A few weeks ago I was told that my nephew brought his Nintendo 3DS system to school. Upon arriving home, apparently it was realized that it had either been misplaced or stolen. It was unfortunate too as I know just a few weeks ago his dad bought some digital titles for it too. He actually wasn’t supposed to bring it to school either so as you can imagine it made things worst.
My first suggestion was that maybe they should somehow let the teacher or the parents of the children in the classroom know where if any of them see a child all of a sudden with a gaming system then there is a high chance it’s not theirs. But to my surprise, the first comment I got back was that it was hopeless as people don’t generally care too much if the situation doesn’t involve them. As a result, I was then thinking maybe that is what I should get him for Christmas if no one was willing do anything.
I was told today that he was able to get his system back through a rather interesting scenario. Apparently while in school he noticed that one of his friend was playing a Nintendo 3DS system and his immediate comment was he told his friend “Hey, that looks like the same color as mine.” If anything, it was just a coincident in his mind. I was told too that if you look at the software installed it didn’t have all of the items that he remembered.
Then a short while later the friend goes up to my nephew and gives him the 3DS saying something like he could have it if he wants. My nephew did take it. Upon inspection, apparently the system had all the personal data deleted such as photos. As well, the serial number sticker on the bottom had been tampered with where it’s apparent that whoever took it clearly went out of their way to try and cover up whoever was the original owner of it.
The thing about this situation is you can’t outright say the friend took it even though all the signs may be there and I don’t think parents would want to push the issue. If you were the parent though would you actually go out of your way to really find out if it was the friend that stole it so that you can teach your child how when you have valued items you never know who may try to take it from you?
You may be wondering how this relates to money or finance. In many ways, it’s no different as an adult where I feel one of the biggest factors in losing money is that the sad reality is even people close to us can often do dumb things like steal from you too if they are desperate enough and the situation presents itself. But as a child we are usually only taught that strangers could do such a thing. Kind of makes me wonder why we are always taught to never take candy from a stranger yet we aren’t taught things like this is possible too. Usually it’s only through things like movies or real-life experience where we learn about scenarios like these.