Reply to Nephew broke my cell phone screen. Deduct repair from his graduation gift?

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Reply to "Nephew broke my cell phone screen. Deduct repair from his graduation gift?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think OP needs to look up the word "gift" [/quote]

Yes. It means "something given voluntarily". She does not have to give it. And she shouldn't.

[quote=Anonymous]Tying the phone issue to his graduation is unnecessary, unless you really do plan to tell him outright, I docked your grad gift to pay for the phone you broke. That is not the high road at all, OP, and he actually will not feel the pain of that at all -- he won't really feel the loss of money he never had in his hands anyway.

Talk to him adult to adult and in person and just say simply, "I do get that you didn't mean to do this, and I accept your apology (assuming here he did say he was sorry), but it is a real loss for me as this is a work phone. Let's work out either some payment, or you can do some chores for me and 'work it out' that way."

If he has to do some chores for you or produce money he already has in his wallet, he will feel that. He won't truly feel any loss if you dock his gift money. Unless you do plan to announce to him that you're doing so, and then frankly he'll likely shrug it off and say, "Yeah, that's fine." Give him the opportunity to take responsibility by separating the grad gift from the phone problem. A gift should be given unconditionally. [/quote]

No, she should reduce the gift amount and NOT tell him. There is no need to try and make it a "teachable moment". If he was going to pay for it, he would have said so already. He isn't. So she should replace the phone and reduce the gift by the replacement cost.[/quote]

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