boys find money, dont receive reward

Due to a couple of comments I received, I realized my article may not be as clear as it should be, so I made a few edits to help clarify-NNR

I was reading an article yesterday about 2 boys who found a lot of cash and turned it in to the rightful owner. The city (i think, it was a bit unclear from the article) promised to put some reward money in an account for the boys for when they turned 18. No one can figure out if there was any reward money, if an account was ever created or who the reward money would have come from if there'd been a reward. No one is sure if the loser of the money put up a reward or if people in the community had donated to a reward fund.

So the kids and their mom's were very disapointed about being unable to find the reward money to help with college expenses. One boy went on about how he should have just kept the found money and used it to pay his mothers bills and how he didn't trust people any more because of not receiving the reward money.

I really couldn't believe the boys attitude. Rewards are a blessing if they work out, if not you have to be satisfied that you did the right thing. If he had said he was disapointed and upset because he was really looking foward to that money to help him pay for college, then I would have been happy to send him some money to make up for it, but instead he fell into a victim mentality. And from the article, it sounded like his mom was at least partly at fault for his opinion on the subject as she was very irate that he didn't get what she felt he was owed and everyone was being unfair to him.

So I'll say here what I would have told my son under these circumstances, "I'm sorry it didn't work out. It was a nice thought, but obviously something went wrong and there is no reward money. You pay for college on your own and I'm still very proud of you for doing the right thing."

I would never feed on my son's disapointment by pointing out how everyone has wronged him and has 'destroyed' his plans. I cant imagine that the reward would have been substantial enough to pay for much of college anyway. The boys found $4500 if my memory serves me correctly, I can't imagine the reward being enough to even pay for a year of community college, even after 5 or so years in an interest bearing account.

Turn this around mother, and teach your child that it doesn't matter what goes wrong, that he can fix this himself, or make an honest plea into investigation of the money. You're not a victim here, you just didn't make out ahead like you hoped.