To think teenager should be grateful for birthday party and gifts?

[Mama1209]

My 16yr old daughter is sulking, moody and crying after I didn’t get her anything from her (extensive) birthday list! On the list was a new iPhone and designer clothes & makeup which added up-to around £2k. She has been awfully behaved for the last few years in general. School day she may end up NEET - not in education or employment. She wasn’t allowed to go to prom due to poor behaviour/ performance at school. Vapes, drinks, is rude and abusive to myself & her siblings, doesn’t work or do any jobs around the house, the list goes on! We have tried everything including family counselling. Nothing works! She is so entitled -think Paris Hilton. Demanding £400+ for hair extensions, then nails, lashes etc every month which her grandparents pay for! Her dad passed away when she was 9, so his parents tend to try and make up for that. She plays Us off against each other. Anyway.. she expected a full on sweet 16th like she’s seen on TV in America. I got her a Pandora bracelet, charm & earnings, provisional driving licence and have said I’ll pay for all her lessons and test and give her £50 for each C or above she gets at GCSE. I’ve also got money which I’ve been saving since she was a baby, ready to buy her a car. I’ve hired a hot tub, glamping tent & disco bouncy castle for the weekend, she’s had her boyfriend sleep over in it as well as a special cake, Mac Donald’s & sweet deliveries (most of which got wasted) but she’s moped about all weekend. She said her friends got designer coats etc and when she told them what she got they said “that’s a bit shit” and was crying telling me this. She’s also got about £200-300 cash of family members so far! I did pre warn her that if her behaviour continued I wouldn’t be getting her any birthday presents but she still confined to swear at me and call me names. We also took her away for the weekend last weekend, we had to cut the trip short due to her behaviour, fighting with her brother and calling me names. AIBU not getting her more gifts? Or expecting her to be grateful for what she DID get?!

This is quite an illuminating thread.
So, how old is the boyfriend and what's he like?

😂

Seems a bit pointless, but there you go...🤔

But can she actually use the driving lessons and the car now? It sounds like she can’t. I’m in the US so at 16 this would be a great present- but less so at 15.

My mom bought me a car when I was 15…she got a good deal on it and knew I’d need it relatively soon. But it was a bit shit to see it sit in the drive and even worse watching others drive it while I was waiting to turn 16.

How have you tried? Because you sound like a helpless passenger in all this but you're not. Underage drinking, vaping, being barred from Prom for behaviour, being rude and entitled - that's appalling, it's someone who has no boundaries, it's an absolute failure of parenting. I don't know what to suggest because I don't know how you could let it get that bad.

I know loads of teens who would have absolutely loved the party. It sounds like you made a real effort and she is being ungrateful. As for no prom, schools usually make it very clear at the beginning of year 11 what the consequences for poor behaviour will be. My school have stopped pupils from attending prom before when their behaviour has been exceptionally poor. But they had all been made aware of the possibility of not going to prom well in advance - they continued with the poor behaviour choices anyway. This was not just normal teen behaviour either, if everyone behaved like this, school it would be total anarchy. I don’t think it wrong to teach them that behaviour/choices have consequences. This is what your dd needs to very quickly realise.

Yes that’s what I’m thinking I should have done after reading this. She did actually like the bracelet and party. She just wanted the other things too.

yes have had lots of conversations re a job. Have helped her apply for a few including McDonalds

I know you expect her to be more grown up BUT try and see her POV

She is hormonal and emotional, she has probably been on social media a lot and has all this pressure to keep up with her pals and impress them. She is clearly not academic or doing well at school for what ever reasons - she will be upset and very aware of this but probably masking caring with attitude. Her role models now are influencers. She doesn't know who she is and is probably having a big identity crisis, her brain isn't nearly fully developed.

Yes we want to teach manners and thank you but she's having a big I don't know what to do with myself it's my party I'll cry if I want to moment now. Just tell her you love her and you're happy she's been on the planet for 16 years and you're proud of who she is and you know in the next 16 years you'll make her even prouder. Honestly that's all she needs.

Deal with the 'benhavious' and lack of direction another day .

OP hasn’t bought either the driving lessons or the car yet.
She hasn’t even promised her DD that she intends to buy her a car in two years time when she is 18.
DD might not want a car two years in the future. They are expensive to run and most 18yr olds cannot afford such a millstone.

Loads wouldn't love the party either though and at the age of 16 you would only really have one if the child said they wanted a party surely?

I agree she is clearly lost and emotional have some empathy everyone she's a lost child

Are you absolutely taking the piss?

Have you seen what they are saying about sexual abuse of 16 year old workers at McDonald's this week in the news?

Seriously op, do you really hate your daughter? Please get some individual counseling as well as family, it's very concerning.

Oh and for the record I do agree she should get a job. But that is totally separate from the birthday

I clicked you are being unreasonable- for putting up with her shit!
What a brat.
Anything she's moaned about, send it back.
Horrible behaviour!

Her behaviour sounds awful but once you decided you were going to spend money on her, I don't understand why you didn't spend it on what she wanted.
I always think it's manipulative to know what someone wants; completely ignore that; and then get pissy that they're not grateful that you completely ignored what they wanted to get what the buyer wanted instead.
Also I was a perfect child - great grades, well behaved - but I was always an emotional mess at my birthday especially after I lost a parent.
And I'm not even going to comment on the bullshit about the provisional and the bf staying over.

I absolutely disagree with bribing someone into playing nice and polite. She's clearly got some issues and needs adults in her life to listen and show they want to understand her

She's horribly spoiled and needs discipline.

I don't care if she hated every gift and hated the party , she's old enough to know that you accept gifts with good grace and say thank you. Clearly she's not a subscriber to the it's the thought that counts club.

Teaching her that she should be able to demand specific gifts otherwise her Mum is a bit shit for not acceding to her wants is only going to make her entitled behaviour even worse.

She should be bloody grateful for the time, money and effort her Mum put into her birthday. So many are not so lucky.

I'd definitely be starting the conversation about how she is going to start supporting herself once she is 18. At the moment she thinks her bread is buttered on all sides.

@Singleandproud
My dd goes to private school. She’s 15 so going into year 10. None of her friends get gifts like this and by the houses some of the families live in and the holidays they afford, they have a lot of disposable income. Mind you, we are spending 15k to educate our children!

As for those saying about Pandora, my dd has had a bracelet for a few years and is slowly collecting the charms. We spent no more than £200 this year and this included clothes. It varies year to year. I certainly don’t expect to spend thousands on her next year!

I tried my best but I can't read the wall of text in the original post. Very sorry.

I agree. It is interesting to read the mixed opinions too. From come down in the spoiled ungrateful madam with a tonne if bricks to check the underlying issues, avoid power play or you will lose your daughter.

I think I prefer the latter. Authoritarian rarely works and definitely not at 16.

She sounds spoilt and swearing at you etc is clearly unacceptable, but at 16 I'd have been pretty annoyed if I'd had a list but didn't get anything on it because my parent thought my taste was 'crap' so bought what they thought I should want instead - and then expected gratitude. Obviously you aren't going to like the same things as a teenager. That doesn't make it wrong for her to like what she likes. It doesn't matter how lovely other people think Pandora is if she doesn't like it!

Buying everything on the list would have cost too much, sure, but you could have told her that and asked what she wanted most from it, or let her know that there was no way you could get everything but you'd select some of what she asked for.

So take back the bracelet iF she agrees to apologize for the way she reacted

Obviously it was tragic that she lost her dad young, but the way you've said "we got her/we will get her" in your follow-up comments suggests that she hasn't been without responsible adults in her life.

Sorry, but you've made this grabby, ungrateful monster. You told her you weren't getting her any presents unless her behaviour improved - which it didn't - but you still dropped hundreds of pounds on gifts for her!
And don't blame the grandparents, you could have easily cut them off years ago.

What motivation has she got to improve herself, if she still gets rewarded anyway?

She's entirely a "you problem."

It really doesn’t sound like she should be on the road with that temper and abuse tbh. She is not mature enough, and probably won’t be for a long time yet.

She did actually like the bracelet and party.

Not to be smartass, but are you sure she wasn’t telling you that to be polite but when her friends confirmed to her it wasn’t great the truth came out?