Dear Sam ,
During school I took someones money and saw that there was a camera so at lunch time I went to the ict roOm and smashed the camera . I still got caught , I just wanted to ask if it would ruin my education and carer because I want to be a surgeon/nurse and I want to graduate in oxford university.
Hi there,
Everybody does something wrong at some point. Nobody is perfect. What is important is that we admit our mistakes, learn from them and move on. Accepting blame can go a long way to making things right again. There are consequences to breaking laws and rules, but they don't usually follow you around forever.
Stealing and breaking things are wrong, and I can see that you know this already. What you did isn't okay, but admitting it is a big step to take and can be the first one to making things right.
Apologising to the people who you hurt takes a lot of courage - and is often more difficult than the thing you did wrong in the first place. Difficult things usually have better rewards though. So by taking that bold step to apologise, you are starting to undo the mistakes you made.
One of the hardest things is to begin to forgive yourself - you're not a bad person for doing those things, it just makes you more human. Asking for forgiveness from others is one step, but another is to then allow yourself to see that there is more to you than just those mistakes. You are a complete person with feelings, hopes and dreams - the things you did in school should not be what defines you as a person.
Breaking some very serious laws can have consequences that follow for a long time. But often, unless you are convicted of a crime, your future employers won't know about what happened in school. This is a difficult thing for me to give good advice about, so you may want to ask the Children's Commissioner or the Children's Legal Centre about your specific situation.
I hope this helps, thanks for sending this letter.
Sam
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