To make my teen use birthday money to replace my things!

[Blockfr]

My hair has been really damaged due to colouring. I brought some expensive shampoo and conditioner to help out, i have only used it once. I explained to my teen its for my hair and its expensive. She has long curly hair and i’m always buying things for her hair. Today i went to get in the shower saw both bottles of my shampoo and conditioner lying down with the lids off and it literally going down the drain.

I feel really annoyed! Its not just the fact she has used it without asking but to not have enough respect to even look after it! Half the bottles gone now. She recently had her birthday and has money. Am I unreasonable to say she needs to replace them with her money

I wouldn't take her birthday money as there's a chance the people who kindly gifted it to her would not be happy the money had been spent on your expensive hair care,regardless of the reason.
what I would do,is to stop buying stuff for her hair,just get basic shampoo and conditioner,nothing else,until you have recouped the £40 that ordinarily,you would have spent of hair care for her.
don't give in,just let her realise she needs to act more responsibly.

she needs to learn. It will sit better if she has to replace the items.
Then you need to put them away so they're not easily available, unfortunately.
And for a while, at least, she can buy her own hair products. And you can - if you want to be petty - use them or put them where she can't find them once or twice to drive the message home.

Or you can get her to replace the items, buy her own hair products in future, and have a discussion about not using other people's things.

I wouldn’t bollock her, teens make mistakes and it just creates an ‘us vs them’ mentality. I think consequences are a far better teacher anyway.

In your shoes, I’d calmly make her replace them. Then when she inevitably complains, I’d sympathise with her and agree that it’s annoying when we have to spend money unnecessarily…and that’s why we look after things.

I feel your pain like me slamming our Fire door repeatedly with my head in it. We've had this endlessly for a good few years. I think it's something many teens do. Mine just doesn't get/care about waste/damage/expense at all. The frustration blows my mind. Reading the OP & other similar tales on here has given me scant consolation that it's not just my kid who does this, I was really beginning to think so. Personally, I'd ask her to hand over half the cost to replace them, she hasn't lost all of it. Hopefully, she will see the natural consequence of her actions.

Yeah, I’d make her replace it out of birthday money. Birthday money or not, if I carelessly damaged somebody else’s stuff and birthday money is all I had to replace it then I’d have to use it.

my general rule of thumb with stuff like this on my own teen is, if it wouldn’t fly when you’re an adult then there’s no point teaching them that it will fly when they’re teenagers. They can trash their own shit if they like, it’s only them who suffer, but if it doesn’t belong to them, they replace it, and if it Has to be out of birthday money then tough shit.

This is why you need to keep anything expensive like that in your room and not for anyone to find in the bathroom.

I had told her explicitly not to use it. Its not that she doesn’t have hair stuff. She gets a subscription box of curly hair stuff each month to try and use. She has well over £500 of birthday money saved up.

I will talk to her again today after school. And have moved all interesting toiletries in my room

Stop the subscription box to lay you back for your shampoo. I take it you pay for the subscription?

I wouldn’t bollock her, teens make mistakes and it just creates an ‘us vs them’ mentality. I think consequences are a far better teacher anyway.

you don't need to bollock them though. You do need to show them how things work. So in this case, i would say it is shit that she used your expensive things in this way and that she is required to replace them. She has plenty of cash that this isn't going to make much of a dent. And if she moans? teach her about opportunity costs (economics lessons are often useful)

If you don't want her to use her own money, then you have to find other consequences. Buy budget shower gel and so on for her. From the pound shop or whatever. Own brand everything food wise. And stop blindly replacing things she misuses - she complains? tell her about sustainability.

What happens at her dads, what her dad does doesn't come into it. That's going to be his problem to solve (maybe when he buys her a beamer for her birthday and she crashes it?)

Yep. I will stop the subscription box. I dont know a weird guilt like i’m not providing for her. I think there are deeper issues at play here because I don’t want her to miss out?

I absolutely know she’s not missing out but I had her when i was very very young. I couldn’t provide for her then so now I think I compensate for that but its come back to bite me

Your DD didn't just make a mistake, she obviously knew those bottles weren't hers when she picked them up in the shower so she wilfully ignored your instruction. Not only that, but she was careless and wasteful. I know teens can be impulsive but that sort of selfish behaviour won't fly in adulthood so yes, I'd make her replace it and then I'd hide the new bottles.

Your DD sounds a lot like my DH and I can tell you, it's not a cute look on a 33 year old. He and I both have ADHD (mine is medicated, his isn't) and while mine is tempered by my autism's need for law and order, his runs rampant. I can see that he tries really hard but everything he owns is either broken, filthy or lost in the void. We had been together for just a few months when he smashed my iPad; I'd reminded him not to leave it propped up on the couch but he wandered off and it fell onto a plate he'd left on the floor. He is on his third pair of AirPods because he keeps losing them. He wastes his own fancy shower gel by leaving it upside down with the lid off. I have been reminding him for months that his passport is expired. Incentives or forfeits don't work because it's just how his brain is wired and, after 11 years together, I've seen that absolutely nothing can override it.

I'm 100% not diagnosing anything, just drawing parallels and offering sympathy because I understand how frustrating it is. I really hope for both of your sakes that your DD feels some contrition and is able to grow out of it.

As you've mentioned, she has a lack of respect for other peoples' things and is careless with her own. She needs to replace yours and she must replace her own or they don't get replaced.

Life lesson and natural consequence she pays for it from the birthday money if she doesn't have any other money. She should only work it off if she doesn't have any money at all.

If you have a debt/fine/penalty that needs to be paid, you pay for it with the money you have regardless of whether its ringfenced as birthday/holiday money, an inheritance to put towards a car or house etc.

It wasn't her shampoo to waste. It was her mother's.

£500 in birthday money and fancy hair product subscriptions, all the latest gadgets from her dad whenever she wants

Very few adults have this sort of disposable income to throw at themselves. She needs some sort of reality check here.

Of course you should ask her for £40 to replace your products. She’s bloody loaded.

That's why she doesn't get it, though. There is literally no consequence for her.

Yep, she doesn't get it because she doesn't have to. She doesn't have to clear up after herself because you will do it. She doesn't have to do chores because you still pay her anyway. She doesn't have to replace things because you will do it. She won't get it until she experiences consequences. Then she'll get it. Pour out half of her shampoo and conditioner. Don't buy her more.

Blockfr £40 for shampoo & conditioner that's expensive what was it ?

Sounds like she needs to experience consequentialism if she’s doing things like this regularly, so I’d say yes explain to her how it’s affected you, but most importantly how it’s now going to affect her (she has to replace them)

She doesn’t get it because you replace and fix everything she doesn’t look after!

Being a parent doesn't just mean being her best friend. Sometimes you need to do stuff that's not fun to make sure they turn out as a decent person. Disciplining kids is not fun but it needs to be done.

Wow. 500. I think this says a lot about the situation in and of itself. She doesn't value money because she is surrounded by it.

You need to nip this in the butt right now. Knew a girl just like your daughter. Surrounded by money. Lived in an expensive gated community. As soon as she started driving she felt no accountability or urgency for anything.

She totalled 3 cars before she was 20. (American) issuance through the roof. Parents just kept buying her brand new cars. Eventually insurance companies started rejecting her and she was so shocked!

If you don't teach her these small lessons while she is young and the consequences are small then she will learn them in a very big very adult way from someone else!

It's better for her to learn from you than from someone else so do her a favour!

I reject the adhd suggestions. Thus isn't adhd. She clearly lives a very monetary privileged life and she feels insulated by money and the adults around her from facing real life consequences.

Yes, make her replace it. And her allowance needs to be tied to chore chart going forward. Don't beat yourself, OP, teenagers are a pain and it's hard work to make them step up.

It's unfashionable on MN, but I insist on tidy bedrooms and do not adopt the whole stance of "they can keep their room how they like, it's their choice." I think tidiness is a habit or muscle memory thing, rather than a conscious decision, and so is messiness. If they are in the habit of leaving things on the floor in their room, dirt, crumbs, trash, mucky spoons and plates, drawers and cupboard doors sticking out, it's inevitable that those habits will influence the way they treat the rest of the house. If they develop tidy habits - avoiding clutter, decluttering rubbish, putting things away - it's easier to get them to do it in the rest of the house too.

Instead of just having yet another go at her about her bad behaviour - maybe try something like this -

• Sit her down and have a serious talk about how she's nearly grown up and needs to start learning to be responsible and independent, ready for making the best of her life and opportunities - important exams, university, career etc. Learning to.manage her own money.

Then instigate something along the lines of the following -

• Firstly, say she must physically go out and buy haircare replacements for you with her own money - then she'll know exactly the cost of what she wasted.

• You won't be clearing up after her any more, but you will dump back in her room any of her stuff she leaves lying around unnecessarily - let her sort it out.
• You won't wash/iron any of her clothes unless she leaves them ready in a designated laundry hamper. You will show her how to use the washing machine and iron, if she doesn't already.
• You won't be cleaning her bedroom any more.
• You won't replace any lost/broken gadgets unless there's a very good reason
• You'll expect her to be responsible around the house with chores, etc

Depending on how all this goes, she will receive an allowance at the end of each month, like a sort of wage - which she can use for clothes, phones, fares , etc - and save. or spend as she likes, but will not receive any more money from.you, except for special reasons.

My parents instigated something like this with me and my brothers, and it worked quite well! On the whole....
Hope that might help!

I didnt give her any of the birthday money its from her dad and his family.

I brought the redken acidic bonding set. My hair felt lovely after first try but v expensive.

She absolutely hasnt grown up in huge wealth or anything like that. I was a teen mum, i worked hard and i’ve obviously gone too far

I think we share the daughter.... I feel your pain. I have started to charge for "destructions" from her pocket money and to be honest it's not working