To make my 15yo pay me back for a phone she broke out of anger?

You are doing exactly the right thing… please, please, please stick to your guns.

Actions have consequences, she’s learning a very important life lesson.

@LexGold

This! ⬆️ You've made your decision & told her. End of discussion. Ignore the emotional blackmail & temper tantrums. Doing stupid shit has consequences. That's how life works.

I’d respond to every whinge with “yes it’s a shame you smashed your phone up isn’t it? If only you hadn’t, you’d still have a phone”.

Saved me typing something similar. I can't believe that she's complaining that you've cut her off socially, when it's HER action that caused her to be "socially isolated"!

I really hope that you point that out every single time.

What state is her wall in? I’d be making her fix that too tbh.

You are correct. She will learn her actions have consequences

Tough love it’s called. She will learn a valuable lesson.

YANBU

She needs to treat this as a lesson to find different ways of calming down.

Also, things are expensive nowadays. Maybe also a time to teach her about money, outgoings etc and that even if she had just dropped it, you may not be able to just buy her a new phone, or the phone she wants. She needs to take better care of her stuff.

I dropped a Nokia ?8210 in the beaver enclosure pond about 25 years ago (at a petting zoo, don't have a beaver pool at home). Kids laughed, worker fished it out, dried it thoroughly, still worked for about a year after.

You are doing the right thing. Natural consequence for throwing it

She's a 15-year-old girl. I'd buy her a brick for safety purposes, so she can call you and/or the police in an emergency.

You don't have to replace the smartphone, but you do have to get her something that can be used to call for help.

You are absolutely doing the right thing!! She needs to learn she can’t destroy things and you’ll just buy a new one.

Stick to your guns. Short term pain for long term gain.

Omg of course she can’t expect you to pay to replace it! That is 100% bratty behaviour.

A teenage brain is still developing including impulse control and predicting consequences. She will still be paying for a replacement phone but could be use this as financial education. Only a suggestion and only after a cooling off period.

Why? As an adult she wouldn’t smash her phone having a tantrum. Doing this will teach her nothing, she should go without until she has the money to replace it: she might think twice next time

You can't replace something that she deliberately destroyed. If it was so important to her, she shouldn't have chosen to wreck it

DD can pick up a second hand one fairly cheaply from EBay until she can save up for a newer one. At least if she has to sort herself, the memory of what she’ll done hopefully will be a lesson that lasts longer with her.

Of course you’re not being unreasonable. Have a temper tantrum, pay the price. That’s growing up for you.

She clearly has enough money in the bank to buy a new one, too. That will teach her the value of earned/ gifted income too: when it is only used for fripperies it doesn’t have that much value. When you have to make a conscious choice to spend it on things you need, the money dynamic changes (even if it is actually a want rather than a need, which this is!)

You are right to make her pay for a replacement but would consider offering her interest free credit to be taken out of her pocket money before she gets it. As an adult I could get a new phone on contract, credit card etc but a child can't do this. Up to you to decide how much to lend and for how long.

If she wants to act like a baby she can be treated like a baby. Babies don't need new phones.

Give her the option: You buy her the cheapest piece of shit phone you can possibly find, or she pays for the one she wants herself.

Try not to doubt yourself-you are teaching her a valuable lesson which will make her a better person in the long run. She deliberately broke an expensive item, she needs to replace it.

Make her pay for the phone and its usage.

DS’s whinges escalate until he gets a reaction! I appreciate other children may just be chuntering to themselves, he is definitely looking for a sympathetic response/me to jump in and fix the problem.

Telling him that it’s his own fault and I’m not sympathetic is honestly the quickest way to move him into a new topic, otherwise he just repeats himself again, with increasingly dramatic sighs, until I reply. Yes it is annoying and I hope he will grow out of it, but DH is very similar sadly so I don’t hold out much hope 🤣

Nope. Not at all unreasonable. Stick to your guns op

The fact that you're canvassing opinion on whether you should give in a replace her phone for her gives context for her extraordinary level of entitlement. In what universe would it be appropriate for you to replace the phone she smashed in temper? What would that teach her? Do you normally give in to this kind of thing?