Teenagers!!!

[mrsshears]

Help me out on this one wise mumsnetters.
Dd1 14 is currently driving me up the wall with her complete lack of being able to sort her life out, after a long grounding following numerous issues including running up nearly £200 worth of mobile phone bill,she is now allowed out again after paying off the bill on the condition that she uses her £5 pocket money every other week for credit and if she has no credit she can't go out,she is welcome to use the landline to call her friends at home but the mobile is really just for emergency contact purposes really.
This is being done in an effort to make her realise responsibility and money management/budgeting.
So today dd tells me she is going to her friends house,i say fine but be back at 16.00 because she is going out for dinner later and needs to get ready etc,all sorted,until half past 3 when dh gets a call saying "i'm in town and can't get home til 4.30" dh say's "no you were told 4.00 and you need to be back for then".
Dd say's "well you need to come and collect me then" which dh did (i was not around at the time and would not have let dh do this had i have known).
Dh then get's bombarded with texts the whole journey "where are you" "how long" etc, when dd and dh get home i check her phone for credit (which is an agreed thing) to find she only has 5p left after 5 day's!!
I'm really annoyed that A) she went into town without saying and didn't manage her time either.
B) she has messed dh around
and C) she has no credit left.

Dh say's that all teenagers are the same and this is just what they do,i just can't accept that, it's almost saying "well let's just let her do these things because she is a teenager"
I appreciate these things are not the crime of the centuary but it's wearing me down that this is how she is all the time!!
Aibu to expect otherwise??

I think we will look at a bit more pocket money per week then,the only thing dd has to pay for really is make up(probably only needs to buy this every 6 weeks or so as she has a huge stash and does not use an expensive brand) and phone credit,we pay for clothes,toiletries and everything else really.
What would you think is a suitable amount?
My point really about being late is she should not be needing to ring to say she will be late as she should not be late in the first place iyswim.
She hadn't said she would be going to town and i suppose as teenagers do had gone off without a though about how she would get back or how long it would take her,it wasn't really that she had got stuck or held up she just had not thought anything thorough as per usual.
anyfucker that is exactly what dh says and i know you are both right but it doesn't stop me tearing my hair out over the continual idiocy!!

mrss, my hair has gone grey since my dd turned 13

she is a boundary-pushing ball of attitude

she will say something like "just going for a walk with S"

3 hours later, she rings from miles away for a lift home

she calls on her phone, and I hear laughing and piss-taking in the background

she is an attention-seeking nightmare

a curfew is pushed to the limit every single time

don't even talk to me about the gcse revision she isn't doing, the rows are stratospheric

teenage girls...sent to try us (and pay us back fo being a nightmare teenager ourselves )

listen to your dh, and whatever you do stick together

it really is a battle, and if she senses a gap between you she will exploit it to the max

DH and I are a united team, if we weren't we would at the mercy of a 16yo gil, believe me

they are relentless

DS1 gets £10 a week. He will be 15 in June. On his birthday we will give him a rise to £13 a week. All he has to buy out if this is his phone top up. We buy all clothes, toiletries etc. He likes to buy a Kerrang magazine, or may need new guitar strings/picks.

He has tried to get a paper round, but we live in a village and have one shop.

at 14, dd got £10 a week

she has to do chores to my satisfaction for that though

now she is 16, she gets £15

she had a PT job, but she was a lazy mare, so they let her go stopped giving her shifts

when she goes to college in Sept (hopefully, if she doesn't completely stuff her gcse's), we won't be giving her more, if she wants more money she will have to get another PT job

I think when she sees her friends at college going out and having a good time, she will step up and sort it (lives in hope)

There's only any point in giving her more pocket money if it is clear what it is to cover. My DS is 13 and gets £5 a week to cover random purchases, sweets and so on, bus fares, cinema tickets, tennis court fees, etc. He also has birthday money and book tokens that he has won as school prizes. I top up his phone an agreed amount and buy his clothes.

anyfucker when i had the conversation with my mother about how dd drives me insane she gave me a knowing look and said "really" whilst raising her eyebrows in a been there done that kind of way!!

We have recently given dd the job of emptying the dishwasher and the kitchen bin,no other chores apart from those at the moment,she generally does it,80% of the time i would say.
What i might put forward to dh is that we up pocket money to £8 per week and see how we go with that for a while?

You have to decide what's important to you. For example, if the specific time to be in is really that important, then focus on that and she needs to know that is non-negotiable. Personally, it seems a daft thing to not be able to be flexible over - as someone esle said, she did the tight thing in phoning to let you know where she was at a time she knew you would be worried. With mine, I'd remind them what time they were going out, but then leave it up to them if they wanted to come in early and get ready at a leisurely pace, or rush in and rush through their ablutions at the last minute. I don't set a 'fixed' time to be in, but it's important to me that they are honest with me about where they are and who they are with, and that they are contactable if it starts getting late.
Re the phone, if she can't stick to her limit then surely PAYG is the consequence. I really don't think you need worry too much about her being stuck with no credit - a) you will still be able to call her, and b) in an emergency I'm sure someone would let her use their phone. If it's not an emergency, then that's her learning her lesson, that she can't phone someone if she's used all her credit.
Re money - I have a ds who is 15 and a dd who is 13, and they buy all their own phone credit out of their pocket money, which is £15 per month for my ds and £13 per month for dd. They manage fine. ds wanted more money so he does a job for a few hours a week to earn it. dd saves out of hers.

tight thing right thing

OP, personally I think a 14 yo should be doing more chores than that

my 12 yo does more than that

dd is finally getting better with the chores re. the quality of what she does...when she cleans the bathroom is is sparkling

it has taken years of me refusing to do it myself (because I can do it better) though

Really? this is all really useful info for me as i said she is my eldest and it's all new to me,i don't really have any friends with teens,their children are all younger and now dd is at high school i don't tend to see any of her friends parents anymore either.

dd is my eldest too

I have always been a strict parent though, it's just how i am

not that it turned her into a less selfish teen though, I don't think it matters what you do, tbh, it's par for the course

i just make sure it doesn't impact on the rest of family life as best I can

I am strict with both my kids, and they still gang up against me

Dd had more pocket money but had to do substantial chores to earn it. Even now as a poverty stricken student she'll do extra if she needs more money.If I'm pushed for time I'll offer to pay her to do cleaning/ ironing and she is always quick to take me up on it. Rather pay dd than have a cleaner tbh and we both benefit.

Blimey, just seen the post about the lack of jobs she does! .
Mine are expected to do a lot more than that, and have always been expected to do so.

Slightly changing the subject here...but what IS a reasonable amount of pocket money...realistically speaking. Don't want mine to be spoilt but don't want to be super meany either!

My teenage girls get £20 a week each for socialising and buying odds and ends. We pay for clothes, books, phone contracts and toiletries.

We do like them to save some of this, which they do. They put money into shares under the guidance of DH.

It is a tricky one. As a poster said earlier they can't budget/save/invest if they don't have enough money.