We all know how much kids love phones these days. Little ones become obsessed with the scrolling function, and the bright lights are so captivating. With YouTube, they can watch their fill of children’s programming, and we’ve all met a child or two who asked to borrow a phone to play games.
But the real problems arise when children stop asking what they can and can't do on said phones. So much of our lives and information are stored on our phones that when a child learns to operate one without assistance, you can be in for a world of trouble. That’s what happened recently when a 6-year-old from Michigan got ahold of his father's phone.
Dad Keith Stonehouse was confused by the amount of food being delivered to his door one night.
Six-year-old Mason Stonehouse was playing on his dad’s phone just before he went to bed and ended up ordering nearly $1,000 in food from GrubHub, according to CNN. Around 9 p.m., food started showing up at the door of the family’s Michigan home. The family’s Ring camera showed that many more deliveries came afterward.
Initially, Keith was confused.
There was a $400 order for pizza.
He asked one of the delivery men, “What is going on? Why are you bringing me food?”
Eventually, he remembered that his son had his phone, and that’s when he started to put two and two together. Mason had ordered all types of food from restaurants all over town, including shrimp, salads, shawarma, chicken pita wraps, sandwiches, chili cheese fries, and multiple orders of ice cream.
The little boy had ordered several pepperoni pizzas too, but that $400-plus order was declined by Keith’s bank because by that point, it suspected fraud.
The family had to keep the food and decided to share.
Keith tried to call the restaurants to cancel the orders but it was out of their hands. They told him instead to contact GrubHub. In the meantime, the Stonehouses shared some of their bounty with neighbors and ate the rest as leftovers.
But he also had to have a chat with his son Mason about his overspending.
When he confronted his son, Keith had to stifle his laughter.
“I went to talk to Mason about what he did and this is the only part that makes me laugh,” the dad recounted in an interview with MLive.com. “I was trying to explain to him that this wasn’t good and he puts his hand up and stops me and says ‘Dad, did the pepperoni pizzas come yet?’ I had to walk out of the room. I didn’t know if I should get mad or laugh.”
Mason's parents found a way to teach him a lesson about money after all of this.
GrubHub heard the Stonehouses' story and reached out. The company offered the family $1,000 in GrubHub gift cards.
Although it all worked out, Mason’s parents still needed to make sure he understood the severity of his actions. They used some of Mason’s money to illustrate, taking coins out of his piggy bank, one for each order: a coin for the pizza, one for the shrimp, the shawarma, and more.
That’s when he got it. “It sunk in when we were actually taking his money to teach him a lesson,” said Kristin Stonehouse, Mason’s mother. She told her son, “We know this money in your piggy bank means something to you … [and] it’s only a fraction of what was spent.”
The Stonehouses said it will take some time before Mason’s phone privileges are restored.
