the family might benefit the most if you and your husband were to be the ones who got counseling. You are more likely to make use of it than your son is.

Unfortunately, if you son literally is a sociopath who elects not to use his intellect to impress a moral conscience on himself, his chances of conversion are not good. I hope for your sake that this is a phase he is going through, perhaps as a result of an addiction you do not know about, and not a permanent feature of his personality. Yes, an entrenched sociopathic personality is that bad: it would be better to be an addict.

 

[JackieMom]

I don’t have much advice, except for not to let this slide or explain it away as “not a huge deal.” Your son is very lucky that the woman from who he stole did not call the police and have your son arrested. I am not sure if that would have taught him a lesson, but it’s probably what I would have done had a grown man taken money from my purse.

I would be very reluctant to provide this adult child with any financial support or allow him to live in your home unless he followed your household rules, was respected you and your husband as the homeowners and authroity figures, showed appreciation for your continued financial support, and onviously did not commit crimes outside the home! My parents poo-pooed my brother’s inappropriate behavior for years with excuses… “He’s immature” “That’s how boys are” “He’ll outgrow it” “If we throw him out, he’ll get worse” “We’ll bail him out one last time” “He seems sorry!” Well, needless to say he’s now 25 and still living at home in a pigsty of a room, unemployed and miserable.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Our 18 year old son has always had a tendency to make light of our values. He is indifferent to religion, anti-intellectual, a skillful liar, materialistic, uncommunicative, and prone to jealousy, although raised in a household where absolute honesty and openess, anti- materialism, generosity, and intellectual pursuits were all taken for granted. I am not saying that we are perfect. Our complete openess and sharing of possessions did reveal some pretty serious problems a few years ago, and we have often failed in the more perfect practice of the faith, but we have provided a safe, wholesome environment with two very dedicated parents and a comfortable, not luxurious, standard of living. He is the fourth child, third son of five children in our family. He and his younger brother were adopted as infants, so there have not been other influences in his life.

While visiting friends ( a close friend of his, but also a family that we know well) he stole $85 from the Mother’s purse. He then pm’ed his friend on Facebook basically justifying what he did by ranting about how wealthy they are and how they think they are better than everyone else and specifically slandering their father. Almost everything in this was an outright lie or gross exaggeration. The father had one time said some unkind and untrue things about my husband and son, but this was years ago and my son continued to exploit their hospitality whenever he could although we had asked him at that time to limit the association.

The primary problem here is the theft, of course, but it also represents, jealousy, greed, materialism, dishonesty, and a willingness to use people that frankly disgusts me, I have Aspergers syndrome, and do not handle dishonesty well at all. My husband is handling this, I cannot bring myself to talk to my son, and that will probably be the case for quite a while, if you are familiar with Aspergers you will understand why this is.
Our son will be 19 this summer. He has completed his first year of college, with a lot of help from us as he lacks motivation and dedication although he understands the monetary value of a college degree for his future. We are paying for college. We provide him with a car, a tank of gas each week, and some lunch money. He is responsible for buying his books, clothes, and entertainment, and is supposed to be paying us for part of his iPhone. He is also supposed to be saving for a new car as his is 14 years old and will fail inspection in a year. This was our arrangement with all of our other children although they had scholarships and costs have more than doubled since they graduated, in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

I am looking for advice for my husband. He has a good relationship with this child, has put more time into him, his sports teams and helping with his schoolwork , than with any of our other children. Our older boys have often resented this as they did not get this kind of attention from their father. Please, if anyone has been through a similar situation with a child who is legally an adult, in your home and receiving considerable financial support from you but has completely rejected your values and is creating problems in a somewhat closed circles of friends and acquaintances I would welcome your advice.

He will obviously pay the money back and will issue several apologies in writing to the parties involved. We are revoking or limiting car and cell phone privileges, but it is the daily living with someone who rejects, in a quiet yet definitive way, everything that you value in life that is getting to me. We feel strongly that we are responsible to see that he gets through school, but we cannot afford to send him away to school, and if we could he would probably fail out. He is simply obsessed with jealousy and materialism.

I hope this does not come across as cold hearted, but when are you going to stop babying your 18 year old??

He is an adult and if he does not want to follow your rules and live up to the standards you set for him, then he needs to go and live on his own. It is not loving him to enable him to be a loafer all his life.

I am not sure why the police where not involved in this theft issue, but they should have been. Also, if he is stealing money (and you really believe this was the first time…please) Why are you further subsidizing him.

IMO Time for some counseling and tough love. If he doesn’t want to go to school fine, if he wants to be a low life, fine. Please don’t think he will be successful in life by coasting through school for the only reason that you make him.

It is hard, sometimes, but these types of behaviors are not ones a responsible adult makes and as such, he needs to stop nursing and be a man, however hard that is.

 

[Jon_S_1]

I do not think he will coddle him, but we are both afraid of the tough love stance backfiring.

And 18 years of that is why you are here today…Get some counseling for yourselves and your son to figure out how to methodically and intentionally move on from here. It will definitely take some tough love, or I am afraid you may have your 40 year old son sleeping in your house, unemployed in between stints in jail.

You coddle 4 year olds, not 18 year olds

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I don’t have much advice, except for not to let this slide or explain it away as “not a huge deal.” Your son is very lucky that the woman from who he stole did not call the police and have your son arrested. I am not sure if that would have taught him a lesson, but it’s probably what I would have done had a grown man taken money from my purse.

I would be very reluctant to provide this adult child with any financial support or allow him to live in your home unless he followed your household rules, was respected you and your husband as the homeowners and authroity figures, showed appreciation for your continued financial support, and onviously did not commit crimes outside the home! My parents poo-pooed my brother’s inappropriate behavior for years with excuses… “He’s immature” “That’s how boys are” “He’ll outgrow it” “If we throw him out, he’ll get worse” “We’ll bail him out one last time” “He seems sorry!” Well, needless to say he’s now 25 and still living at home in a pigsty of a room, unemployed and miserable.

I don’t know if I would agree. I think perhaps having some natural consequences of his poor choices might help this young man snap to reality.

 

[EasterJoy]

The primary problem here is the theft, of course, but it also represents, jealousy, greed, materialism, dishonesty, and a willingness to use people that frankly disgusts me, I have Aspergers syndrome, and do not handle dishonesty well at all…

Do not, by the way, let your son imply that you have a mental condition that makes this seem worse than it is. His self-justification that the victim “deserved” to be robbed by a guest in his own home is just as shocking as you think it is. That is not your Asperger’s talking. That is your mother’s sense of what her son ought to be talking, and you are totally right. The behavior and attitudes you are describing are just as disgusting as you think, and a person who so shamelessly exhibits them ought to be considered a danger to everyone in his social circle, because of his lack of conscience.

You say that if he goes to school on his own he will probably fail out. If he starts higher education, you need to make it clear that a) just as soon as he gets more than three failing grades total or his GPA falls below 2.0 at all, ever, he is paying his own way thereafter. Likewise, if he does not make progress so as to graduate within the equivalent of five years, that’s it. Period. This is a standard that you ought to be able to apply to all your children.

 

[JackieMom]

I don’t know if I would agree. I think perhaps having some natural consequences of his poor choices might help this young man snap to reality.

No I actually agree with you… I would totally have called the police. I guess I meant he should feel lucky because he could very well have ended up in jail. And maybe that would have been good for him.

My parents always kept my brother out of jail one way or another (expensive attorneys, covering for him, making “deals” with the people he wronged) on the theory that jail would have broken him. I think sometimes if the parents aren’t willing to bring down the hammer, jail is absolutely the place for some of these punk kids to spend a few nights.

 

[Anglewannabe]

. Our complete openess and sharing of possessions did reveal some pretty serious problems a few years ago,.

With all due respect, I have no idea what this means. What was you openness? What was the problem?

. He is the fourth child, third son of five children in our family. He and his younger brother were adopted as infants, so there have not been other influences in his life…

Very key piece of information. I am from a family where my brother was adopted and I wasn’t. As generous as it is to adopt children, the dynamics of having both adopted and biological children are HUGE even if the kids were adopted as infants. My brother’s temper is something you have to see to believe. I honestly have to wonder if his biological mom did drugs while pregnant with him. Not a charitable though but I really think it would explain a lot.

. While visiting friends ( a close friend of his, but also a family that we know well) he stole $85 from the Mother’s purse. He then pm’ed his friend on Facebook basically justifying what he did

OK, IMO an obvious cry for help by trying to get attention.

.

I cannot bring myself to talk to my son, and that will probably be the case for quite a while,

IMO that is the problem, he sought out attention from mom and she is not talking to him. Talk to him as soon as you are up to it. I know it is not your fault you have Aspergers and this can be hard on you. But kids suffer when parents are not 100% emotionally available regardless of the cause. Good parents sometimes lack the resource to parent through no fault of their own. But it still creates an 18 year with something missing. He has sensed the effect his hold life

.
Our son will be 19 this summer. He has completed his first year of college, with a lot of help from us as he lacks motivation and dedication although he understands the monetary value of a college degree for his future. We are paying for college. We provide him with a car, a tank of gas each week, and some lunch money.

I went through the same thing with my parents. They firmly believed it was their responsibility to give me an education. The fights it created was not worth it. I felt smothered. I wanted to work for a while and do things my way. Personally, I think it would have been better for my parents to let me work and learn life lessons. Then after a few years if I wanted to go to school by my choice to support me. I was so token care of, I did not learn some life lessons that now at 43 I can still see the damaging effects. Unless your son asks for help, leave him to manage his studies and learn the consequences of failing

Angie

 

[Eleanor61]

Jon, may I ask how many children you have raised? I have three adult children. We simply do not want to not give him the excuse that we did not pay for school “because he was adopted”. It does complicate things considerably. He really hasn’t done anything seriously wrong before, and I am not particularly naive. Obviously his disregard for our values is beginning to have consequences and it is very probable that this is going to continue to be a problem. It is true that if we coddle and nurse him through a degree he will probably fail in the end, but if we do not he certainly will.

We do have a 26 year old son who lives at home. He has a post graduate degree and works, but prefers to live at home and pays rent. The other two moved out when they finished their education, one has lived abroad as an English teacher since he was 22, despite having Aspergers syndrome and a hereditary neuromuscular disorder. He was very hard to live with, is a heavy drinker, but was a gifted student. I say all this to explain that we have been through a variety of issues. Complete disregard for all of our values has not been one of them.

I do appreciate all advice, but putting all his clothes on the curb is not a good direction for us to take at this time, tempting as it is. My husband’s mother did that to him when we got engaged because she disapproved, we were 19. I had left home at 17 on college scholarships, and we were highly functional so it all worked out. This kid still needs a lot of help and I do not know that I could deal with the guilt if we abandoned him.

 

[Eleanor61]

Angie, I would be thrilled right now if he said he wanted to take a year off from school, get a full time job, and move out. We aren’t trying to run his life. I have a special needs 14 year old that needs a better example and deserves my time.

I have always been emotionally available to all of my children, and am very close with them. I was trying to say that since becoming aware of his perpetual dishonesty I have shut him down. This is since the theft, not before it, so not a plea for attention from me. His Facebook explanation to his friend indicated that is was done to “get” at their family. Of ourselves he must have known it would hurt us as well. The injured parties are being very gracious about this and would have considered pressing charged. Perhaps it would have been better if they did, I do not know. It certainly would have complicated our lives.

 

[englishredrose]

Reread the last post you made

perhaps the 18 year old is trying hard to gain your attention in some way because he may be feeling he isn’t achieving that. By having a go at your morals may be his way of succeeding. Perhaps he really does need quality time with you as well as his father and that security he is as well valued as the other ‘children’ though he isn’t a child. But he may well have felt sidelined by the needs of the other children and unconciously do anything to grab your attention. He is hurting inside though may not tell you as such. This is his way of telling you.

It almost a pity that the lady didn’t go to the police because that way he would get help perhaps or don’t it work like that in USA? If she didn’t press any charges then he wouldn’t get a criminal record but seeing the police and having to do whatever they can ask at that level may have woken him up. Though if he is doing - because he is really hurting inside then he is more than awake because he is doing so as his way of saying he is hurting. It is more, are you awake to his pain. The police might have asked for counselling to work out his actions.

View it as your son is hurting. He is hurting so much he does things to deal with the pain. He feels excluded from your attention and has to gain it somehow. Other family members are more important than he is and he knows that, he can see that. But he needs love too from you. - Now what. You can start loving this son as much as the others and try and understand he is hurting. He can do the things the others can’t but to him he can’t do them because he knows or he believes you don’t love him. He can probably feel that or it feels like that to him. He isn’t the only one to need to learn from the incident. I hope you can learn how to love him as much as the other children. It not enough to say his father loves him. He needs you too.

God bless and
peace
xxx

 

[Eleanor61]

I must be doing a horrible job here of explaining myself. I have had as close a relationship as possible with this child and am only shutting down on him now. I have not neglected him in favor of the others although I will admit I find him more difficult to relate to. We go out to dinner together, I have attended all his games over the years, tried to encourage him in interests and hobbies, homeschooled him through eighth grade, even taught him to sew. He will take everything from you and it is never enough. Over all he received more attention than any of his four siblings. There is very little in his upbringing to easily explain this.

 

[EasterJoy]

And 18 years of that is why you are here today…Get some counseling for yourselves and your son to figure out how to methodically and intentionally move on from here. It will definitely take some tough love, or I am afraid you may have your 40 year old son sleeping in your house, unemployed in between stints in jail.

You coddle 4 year olds, not 18 year olds

I have known families that treat all their children the same, and all of them come out fine and compassionate, except the one of them comes out to be a narcissist or an addict or…fill in the blank. At any rate, there is definitely something particular to the child to become a person who steals as a guest in someone else’s home and then brags about it, no matter what their age. I would be very surprised that this remotely came from “coddling” by a parent. That is not what spoiled generally looks like. This also does not seem to be attention-getting behavior or a cry for help. It is my sense (and only my sense, mind you) that this is a totally other kind of fish. I think that the parents need to consider that the normal cause-and-effect guidance that typically works in family life may not apply here. If they are in different waters, it is very important that they figure this out sooner rather than later.

Besides, there is no love, tough or otherwise, that can be guaranteed to keep a soul from sin. Parenting can fail, sure, but parenting can only do so much.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I must be doing a horrible job here of explaining myself…

With all due respect, I think you are not explaining properly because I am not sure I am answering your concerns. But I do somehow suspect you do not want to hear the answers. In a previous thread you said you said that ‘that you could not live with the guilt of throwing him out’. That is about YOU and what YOU don’t want to feel. It is not about what is best for him

I have had as close a relationship with this child and am only shutting down on him now. I have not neglected him in favor of the others although I will admit I find him more difficult to relate to.

Sadly he sensed that. I am not saying you need to change, I am just saying you both need to learn to accept in a mature way different personalities don’t always relate

. Over all he received more attention than any of his four siblings .

Maybe that is the problem, he never learned to wait his turn.

There is very little in his upbringing to easily explain this.

That is a very good point. There may be nothing in his upbringing to explain this. However you still need to do what is best now, even if it means kicking him out. It does not have to be permanent. Once he gets his act together, you can support his studies them. Dad might help get him a degree, but Dad won’t be able to go to work with him and do his job

Angie

 

[Aggies08]

Seeing that the other children seem to be doing ok as functional adults, and he is sooo far from the issues experienced with them, I would be inclined to seek counseling for yourself and your husband regarding his behavior. Perhaps they can pick up on something you are not seeing? Secondly, counseling for him, if whomever you speak with seems to think he could have underlying issues.