Question
My son who just turned 14 this past September committed a deplorable act of vandalism against a neighborhood friend. He snuck out in the middle of the night, disabled our home alarm and proceeded to spray paint a friends' dads car, house and wrote profanities that I didn't think he was capable of doing. The police came to our home because survellaince cameras saw him in the act.
Needless to say, I was beyond shocked. He was an ideal child. Sweet, loving, great grades but unfortunately overindulged in material items.
Seems he was jealous of this boy over many things.
This cost my husband and me 12,000.00 in damages,in return they would not report him to juvenile court.
We came down very hard. Six months of doing most household chores , no TV, and no guitar lessons which after one month I reinstituted that privilege if he was coorperative. I also pulled him out of the school he was attending and put him in private school.
Fast forward 5 months, his attitude is awful, he won't do his chores without proding and he laughs in his fathers face.
We took his guitar away for 2 weeks as well as his guitar lessons which if he is the ideal child, he will earn this back, if not another week will be added on.
He is spending most of the time in his room and his personality is not very likeable.
Question: Did we do the right thing? I must say his summer wasn't that bad, he lost all his neighborhood friends, yet he went on 2 dream vacations with my husband and I and his dad overindulged him with 200.00 plus in souvenirs which was against what I wanted.
Please offer any thoughts as this is very distressing.
