responsibility for destroying property

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Forum -> Relationships -> Manners & Etiquette

Responsibility for destroying property

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mandksima

Tue, Oct 28 2008, 10:44 am

At school, if a child colors on another child's pants and it doesn't come out in the wash, what do you think is proper to do? Replace the full price of the pants, pay for dry cleaning that might work, something else? I know that my kids come home very often with destroyed clothes from paint at school that is not washable. I never tell the teachers they have to pay for it. I'm sure other kids have also accidentally or on purpose ruined an article of clothing of my kid's. It is a school hazard, I guess.

I still send my kids in the clothes that have marks on them. They're just going to continue to get them dirty. Maybe I'd feel different about Shabbos clothes. WWYD?

Mimisinger

Tue, Oct 28 2008, 10:47 am

halachically, no one is responsible.

Ettiquette wise, it depends if it were purposeful. Kids get dirty, it's a fact of life. Does the school have the kids wear smocks for art class? Maybe this is something to bring up with the teacher - old shirts of daddy's are really good for kids to wear.

If however, a mean kid purposeful poured paint all over someone, I would not be thrilled and hope the kid got into trouble and had to pay for the clothes, otherwise, I'm sure your kids gets the other kids dirty too.

BeershevaBubby

Tue, Oct 28 2008, 10:56 am

Why in the world is the school/gan using non-washable paints?

mandksima

Tue, Oct 28 2008, 11:14 am

YESHASettler wrote:

Why in the world is the school/gan using non-washable paints?

They might say they're washable but they are not. Markers there are for sure not washable and it ticks me off. At home, we have my MIL bring in Crayola washables.

Mimi, I do believe it was done on purpose because a kid got mad at another and wrote on him with a pen or marker. Still, kids do that to other kids sometimes and they are sorry afterwards. Question is what to do now. If it wasn't clear, it was my kid doing it to someone else this time. My kids have also done it to each other but with washable markers.

RachelEve14

Tue, Oct 28 2008, 12:08 pm

The stuff never comes out here either. I keep the colored on shirts for gan. When I ran a katana for 2 weeks this summer I told all the parents to send in clothes they didn't mind getting dirty, or to send a smock. I find the stuff here doesn't come out too easily even if it is supposidly "washable"

BeershevaBubby

Tue, Oct 28 2008, 12:13 pm

::makes notes of all this for when Nati goes to ma'on/gan....::

Mommy3.5

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 5:09 pm

I heard from a friend who teaches kindergarten, that murpheys oil soap rubbed into the clothing will remove paint and just about anything else! try it, it can't hurt.

mummiedearest

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 5:12 pm

for ink you can spray hairspray repeatedly until the ink runs off the clothing. keep a paper towel at the back to absorb the ink.

send your kid in with one of your husband's old shirts as a smock, it'll cover nicely.

ChossidMom

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 5:13 pm

Halachically, the parent is not liable for damage a child causes.
My daughter's 13 year old friend broke my daughter's skates. She keeps noodging me to call the girls' parents. I keep refusing.
Kids color on themselves and on each other in gan. I would NOT replace anything.

mandksima

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 5:49 pm

ChossidMom wrote:

Last year it was in gan. This year it is first grade. Thing is, is that this is my son's best friend at school. He is impulsive and did it before thinking. Since the kids wear the same uniform, I think I'll offer to switch clothes with the other child and my son will wear the ruined clothes.

Even though halachically it may not be a problem, this is a friend that we'd like to keep. The teacher actually said we have to buy a new uniform but my DH spoke to her, not me. Oh, it is so hard to talk about it in Hebrew, let alone be tactful about it.

shalhevet

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 6:13 pm

ChossidMom wrote:

Halachically, the parent is not liable for damage a child causes.

Correct, but there is lifnim mishuras hadin. I don't know about this case, because I think it's an occupational hazard to send your kid to gan and get paint on the clothes, but if my child loses/ breaks something of someone's I replace it.

Quote:

My daughter's 13 year old friend broke my daughter's skates. She keeps noodging me to call the girls' parents. I keep refusing.

A 13 year old is not a child in halacha. She is responsible. Of course, people are not always halachically liable to compensate you just because they break something of yours. Tell your dd to take her friend to a din Torah. LOL

Quote:

Kids color on themselves and on each other in gan. I would NOT replace anything.

that's kind of what I think, because it could just as easily be the child himself. Whereas if a child takes your child's ball and deliberately throws it into one of those enormous sunken trash bins (do people outside Israel know what I'm talking about?) they should pay up. (This really happened, I phoned the mother just to tell her, but they didn't pay up.)

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