AIBU to ask for help re DD who has gone away for weekend when she should have been working

If this is a new behavior and she's previously been reliable and trustworthy with jobs/payment then jumping straight into changing locks and things like that seem extreme. If we are completely honest with ourselves, we were ALL irresponsible and entitled to some degree at 19 and most of us grew out of it through life experience and learning from mistakes. She does need to understand that she was given a responsibility and a payment for a service and that this has consequences and had a knock on effect to someone else who was inconvenienced. She will, of course, need to pay the money back and any other money paid out to rectify the job not being done through a proper repayment plan/jobs being done and no jobs will be paid upfront in future until money is repaid and trust is rebuilt.

100% this.

I don't think you should have paid in advance.

You must live a heck of a long way from the airport for it to cost £120.

Came to say that sell something to recoup your loses. No more money…everything paid direct or given as food or lodging. Seriously nineteen is way old enough to know better and seriously seriously disrespectful

This!

I would ask her to pay it back. Eg £20 each week for six weeks. Or £30 for four weeks. And a heartfelt apology to everyone affected.
Being an adult means knowing that theft isn’t ok and has consequences.

That’s not true.
The money was to cover a job. She didn’t do it so she returns the £120.
That amount then goes to cover the solution.
If the solution was more expensive she pays the difference. Not double.

Well mine will never have this happen because they aren't thieves with no respect.

I wouldn't be living with a thief. Plenty of other people here wouldn't either. Your personal attack is tiresome. Especially as you even admitted you couldn't conceive what you would do in this scenario. This would never happen to me but if it did, a 19 year old would be finding somewhere else to live. Grown up enough to steal, use that money to fund their jollies and be a disrespectful brat on top of that, grown up enough to leave home.

They definitely would not be let into the house until the money was returned and they wouldn't be getting any more money either.

Jesus I’d hate to be your child.

She needs repay it, or you need to take appropriate action, like adults with free will can move out... Do not let her get away with it!

I work for a family member whose DS is an entitled brat. Seems lovely, but has been allowed to get away with heinous acts. Including stealing money from his parents. Their solution was to stop having any cash around, so he just stole his DM's credit card from her purse. He's stolen from us, too, at work, because, why not? No consequences. Also did things like falsifying records (fraud) to get out of working. All hushed up. He has no sense of responsibility or respect, yet will shortly be elevated at work to eventually run the business into the ground. (I'll be leaving.

It escalates. So come down hard now.

Having said all that, she knows very well that she’s fucked up here, she’s just not wanting to deal with consequences and the unfairness of life as a teenager. I get that, to a large extent. But thieving and blocking and being rude isn’t the solution. Working and earning your way out is. She needs a proper lecture, incentives to earn, luxuries (such as you doing literally anything for her other than paying for a roof over her head and some of the food you cook) being earned. She knows it, she just doesn’t like it.

I can’t get over saying you’d take someone to the airport and then just not do it! What did she think this person was going to do - fork out for a taxi last minute?

Add to that that she was already PAID for it!

And add to that that it’s not that she was sick or equivalent, she hasn’t given the money back, she doesn’t feel bad - she’s spent it on going away for the weekend herself and feels not just not-bad, she’s angry with you!

And when you’ve called her up on it she’s switched her phone off!!!

And her reasoning is…..she has free will?!

Fuck me. If she were my DD she’d be very quickly learning that we all have free will and that seeing as I earn the money she spends I have more than she does, and that theft and letting people down and outright rudeness have consequences too. I know some teenagers can be bad but this is something else.

Why don't the children worry about destroying their relationship with their parents?

It doesn't sound like normal behaviour! It's bad behaviour.

Sounds normal behaviour. Bide your time. You will get opportunity to get your own back. Write it on some paper and pin it up in kitchen so she can see.

She wants to behave, and be treated as an adult, fine. If an adult receives funds for a service and doesn't deliver, they have to repay those funds and any consequential loss, this is what adults claim when they go to the small claims court. She needs to set out, and keep to a plan for repayment, which should be over a very short term. Alongside that she should understand any sanctions for default clearly in advance. If she doesn't want to comply, then a short sharp lesson in where power lies in adulthood should kick in, i.e. adults who have previously provided privileges to a young adult can decide not to, and whether that is financial support, or support in kind would be up to op.

Tbh if I’d done that to my mum my dad would have gone to wherever I was and dragged me back in front of all my friends. Perhaps that?

Really, really not the point.

Were the laughing emojis meant to be patronising? 🤔

Can you answer the question about what you’d do if she refused? Have another “chat”?

I would take some things to sell now and hide them. Then text her to say as she is not replying to agree a different solution and you’re out of pocket, you’ll be selling her things.

I would go silent until she gets back. Let her stew.

I would change wifi passwords and stop paying for phone and anything else because “adults pay for themselves”. I would advise that she can consider birthdays and Christmas cancelled (for her) until the money is repaid in full.

Theres no way she’s “genuinely good” otherwise. What a selfish, unpleasant adult you’ve raised.

Consequences need to be immediate, not at Christmas when OP will have long simmered down and feel bad about not giving her a present.

She needs a bollocking to understand how rightly angry you are, to pay the money back, and to immediately lose access to anything you pay for her beyond basics.

The most effective consequences here will be things like

Taking her off the insurance for the car if it's yours, and not letting her use it.
If you pay the mobile phone bill, either cancel the contract, or if you can't, then cut down to the most basic package and put a limitation on the account so that when she has used up the data she can't get more.
Taking it off the value of her Xmas present (obviously only works as long as you don't spend £500+ on her).

As I said before, the cost to you has been more than £120, due to having to get a taxi/other arrangements on top of the £120 you gave her.

I think you need to stop kidding yourself that Tod is „out of character“.

I’d side with others and once she returns tell her she has 14 days to find a place and be an adult and sort her own stuff out. She’s being incredibly disrespectful to you both and I wouldn’t be having any of it! She can move out and live her best life or stay with you and respect your boundaries.