the icing on the f****** cake

[BrizzleDrizzle]

It's been a shit week this week, various reasons but it's not been the finest by a long chalk.

To top it of DD has just been chatting to me about something which she was fascinated by until two days ago. She now tells me that she hates them and she is totally freaked out by them.

Said item is her main Xmas present which I've saved for all year and cost £90. Without it she's got two gifts to open.

AIBU to be bloody pissed off by this?

[hedwig2001]

Just a thought but my teenager was freaked out by news this week, of robots being trained to fire guns. He has now decided robots are a threat! Could she have heard this?

[ElizabethLemon]

She’s mad, Max is great. We’ve bought one for ds and I can’t wait for it to be built!

[SabineUndine]

Can’t you return it?

[OuchBollocks]

Is there any chance she's trying to convince herself she doesn't like it because she thinks there's no chance she's getting one? Years ago my DSis and I banged on about how home PCs were crap and pointless and who would want one of those? Needless to say when we got one for Christmas we were beyond thrilled, we just never thought our parents could afford one.

[00100001]

I'd ask her what's going on

[EvilDoctorBallerinaRoastDuck]

I could see DD 10 being freaked out by robots at 13, she's freaked out by lots of things I don't expect a 10yo to be freaked out by. I want to hand her a grip, but that wouldn't be great parenting.

[EvilDoctorBallerinaRoastDuck]

Lovemusic I buy Christmas presents in October, any requests after that get ignored and the DC know this. I have to do it like this, because I have to budget.

[crazymissdaisy]

I agree it sounds like she's been shamed into going off them by a sneering remark or something like that- the way she deleted the videos as well suggest that to me. Why not ask her what are the girls in your class getting for Christmas? ( it's probably makeup/ phone stuff) then get her a really cheap make up palette/ diamante phone case in her stocking as an extra. That way when the cool kids ask what she got for Christmas she can talk about the on trend item, as well as quietly enjoying her robot. If she's confident enough she can show them a vid of it working, I expect some of them at least will think it's fun or funny when they actually see it. Children that age have such a herd mentality. Or am I just succumbing to peer pressure?

[Witchend]

Give it her and tell her that if she really doesn't like it she can ebay it/return it and use the money elsewhere. I suspect once she has it then she'll like it.

[CheapSausagesAndSpam]

Is it possible she thinks you can't afford it and is trying to let you off in a way?

[SantasCandyCane]

I’m presuming that if she’s 13 she understands about Santa. So there will be no ‘Santa would know that I didn’t want it’. I’d still give it her, she asked for it and it’s 9 days before Christmas so she has to think you’ve got it

[musicposy]

Still give it to her. DD used to do this every single damn year as a young teen. Kept on about something for months then changed her mind a week before Christmas. I never changed what I'd bought and always gave it to her. I felt that to rush around in the day or so beforehand, pandering to some new whim, was a madness I wasn't going to engage in.

I wonder if it was a quest for a kind of perfect Christmas present, a kind of anxiety as she got near the time.

She grew out of it at about 16, maybe realising that wanting something all autumn and changing your mind on 19th December was not very sensible and not going to work!

[Idreamofalandrover]

Sorry but if you are poor then two little presents is more than enough for Xmas.

Teach your children to live within their means and use resources appropriately.

[CheapSausagesAndSpam]

IDream Sorry but are you Amish or something!?

Listen to yourself.

Reminds me of bloody Meg in Little Women "Poor folk shouldn't rig!"

As if us "poor people' don't have enough misery without people like you lecturing us on how to live our lives.

Stupid.

[pandarific]

I think she just thinks you haven’t got it, and it trying to convince you/herself that it’s okay, she didn’t really want it anyway.

Keep it in as a gift; if she doesn’t want it she can exchange it if you have the receipt?

[ZaZathecat]

Give her the gift and say 'if you don't want it now leave it in the box and we'll exchange it'.

[pictish]

"Sorry but if you are poor then two little presents is more than enough for Xmas."

Yes, poor people should know their place and adjust their expectations accordingly. Main presents are not for the likes of them but for the worthier children of more affluent parents.

[SchadenfreudePersonified]

IDream

What a twatty thing to post!

[NoSquirrels]

Presumably it’s something to do with AI and the possibility of robots taking over (as PP mentioned perhaps a news article about robots with guns)? So a Meccano robot is not quite the same.

Anyway - 10 days before Christmas the gift is bought and I’d give it if I were you, with a sympathetic “perhaps you won’t want this now you’re freaked out by robots, but we’d already bought it” speech so she knows you listened but couldn’t change it.

[SaucyJack]

Have you kept the robot somewhere where she might have been able to find it- either accidentally or not.

Unfortunately, I suspect that she's trying to drop you a not-so-subtle hint that she doesn't want one for Christmas any more. "Freak out" is just teen speak for any mild vexation.

Could you exchange it for something else if it was new?

[MissionItsPossible]

Keep it and if she really doesn't like it return it for something she wants after Christmas.

[NoSquirrels]

Have you kept the robot somewhere where she might have been able to find it- either accidentally or not.

This could be true. I’d still not change it, though.

[MiltonTheCockroach]

They seem to be priced from £110 to £135 online (if it's the same one) so I'd sell it, make a profit and give her £90 to buy what she wants.

www.smythstoys.com/uk/en-gb/toys/construction-and-cars/meccano/meccano-m-a-x-meccano-advanced-xfactor-/p/160273?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI75jB47KO2AIVrrvtCh1bFQkmEAQYAyABEgIKN_D_BwE

[GottadoitGottadoit]

Do you have the receipt, can you take it back?

[Copperkettles]

I think the reality is she'll love it. It's a lovely present and perfect for a budding engineer. Robots freak me out too. They're still something we need to get to grips with as a society. Far better we have people like your dd knowing what's what with them. I'd rather someone like her was building them that some megalomaniac intent on having some fun.