Radio host Ben Fordham's 'tough' lesson for eight-year-old son Freddy: 'Felt pretty ruthless'
Ben Fordham does not muck around when it comes to teaching his kids about money.
The dad-of-three has revealed he got his eight-year-old son to pay up after mistakenly losing his shoes when playing at a friend's house down the road.
"I felt pretty ruthless while doing it, but you gotta teach him a lesson," the 2GB radio host said on air while sharing the story.
Watch the video above.
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Fordham is a dad of three. Instagram
During his breakfast show, Fordham recalled the average afternoon at home with his kids which led to him asking his eight-year-old to take money out of his prized piggy bank.
"Freddy went down the end of the road and he came back home and then we said, 'Where are your shoes?'," he explained to listeners. "He'd taken his shoes off down the street, left them outside a mate's house on the nature strip and it was on garbage pickup day."
"So someone's driven past and thought someone's throwing out those brand new sneakers, and so they knocked them off."
Freddy had lost the brand-new shoes his parents had just purchased and Fordham used it as a teaching opportunity.
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Ben Fordham shares three children with his wife Jodie Speers. Instagram
"This might be a bit harsh - I said, 'Oh well, you better go upstairs and get some money out of your safe'," he recalled.
Freddy was apparently stunned by the request, as his dad made him take out a hefty $50 from his piggy bank to pay for the lost shoes.
Fordham and his wife Jodie Speers had purchased each of their three kids a $16 money safe from Kmart, encouraging each to save up their money.
"They're doing pocket money jobs and all those kinds of things," he explained. "I think [Freddy] has got about $350 or $400 saved so far."
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The safe is a little gimmick piggy bank that kids love to collect their money in. Kmart
And it seems that harsh punishment for the eight-year-old, Fordham isn't the only parent making their kids literally pay for their mistakes.
Caller Tamara recalled a similar incident where she got her daughter Tahlia to take out all the money from her well-earned piggy bank to pay for a brand new $100 rash vest that she lost at the beach.
"[She] repurposed it to collect rocks! And as you can imagine it washed away," the mum said as she explained why she believed she needed to teach her daughter what she did was wrong.
And the lesson really worked, "Oh the tears Benny! That definitely got her on the straight and narrow for finances."