Later

I heard The Ninja on the phone with Friend (aka partner in crime) from last week. You'll remember that our families made different choices. The friend is undergoing restrictions, but apparently nowhere near as severe as the ones we have imposed.

After his call ended, Ninja complained that Friend stole more stuff than he did, but had a lesser punishment. I reminded Ninja that, before the shopping spree, he had already ripped us off for a substantial amount of money buying songs on iTunes. He turned away to go back to his room, and all I heard was "Unfair".

Heartbroken

Last Tuesday, The Ninja and a friend decided to go shopping at the mall.

Without any money.

The two 14-year-old knuckleheads sauntered around, throwing two pairs of sneakers and earbud headphones in a backpack.

Until Ninja got caught sticking a wallet in his pocket in Big Well-Known Department Store.

I got a call from Ninja about 3 pm. "Mom......." Then a staff security member came on and explained what had happened. I charged down to the mall.

By the time the friend's mother and I got there, Friend was sobbing. Ninja was sitting nonchalantly, looking unconcerned. Friend was upset and promising he'd never do it again. Ninja said he'd just go out and do it again.

Big Well-Known Department Store was willing to release the boys to our custody, without law enforcement involvement. Friend's mother took him home, promising that family friends who are police officers would be giving him a strongly worded talk.

Due to the bravado and the attitude, we decided to lower the boom on the Ninja. Waited for a police officer to arrive. During the wait, Ninja started to seem upset, sitting on a bench with his head in his hands.

Officer arrived. Gave Ninja a talking-to while taking down information and writing an appearance ticket. Put Ninja in handcuffs and took him to the precinct. L. and I followed. More talking-to, from a detective and another office, took place. We signed for him and took him home.

He has a court date on Tuesday. We have engaged an attorney who is a family friend. Attorney says that what will probably happen, due to Ninja's age, is supervised probation, attendance at a StopLift program, and sealing of the records if he stays out of trouble for a period of time.

Earlier in the week, Ninja said to me that he's never going to shoplift again. This morning, he said that he doesn't know whether he will or not. I feel sick to my stomach.

Any advice, encouragement or words of wisdom, anyone?

What next?

It transpired that the amount of money Ninja appropriated to buy music on iTunes was a great deal more than $150. Enough that we could have used to have a memorable summer vacation, rather than just going to visit relatives. With the help of a therapist, we have instituted a drastic plan to help him relearn that his actions have an effect on his life. Virtually all privileges are gone, as is his allowance. We are not canceling the week of camp, as we would not get all the money back from that, but he is not going to have any money put in an account in the camp store. After June is over, he will have opportunities to start earning back limited privileges.

He has been pretty quiet and sober about it all the last day and a half. He cried on Friday night that he didn't want to be this way, he knows he's doing bad things but can't seem to stop, and our consequences up to now have been just minor irritations.

Meanwhile, Toots' latest idea is that she is going to sign herself out of the hospital. And live how????? Lew told her that we won't let her starve on the street, but she should not expect to be able to move back home. She thinks she will continue in school and get a part-time job in a store, and that will be enough to support herself. I tried to explain to her about the job market and minimum wage. Didn't get anywhere. She has no more clue than a three-year-old.

Yet more agita

We are having some considerable trouble with The Ninja. Lately, he has been coming up with some creative lies, such as "I was marked absent for that class because the power went out and the teacher couldn't enter the information in the system." Yeah, right.

Yesterday, we discovered that he has been using my husband's Amex card unauthorized, to buy music on iTunes. At least $150 worth. My husband set it up so that Ninja could buy iTunes, but the agreement was that he would reimburse me in cash when he did that. Well, what we have here is partially a parental failure to communicate. When he got the bills, Lew wasn't checking with me to see if I'd gotten the cash. Not that that excuses the Ninja. We're in the process of coming up with a consequence that will make him sit up and take notice. We hope.

Oh, did I mention that he's also failing math and may have to repeat the course?

Does it ever let up?

We have had a rough week with The Ninja. He has been engaging in something new - cutting class. He skipped out of periods 6 and 7, this past Monday and Wednesday. He almost had me believing his story about Monday, that he was in the Counseling Center having additional individual testing. But, mom thought, why was that going on if he already had his triennial review testing done last month? For Wednesday, he tried to convince me that the teachers had accidentally marked him absent. Yeah, right. That's in keeping with the dodge from last year, when he claimed that he had handed in homework assignments that his teachers had forgotten to enter in their books.

So, after some stern talking yesterday, Ninja admitted that he cut these two classes to join his friends in the cafeteria during THEIR lunch periods, and then took his own regular lunch time as well. (Steam coming out of mom's ears.) Little Mr. Social Butterfly. I've always been glad that Ninja is so good at making friends. Until now. Grrr.

So, his consequence is that he loses the use of his XBox for two weeks. Two weeks for two occasions of cutting and lying. He says he doesn't care, but we know he does.

The thing is, you can run but you can't hide, in his school. We get an email and a robo-call informing us of his absence from classes. How knuckleheaded can you get?

This had better stop happening. He says it will. Stay tuned.

On the other hand, he and we could have many worse problems.