Tough bday dilemma WWYD please 11 year old and £100

[BirthdayComplication]

Dd one is 16 and dd 2 nearly 11.

For dd 10th bday we offered her a party or 100 pounds on her bday.. She chose 100 and we went to hamleys.

Dd2 we offered the same. She chose the party. We had an at home party no entrainer, they did crafts and played music... 8 friends. Dd would also have had gifts from us. Dd said we didn't spend 100 on her.

Her bday is soon and she's saying she never got the offer and can she have 100 pounds for her 11th bday.

There 100 figure was really only for this 10th bday because it was a small double figures milestone... And not something I want to give out every year.
I'm uncomfortable that she doesn't trust us when we say she had the offer.

We can give her 100 on her 11th but I'm uncomfortable and feel I would need to record the transaction or get her to agree she wanted it and not a party.

Also just after lock down for her 9rh we did do the really expensive disco party, hall.. Prof cake etc... Which is far more than we everything spent before always had house parties but due to lock down and no parities for 2 year we decided to go for it.

She's extremely sensitive where her sister is concerned and jealous.

I'm not sure how e to proceed. Perhaps I'm over thinking it and should just give her the 100.

You're the adult and parent. If they were both offered the same and they chose different options and you're absolutely clear you delivered then you TELL the CHILD that they are mistaken, they have both been treated fairly and that is the end of the discussion and you are not prepared to be dictated to by a child and that is that. Move on. Don't spend that much on each birthday thereon if you're not happy to do so as that sets the precedent and also tells her that the more she goes on then she'll get her own way.

Playing Devil’s advocate here…
DD1 had £100 AND was taken to Hamleys. A trip in to London is never a cheap day out, so this would have been an additional expense/treat for DD1 above and beyond the £100 present.
If DD2 is inquisitive and quite intelligent, she has probably worked this out and realised that having 8 friends round to the house probably didn’t cost £100, let alone the extra expense of a day out in London. Maybe in her mind, she feels it may be a little unjust.
At this pre pubescent age, girls in particular start to analyse and question EVERYTHING!! They also love to start pushing boundaries to see how far they can go. It sounds like this might be the case here.

I don't think you need to be very careful about how you handle it, I think you need to shut it down once and for all. Explain to her very clearly that she had her choice and she made it, there's nothing you can do about that now and she is absolutely not going to get £100. Tell her you won't be discussing it further and follow through with that

I read an article recently that said that if you make a big thing of always treating your children exactly the same, you teach them to monitor everything and keep track to ensure they get their share. Much better to teach them that they are different people with different needs, and that you will parent them accordingly.

We have never totted up the pennies to ensure that we spend exactly the same on each child at Christmas and birthdays. We give each of them what we know they need / want / would love, and sometimes that's not the same. They have never checked to see if what they got is as good as their siblings. It's the same outside of Christmas. Sometimes one of them needs new clothes, sometimes one of them needs more time and attention - it all evens out.

She is being a spoilt brat. She was offered the options and made the choices done and dusted. In the past. Do not give in as that is unfair and sets a precedent. Sit her down and very clearly tell her that is what happened and that you will not engage in any further discussion on it. End the matter once and for all and explain to her the options for this next birthday. She sounds spoilt, ungrateful and manipulative.

Life is not always equal. Life is not always fair. Someone else will always have something better than you or that you want but cannot have. It is a good lesson to learn. Stop discussing it with her as you are enabling this nonsense. You are the adult. Shut it down once and for all. Let her sulk.

You seem to be confused about who calls the shots - you do. Tell her no and address the jealousy by talking about it and working on your relationship. Giving onto unreasonable demands rarely helps any relationship to flourish.

I think she is quite young and it's a regretsy , she can't go back and change her mind ,but could badger you until you hopefully give in and give her the experience she wished she had chosen . I don't think proof of what you spent will make much difference to how she feels .

Tell her she was offered the same as other DD but she chose differently and took the party. Then tell her that is the end of the discussion, there is no ‘do over’. The End.

Exactly this. You took the words right out of my mouth.

I find all the posts calling her a spoilt brat and telling you to shut her down are missing the point. At a wee 10 years old, her brain is still developing until she’s 25, so she’s struggling with feeling a sense of unfairness, and she doesn’t have the emotion regulation to process that. She’s not a bad kid, she just feels something been unfair and she doesn’t understand money, and she’s been socialised in a world of consumerism. She’s going round on it because you’re not seeing the emotional issue underneath and needs your help with THAT. For sure, she also needs a loving boundary.

How about ‘I’m wondering if you’re feeling that it wasn’t fair on your birthday? How did that make you feel?’ Help give her words to make sense of her experience - eg ‘that sounds hard, like you were feeling jealous. When I was a kid sometimes I felt like that too…’ Validate her ‘yeah I can see how you interpreted it that way.’ THEN when she feels fully understood and loved, her emotions will settle down enough for her to hear you when you say ‘well, can I tell you how I understood what happened’ so you can put her straight on the facts or perhaps point out how she is just as loved/receiving gifts isn’t everything. And give the loving boundary ‘I know it didn’t work out how you wanted, and that felt hard. That was a choice for that year though and we haven’t given your sister £100 on her 11th birthday either. Here’s what we can do this birthday…’

How about ‘I’m wondering if you’re feeling that it wasn’t fair on your birthday? How did that make you feel?

I'd have rightly assumed my mum was taking the mick if she had ever spoken to me like that.

Objectively my brother had a lot of expensive shit I didn't because our family circumstances were reduced a lot in the intervening years. If I had bitched about it I would have been told to pull my head in.

I think by shutting it down, it teaches her regulation, its finished, it teaches her acceptance, that some things just 'are', thats how it is.

At times feelings and emotions need validating, but feelings and emotions are not always reliable or acceptable and so by validating them you feed into them and drive them on.

Sometimes things need shutting down to allow the child to move on.