AIBU to think my daughter cannot afford this holiday abroad?

[ThisTealLeader]

Daughter (18) has booked a holiday with friends abroad, didn’t tell us the full amount and then lied about how much spending money she has. They are going bed and breakfast. She will have less than £200 spending money for a week’s holiday. She has used savings to pay for the holiday.
She is saying that her friend will be lending her money if she falls short, which she will I am sure.
My point is she is not being sensible with her money. She only works one day a week and so she cannot actually afford it and hasn’t thought it through.
I think she needs to cancel as it is irresponsible in my opinion to be going abroad with no backup. As far as I am aware she hasn’t booked travel insurance and is reluctant to do so as this will eat into her spending money.
Would like people’s thoughts on this?

Glad that some good has come out of it all. Hopefully the job will work out and she has learned from seeing her friends being able to spend as they have jobs.

Thanks for that. It is also possible that such behaviours are the result of anxiety. And of not having been explicitly taught stuff. So they don’t know it.

What I have now learned through bringing up my dd is that NT people naturally learn stuff from those around them. And this all makes so much sense.

@ThisTealLeader I would advise your dd to get the assessments tbh. And I’d be using the ‘surprise ‘holiday as an example. The lack of communication and planning etc.

You could travel. Lack of diagnosis isn't absence of condition. It's obvious that all the things @ThisTealLeader is describing are executive functioning difficulties associated with ASD/ADHD.

The fact that this thread has been started and the posts @ThisTealLeader has made indicates that she is not spoiling her DD and is concerned for her.

Nope not spoiling at all by sending money every single day… did you miss the part where the daughter actually laughed about blowing her own money? Presumably as she knows there’ll be no consequences and she’ll just get bailed out

It’s probably best not to project your own experiences on to other people. We’re all unique and experience things differently. Your anecdotal evidence of your own experience of autism doesn’t discount the experiences of others.

It’s also not spoiling her to ensure your daughter has enough money to eat while in a foreign country. You keep her safe and alive and deal with the impulsive and reckless spending when she gets back

@Bridesmaidorexfriend as others have said it needs to be in the moment or she won’t associate the consequences with her actions. Also, you really think there’s going to be any sort of dealing with the issues?

Op is dealing with it in the moment by ensuring her dd has the bare minimum. Not that I agree, because with her dd’s level of impulsivity, she could put herself in a stupid position, due to lack of funds.

Or do you think maybe her dd should starve and perhaps come home with an ED? Besides as has been said, this sounds more like AuDHD rather than ASD. Op has to deal with a level of impulsivity that a person with ASD is unlikely to have.

She literally can’t do anymore right now to teach her dd.

And it absolutely is possible to reflect on your behaviour. In fact my dd, who has AuDHD needs a lot of time specially to do that reflection.She’s not 5 anymore and living completely in the moment.

Hoenstly, if it was my DD, a trip like this is really special and yes I’d be annoyed, there’s clearly a lot of back story here, but I’d probably just accept that she’s a bit of nightmare right now and now’s not the time for a teaching moment. Give her some money and tell let her enjoy the holiday. But I’m projecting because I went on holidays like this when I was a teenager and they’re very special memories.

Unfortunately she made the choice that as an adult she was going to go on this holiday despite the good counsel of her mother, she has agency and capacity to make poor choices and some of those choices could cause her harm.

One minute, its let her make the choices, she cant be controlled, next thing, everyone has to bail her out because we must control how much risk she is exposed to.

ND or not, she has to develop better skills and you cant enable those skills to be developed by her not experiencing consequences.

Most of the ND young people (children not adults) I work with we are very boundaried on ensuring that each stage of decision making and choices comes with a responsbility, not just the right to make those choices.

Its not the 'rule of thumb' at all, many of the ND kids we work with are like older people in younger bodies, very sensible, would be shocked at hearing about someone like this making these decisions and not taking responsbility for themselves. ND kids and adults dont fit in one box and have a similar 'rule of thumb' at all, thats where disablement comes in.

I think you're being too easy on her if anything. She needs to learn to budget! Instead she is learning how to manipulate people, including her parents, into giving her money. Absolutely don't go above the £30 per day.

Ah 18, i thought you said after school

Well of course it depends on the person. And the OPs DD is vulnerable - which is the whole point of the thread. As is the DD of the poster you were responding to. The fact that your DC were able to wander alone around SE Asia is irrelevant.

The point is the horrified response that I " let" them go lol

A minority of us do have regular run of the. milk kids without extra needs or vulnerability

That sounds promising

hopefully she has told them she is away but will pop in on be return in x day

so they don’t think she isn’t coming /forgotten