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?!

I tried grounding her for a month when I found the vapes. It was the most miserable month of all of our lives! The. Tried short sharp punishments, taking phone and grounding for 1-2 days. Made a behaviour contract. Tried rewards. Tried counselling which she’s had since primary, tried family counselling. Had several meetings with school & grandparents. Referred myself to the local council for early help who were amazing! We did joint sessions and she did sessions on her own one of which was a 6 week intense group course discussing the dangers of vaping amongst other things. Have given her numbers to call to talk about her feelings incase she felt she couldn’t open up to us. Have had days out just us spending quality time. Have had her to GP several times to check iron levels etc as always grumpy/ tired. Have pushed school to test for SEN needs, she did get diagnosed with dyslexia in her final year but no sign of anything else. Have broken down and cried to her. Have hugged her and told her how much I love her. Have done charity events with her in memory of her dad. Every day I show up and do my best even after her calling me a fat cunt and telling me to kill myself. I read in a parenting book recently that even after trying all these things, if your teen doesn’t conform to authority, there’s nothing you can do but wait it out. This is the stage I’m at now. Just trying my best and hoping my little girl will come back to me!

Wow. So if you asked for a nice dinner out and a pair of shoes you’d had your eye on for your birthday and you let your DH know this but he orders in his favourite pizza and buys you a Shark cordless hoover- you’d be entitled and ungrateful to be a bit upset by this? You should count yourself lucky your DH got you anything?

I think you’re mixing up different issues and they need to be looked at separately…

Clearly daughters behaviour is atrocious and needs to be addressed - if the school banned her from the prom her behaviour must be really terrible as schools are used to “normal teenage behaviour”, which obviously this isn’t.

Due to said behaviour there should have been no big party or expensive gifts, but you decided you wanted to go the route of spoiling her but only on your terms - I think it’s really mean & spiteful of daughter to call them shit gifts/party but also mean of you to have ignored her wishes, if you were willing to spend the money on her despite her behaviour then why did you ignore what she wanted?! It’s a bit of a tit-for-tat situation. Explain to daughter you wanted to get her a keepsake (the Pandora bracelet) and that she has money gifted from others to spend on what she wants, with the offer to return the bracelet and give her the cash instead? At least then you show you’re listening to what she wants. I wouldn’t do any of this personally as if my kid was behaving like your, there wouldn’t be a party or expensive gifts. But you can’t use the behaviour reason as to why you bought her what you wanted to buy!

Grandparents sound bonkers, hope they’re looking forward to supporting a NEET granddaughter with behavioural problems.

What a selfish little brat ! She sounds horrendously spoilt.

I voted YABU because you have created a brat and are now complaining. Her behaviour is appalling and you spoilt her rotten on her birthday - I bet all that cost hundreds.
It sounds like her grandparents are terrible influences- perhaps you can ask them to stop giving her money and spending on her otherwise she won’t be coming to see them.
It’s time to sit her down and say her spoilt, brattish behaviour after you’ve spent hundreds on her (which she didn’t deserve) is the last straw. No more money, luxuries. Don’t pay for her driving lessons. Tell her she can get a job and pay for her own, perhaps it’ll motivate her. And that money you saved for a car, it’s yours for now. Not hers. You're rewarding shit behaviour.

You’re sending mixed messages to be honest. Do you want her to be grateful for her gifts and enjoy her birthday, or do you want her to feel the consequences of her actions and not have a great birthday because she doesn’t deserve one? It seems like you wanted both of these outcomes at once, which I don’t think is possible.

I’m really shocked at all the self-proclaimed former perfect teenagers in this thread. I’m glad to a few former pain in the asses here that I can relate to 🙂

Sorry, but she sounds like a rude, spoiled, ungrateful brat.
If my 16 year old handed me a 2k gift list I think I'd laugh and say um, maybe a list a bit more realistic?! I 😂
Then totally eye roll if they cried and were upset at what they were got!!
not to mention it'd be a tenner in their card and that's it if they were lucky next year!
She got more than enough, I could not deal with that level of entitled.

Agree, I almost voted YABU for that reason. Grandparents spending £400 every month on her nails and hair, is this for real?
If it were me I'd tell them to stop pronto. Even if her behaviour wasn't horrendous, there are far better ways for this kind of money to be spent on ALL of the grandchildren not just a single entitled princess!
Or keep saving it up for their inheritance one day.

Or maybe you’d pick a few things off of the list?

100% this ^^

I’d have got her a couple of the things on her list-and toned down the party as a consequence of her poor behaviour.

That sounds horrid for you, OP.

I'd tell her that since everything you do fails to please her, you'll stop trying. She'll have shelter and food but beyond that she needs to get a job.

Then grey rock, for your sanity.

Don't be. It's fairly common for young carers and/or those growing up in abusive households that they can't afford the luxury of shit behaviour because it has big consequences.

If a Pandora bracelet wasn't on her list then she probably didn't like it that much and certainly not as much the things which were on her list. There must have been things on there for a similar price so why didn't you get them rather than a bracelet and party things she hadn’t asked for?

I do feel for you op as you will no doubt realise from parents who are lucky enough to not have children with mental health issues that normal parenting techniques don't work but people will go on at you like you haven't tried them.
It is easy to blame you and think they are brilliant smug parents. As they have a complaint child which again is a lot of luck. The ignorance of these posters stinks.

🙄

First off, I'm sorry you lost your daughter's dad and now have to grapple with your in-laws without support. That's bloody hard.

But I think you and her grandparents need to wake up.

She's already gone pretty far down a bad path and you're wondering what shit to buy her as she whizzes by.

You need to talk with her grandparents. They need to know just how badly she's doing at school and what her prospects are.

I think the gifts are neither here nor there. Lots of kids come from families where there is a lot of material wealth and gifts but the parents also push their kids academically and make clear they expect their kids to have good manners and a work ethic.

I am sorry you're in this boat. But I think she is young enough that you have time to get a grip on her and turn it around.

You need to talk to her about her future. It sounds like she's quite disconnected from reality and just sort of assumes material goods will appear without figuring out any practicalities.

She sounds very difficult and entitled but it also sounded like you got what you wanted and not what she wanted.

This isn’t about money, it’s about you not taking her feelings into consideration and putting your wants before hers.

My DD always writes a list and I’ll get her what I can from it but it’s never all of it.
This year she wanted a laptop and lots of other things too and I said she can either have it all apart from the laptop or get the laptop and a couple of other bits, as I can’t afford a laptop and other bits.

I would explain to her that you have spent a lot of time and money getting her the things you thought she’d like and how her behaviour has really upset you.
I would also apologise for putting your feelings first and getting presents that you’d enjoy when it was her birthday and say it won’t happen again.

If you don't think what you've spent on an entitled child screams 'affluent' then you live in a very different world to me.

What consequences has she had for ANY of her awful behaviour?

And I am sorry that you lost your DH and she her father but his parents aren't making up for the loss, they're enabling her.

Crikey, I wish! I'm secretly hoping for a couple of karma grandkids one day

Her behaviour is obviously a separate issue but just on this, it's not really relevant whether you think it's crap. If my husband asked what I wanted for my birthday, and I gave him some ideas which he then totally ignored because he decided they were crap, I'd be annoyed.

It sounds like you got her something you wanted to give, rather than something she wanted to receive.

I’d have bought her a suitcase and a guide to the local b and b ‘s tbh

On a serious note though she’s behaved atrociously and yet continues to be spoiled ..
but you’ve spent lots of money on her but didn’t select ANYTHING from her list ?
Her friends round vile and entitled but all the behaviour aside , if my children give me a list, I Would at least try and pick off a few things from it

There was a curse in my family… my Gram told my mother “you’re going to have 2 just like yourself one day” my mum used to tell me the same thing… I took the curse to heart and have cats. 🤣

You’re the mug here! Nobody in their right mind would reward such behaviour and attitude with half the amount you’ve spent on her birthday. You are overcompensating I suspect for the loss of a father but unfortunately this has resulted in a brat. It will be hard to undo the damage but you need to start now.