DD has lied, and now I feel cruel. Please reassure me!

[OccamsLadyshave]

DD begged me last week to buy her tickets to go to an event in October. I told her that as she'd had a really good year and worked hard, and because the event is near her birthday, that I'd get them as a birthday present once I knew she'd finished her final project of the year without any last minute fuss.

Final project is due in tomorrow. She told me on Sunday that she'd finished it, so I bought the tickets (Costing £55). It turns out she had lied because she wanted to go out with her friends on Sunday, and also because she was worried the event would sell out.

She is now frantically working on her project (that she's had for 6 weeks) and will no doubt have something acceptable to hand in tomorrow. She is a real last-minute worker but usually pulls it out the bag and meets the deadline, but without any spare capacity for printers failing, unexpected events cropping up or any of the other many problems that can and do get in her way.

So while I have no doubt she'll hand her homework in, she has lied and misled me. The obvious punishment is that she doesn't get the tickets. She is distraught. I am extremely hurt and pissed off. The tickets are non-refundable and it does say they are not transferable either, and although I would probably risk selling them on ebay I doubt I'll get full value.

I have told her that I am definitely selling the tickets, but that I will give her first refusal and if she has saved £55 by mid-September I'll sell them to her rather than ebay them. She thinks this is the most appalling thing she's ever heard.

She gets £13 a month pocket money and currently has about £10 in the bank. I have told her that I will need my car washing inside and out both before and after our camping trip and that I will pay her £10 each time if it's done to the standard that they do it at the car wash. She can also mow the lawn and trim the hedge (£5 each time). She could easily save the money by September if she wanted to.

Am I being harsh? Am I being too soft by giving her a get out clause? One of the tickets is for me, because under 14s aren't allowed in on their own and it's a couple of weeks before her 14th birthday but I am making her pay for that too (I have never even heard of the people we're going to see so I don't feel that I'm getting any benefit from it)

This is new territory for me because she is usually very honest so I don't want to overreact but I don't really feel I can just shrug it off either.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

I'm with Nikkifury-she will lie again because all kids do

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Posted too soon!

All kids lie but ime if you come down hard and I think what you're doing OP is really harsh, she'll be more likely to hide it next time. She's a good kid who gets her work done even though she works a but last minute. I would make it known I was pissed off about the fibbing but really I couldn't get worked up about this at all.