To not let DD celebrate her birthday this year?

[BauerBorg]

DD is turning 15 this week, but due to her behaviour over the past few months, we’ve told her there won’t be a party or any celebrations beyond a cake and a small present at home. She’s been pushing boundaries in every direction — talking back, lying, not pulling her weight at home, and even skipping school once. We’ve tried everything from grounding to talking calmly to involving school, but nothing has made a dent.

She was expecting a party and a shopping trip with friends, which we’ve now cancelled. She’s been in tears and saying we’re being unfair and ruining her birthday. I feel awful, but I also feel like we need to make a stand. She’s acting like she can do whatever she wants without consequence, and honestly, we’re both exhausted by it all.

DH agrees with the decision but keeps second-guessing it now that she’s giving us the silent treatment and making the whole house miserable.

AIBU? I don’t want to be cruel, but I also don’t want her thinking bad behaviour gets rewarded. Would love some outside perspective because it’s hard to see clearly when emotions are this high.

I have to admit I wondered if the OP would get more truanting on back of this.

I know with my two DD around this age it seemed always to be stress round social groups within school - I kept boundaries and did punshiments as appropiate often taking phones for set periods but avoided get backed into big OTT reponses.

I know DD1 and DD2 both were friends with sisters who had a lot of this OTT last minute canceling of trips/meet ups they'd got prior permission for and had limited access to tech . They often didn't want to lose face with social groups they were already shaky with often on back of their parents behavior - so would skip school to avoid sometimes.

It could be a wake up call - but persoanlly I'd try working out how to back down using furture trips getting instated as an incentive - as this has potentail to make everything worse.

Honestly OP don’t cancel the shopping trip and do allow her to earn back her party.

You have allowed her to get away with her behaviour/not delved deeper as to what is causing it which is why it’s now escalated.

You can’t just dish out a humiliating punishment which all her friends will be gossiping about. That would be so damaging both to your relationship and to her as a person.

😳 at 'this is abusive/she will remember it forever/she will never forgive you'.

I think if this turns out to be the case then 1) she will have had a very easy life! and 2) she won't have grown very much. She's missing a shopping trip because she's behaving like a brat. She's not being chained in a basement and beaten four times a day.

This is the occasion to tell her, you love her very much, but you don't like her behaviour of late and bad behaviour has consequences. Those being, no party and no trips out.
That's clear enough and stand by it, no wavering.
You could also add that if her behavior changes for the better, next years birthday will be very different. That gives her an incentive to change.

She'll have to demonstrate a real change of direction before she gets anything! Stick to your guns. There are too many examples on here of teens behaving badly and then weeping and expecting clemency. Bad behaviour earns consequences - so, tough.

The sooner she learns that nasty behaviour results in unpleasant results, the better. It will serve her for the rest of her life. Crocodile tears get no points.

I don't think the OP will be back again but something I would like to know : how would she have dealt with her daughter's behaviour if it had not been her birthday now or any time soon?

I also think you're being far too harsh on her and things like that can fuck up relationships for a long time.

Too harsh! I did keep in touch for years with my very authoritarian mother (this is the kind of thing she would have done) through FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) but now that she is dead I don't miss her or mourn her.

This. You are soon to discover what parenting by consent means. And you’re not doing yourselves any favours by not admitting you made an error of judgment. Because your dd is learning from you not to back down even when doubting yourselves for fear of losing face. This is not a lesson you want her to learn into adulthood.

Admitting your errors is a very adult stance to take and takes skill to learn. I have of course made errors in the past and taken back punishments as well as having allowed dd to earn things back, where I think she will benefit from the lesson.

On occasion of course I have followed through if I thought it was of benefit to dd. Not to teach her a lesson but because it’s important for her to understand that there are boundaries and codes of behaviour and that as a future adult, it is my responsibility to teach her how to be someone, who can take responsibility for herself. The former seems to be your goal here tbh and punishments are best if immediate even at this older age. A better one would have been to ground her this weekend or take her phone away etc.

Did you at least warn her and give her 3 strikes before you removed both her party and day out? To remove both is quite a knee jerk reaction and seems rather authoritarian.

My other thought is that you've taken a big gamble by escalating it to this level. You'll be lucky if it has the desired effect. There's a good chance she'll escalate too to reassert her own power. The PP who mentioned late night calls to find out where a kid was could be your new reality as she heads towards 16. Better to keep channels open and bring things back down to a more reasonable level.

From op “back chatting, lying and once skipping school”. No, I do not think those are acceptable behaviours and, far more importantly, they will not work for her as an adult. If she does those things now with no repercussions? She will keep doing them because she won’t learn that they don’t get her what she wants. And how will those behaviours come across when she’s at work? Or university?
As an adult, the things she is doing now will absolutely make her life far, far harder than it needs to be.
I am an adult, If I had been talking back to my mother, lying and skipping school as a child? I would absolutely realise that I WAS that bad.

Was she aware that this was the punishment if the behaviour continued BEFORE you cancelled her party and shopping trip?

If so, YANBU as she knew the consequences and did it anyway!

If not, YABU because just shouting at her about her behaviour and then picking a suitable punishment out of thin air after she doesn’t improve, especially one like cancelling her birthday, is arbitrary and a bit harsh.

Probably, but that doesn’t mean she should get away with this behaviour!

Bloody bravo.
All this simpering, 'picking battles', and normalising shitty behaviour is big part of why schools have so much trouble with behaviour.

I think this is a really hard situation and you're doing the best you can 💕
Don't scrimp on her presents too much i.e. if you usually spend £100, don't drop down to like £20. But the idea of a small celebration with you all is more than fair give her behaviour.

I suspect this will massively backfire.

My parents did something similar at a similar age. I didn't forgive them for well over a decade.

(My response to this kind of parenting was to say nothing at the time, but I left home at 18, didn't have much to do with my parents and then moved overseas as soon as I finished my degree and didn't come back till I was in my 30s.)

We then managed to get on very well - because the dynamics were different.

I can see why you might just not want to do it. But I don’t think it’s likely to have much impact on your DD’s behaviour. Probably more likely to make her resentful and feed into any story she’s building in her head that she’s hard done by.

I think letting her earn back the party isn’t a bad idea. but at the end of the day you don’t want her good behaviour to be transactional. You need to spend more time building up your relationship, talking with her and doing things together.

I've got a similar age teen, a year older, and I would never withdraw a birthday as punishment, but we don't do punishments at all, we do natural consequences.

All behaviour is communication, and the teen years are pretty normal for answering back etc. In fact the only thing you listed that I consider to be any kind of "crime" is skipping school, and again I would rather get to the bottom of why than leap to punishment.

You absolutely can back down, and in fact it shows your DD how to about you were wrong about something which is an important skill. Just tell her you acted in anger, that you think you were wrong, that her party is back on but you also need to discuss her recent behaviour and how it's affecting the family.

Try to come at it as being a family team, not you and DH versus her, because that will just push her away and as she gets older that might end up permanent. Place your relationship with her at the centre of discussions and decisions and let her know how much you love her, and find out what's going on. You may have forgotten but the teen years are hard for them and their brain development is back similar to how it was when they were a toddler, so best that in mind when interacting with her.

Can you say you'll do something at the beginning of the summer holiday if she gets her act together between now and then?

If I had done this, I'd sit down with her and say, ' I hate having to keep increasing sanctions and punishments and I'm very upset that it has got to such an extreme that I've had to cancel your party. None of us wants this. Can you help me understand why you would risk missing out on such lovely treats? Do you think people should give money and treats and organise parties for someone sho lies and is rude to them and refuses to help when asked?'

Make sure she answers the question.
Then say if she is prepared to change, you'd be delighted to. If she helps without complaint, is polite, truthful and turns up to school, then the plans can be reinstated.

Of course the child won’t be happy. But consequences are something that come along side of bad behaviour.

She will still get a birthday and celebrations just not the one she wanted.

Theres a middle ground between giving the child everything she wants still for her birthday and locking her in a cupboard and pretending the birthday isn’t happening.

I agree. She’s behaving like a teenager because guess what? She is one. It’s way too harsh a punishment for minor misdemeanours.

Big punishments like this just don't work on 15 year olds, a sulky teen won't be made into a bright, happy, helpful teen by taking away everything she's looking forward to, it'll just make her more resentful and less inclined to do anything for you. It's certainly not going to make her want to talk to you more and I expect the last thing she'll want now is a family meal!

This isn't a happy kid, she's struggling in some way to be acting out like this, maybe peer pressure, maybe struggling at school. You can't keep escalating the punishments in an attempt to punish this out of her - have you not noticed that already?

How is she having to pull her own weight at home? It should be things relevant to her - making her own breakfast/lunch, washing and drying her own clothes, washing her dishes/putting them in the dishwasher, tidying her own room (or not, her choice). Treat her like a young adult where she can make some choices herself and be more responsible for herself. It works much better than trying to make her hoover the house or whatever because if she doesn't do it then she's the one with no clean clothes/a messy room/nothing to eat etc.

If she talks back then listen to what she says - why do you call it 'talking back'? If you reply to something she says then is that 'talking back'? You're treating her like a child and not listening to her. If she is rude then just calmly point out 'you're being rude'. You need to recognise she's growing up.

Skipping school is not acceptable at all - what does she want to do after school? It sounds like she might need some direction and help with what she might do after school and how important school is in keeping your options open. Does she want to go to uni? College? What are her interests? Help her make school relevant.

Lying is part and parcel of being a teen - didn't you ever lie to your parents? I was well behaved but still spent my whole teen years lying to my mum. Make it clear you're disappointed and the concerns you have about what she's lying about, put in some rules for the future and move on.

In a nutshell.

I agree with this, over and above all the “earning stuff back” stuff which is a bit wet.

This year’s punishment has been decided and should stand for this year - she’ll have other chances in future for bigger celebrations, and to make better behaviour choices.