How to deal with teenage entitlement?

[LDreads]

I have a 13YO daughter, she has in this last year become lazy, rude and extremely entitled. She is spoilt by other family members and I’ve attempted to have conversations with them about how this makes it very hard for me when she’s at home, mostly because she has no incentive to ‘work’ (each day she must do 1 chore, keep her room tidy and all homework to have her phone and an allowance of £25 per month that I pay directly into her bank, she stays at Dads twice a week and also receives £10 per week for chores done, although I think this is too much for a couple chores!) because she does not want for anything. We are arguing every single day she’s here (goes to Dads 2x a week). I am going to have another conversation with Dad to see if we can really get on the same page, I know teenagers are a pain in the butt but the one thing I can’t cope with is the sense of entitlement! I’ve always said she should get a Saturday job when she’s 13 to earn her own money and she’s always thought it was a great idea. I found her a job in a small local cafe. She now tells me that none of her friends work and it’s so embarrassing that she would have to work in a cafe and not go out with her friends. I asked her how she is going to afford to go out all the time with the allowance she gets and she said she didn’t care about the money she has everything she wants . I lost my head and said that she should be so lucky to be given an opportunity to earn something for herself, and how dare she think that she’s above working in a cafe. She also tells me her friends are never made to do any chores. My response is always the same, I’m not your friends Mum I’m your mum and this is how we do it in our house.
I’m not the calmest of people in the best of times and having a teenager is teaching me that picking your battles is always wise. But I’m at a loose end, even with chores it takes me longer to nag her to do them than if I just did the chore myself. She has 2 younger sisters and always seems to think they’ve got it easier than her (hard done by attitude) I often remind her she didn’t even tidy her own bedroom until her first sister was born. Since her sisters came along, she’s always done chores, always had an amazing work ethic and been happy to get stuck in and get stuff done. In our house the general rule is, if something needs doing and your not doing anything - then get it done as we’re a large family and we work long hours.

The sense of entitlement has only been around since being in secondary school and her comparing herself to friends who apparently are extremely spoilt always have money given to them and never do chores.

So please mums of the net, tell me how you dealt with your entitled teenager and what did and didn’t work!?
(in other words PLEASE HELP ME!!!)

I had some concerns about my special needs child's behavior discussing it with a developmental behavior pediatrician and said something like "I don't want to be raising a serial killer" and her response was "Just you stating that is enough to prevent it from happening" Just keep up the efforts doing your best to let her know you love her and are proud of her

I think teacahing them how to budget and manage their own money is such a critical life skill that I would prefer to give my DC an allowance and teach them how to budget this so it lasts them the month as opposed to them having to ask for money every time they want to see friends. It also gives them independence and shows you trust them which is very important at such a difficult age.
£16 per week isn’t loads these days, even in covid times they want to go shopping & Costa with friends and the weekend. Granted my children are much younger but I’m 30 and remember having almost that amount as a teen when things were much cheaper generally speaking.

I think you are a bit harsh and have unrealistic expectations

Mine don’t do chores for money, they get pocket money and totally separate from that they do some chores for being part of the family, sometimes they do none, other days they are more helpful

My teens are far from perfect, very far , but having realistic expectations and treating them like (almost)- adults works for us

So I don’t shout/nag, but if they’ve been unhelpful for a few days I’ll have a chat over dinner that it’s not fair to leave the chores to me and DH, and that as a family we do stuff for eachother as otherwise it does not work

I dunno, it’s not perfect and I wish they did more, but then some days they surprise me by making me tea and baking a cake

I agree too harsh. She may be scared of going out to work at 13 and not feel able to handle it - hence the attitude to cover up rather than admit it. Why not go the other way and do a bit of love bombing?

My DS found a paper round at 13, yes it was tough but it taught him useful life skills and he's had various part time jobs ever since, he's 19 now and found a p/t job in his Uni city even before he'd arrived , when that ended, due to Covid, he managed to find another one very quickly. Meanwhile my friend's DS, exactly the same age, has never 'managed to find a p/t job' .... could it be linked to the fact that his DPs provided him with a car, very generous allowance and bail him out at the end of each Uni term? .

I agree 13 is too young to be working. I didn't have a job until I was almost 16 and I'm 50.

However, she does do rather well out of you both and agree with you trying to get her to do chores. If you manage it, let me know what works and I'll try it on mine

I am still hoping she'll grow out of it

DD is 17
She has worked in a copy shop, a cafe, a make chains store and coffee chain.

She has the pick of jobs because others have no experience.

When she heads to university, she’ll be able to transfer her job, so no worries about that.

It’s worth working, for the experience, not the money.

DD15 works in a food van, not regular, but enough to build a decent amount of money.

Both girls have A/B grades - there’s no issue with school work

I'd love to know what insurance that café has to be employing a 13 year old child.

@Ragwort this is exactly what I don’t want for her! I had her so young at 14 but I was not allowed to claim benefits. I worked every Saturday which earnt me about £20 and this bought her milk and nappies. At 16 I worked full time doing an apprenticeship. Since then I’ve gone on to have 2 more children raised them all as a single mum and I’ve just secured a job which lets me work less hours and out earns most of my friends who don’t even have children yet, this is now allowing me to have the best of both worlds being there for my family and still a good career which is really important to my self esteem. Yes some of it is down to pure luck but I mostly put it down to my parents being extremely hard working and passing that onto me. My work ethic has brought me so many great things and opportunities not just financial. I would love for her to experience the same

I'd love mine to have a work ethic. They are so bloody lazy and it's my fault for doing too much for then because it's not worth the hassle

I wonder if having her so young forced a maturity on to you that if means you see her as being more mature than she is

www.childrenssociety.org.uk/information/young-people/advice/employment

Sets out the legal aspect of getting a job. Though in this market there is no way a 13 year old should take any hours from someone who needs it more

It's very unusual to have a job at 13. Most shops don't hire until 16 and in my experience it's only normal once in y12.
The only kids who I know which jobs pre-16 are sports related or paper rounds.

@Quartz2208 potentially, coming to mumsnet with this is helping me to see all other opinions so hopefully I’ll be able to make a balanced decision moving forwards.

In regards to the job, it was agreed for Saturdays for no more than 4 hours for private events (just clearing tables or pot wash I guess)
Although I agree with your sentiment that the job market is tough. I’m not sure a local cafe would want to have the associated costs of employing an adult for that timeframe - however I’m sure that tangent could create a whole new debate!

I'm nearly 50. Had my first Saturday job the week I turned 16. Because I wanted to do it.
I think you are very wrong to force her to work at 13. In fact I think it's appalling. She should be concentrating on school work and also having time to socialise ( covid permitting) with her friends.

I had a job at 13. I worked evenings and weekends in a restaurant. I earned a ton of money and I got tips too! Also I’m in my early 30’s so this wasn’t forever ago. I certainly wasn’t embarrassed to be working, I felt grown up saying to my friends that I couldn’t hang out cos I was working. I learned a lot, I had appreciation for money and what it took to earn it, it gave me the foundation to work hard to earn well and it worked. I now own a very successful business. Not sure i would have had the same work ethic if I hadn’t started our young

I expect my teens to keep their room tidy and clear up any mess they make. Other jobs are emptying the dishwasher at weekends and some days in school holidays and pouring juice etc at dinner time and taking bowls etc to kitchen, and putting their clean underwear in drawers.

They get £20 a month. (But don't as a general rule go out with friends as have asd and are not mature enough, think 13 and 14 years old but emotionally and socially five years younger than that).

I want you to know you are not alone with the entitled thing going on. My kids also like your daughter became suddenly entitled after starting secondary. Terrible attitude. They are also embarrassed about where we live and would not dream of inviting anyone round. (We live in a flat in bottom end of housing market value and they are of the opinion I need to try harder to get more money to live/buy somewhere better).

Job wise I think 13 is a bit young unless they are helping an extended family member with gardening or housework or car washing etc.

I understand what you’re saying @CheshireCats but perhaps when you were 13 the world was a little different. I know it certainly was when I was! I didn’t need a huge amount of money as a kid, shopping / cinema / bowling etc was generally a massive treat, these days the kids she hangs about with have all that as just a standard just given to them, and I’m all about that (in fact I’ve said she should socialise more!) however if I’m paying for all these things now, what happens when one day I just cut her off, you know, where’s the line? I don’t think it’s fair to let them get accustomed to a certain life style without understanding the value of it and what it would take to earn those things themselves, then by the time she’s 16 -18 the moneys all gone up and one day I just cut her off and say she has to earn it for herself. Surely that’s going to be a lot more drama than starting small and working up?

For example. At 13 I had a crappy phone my parents bought from Asda or whatever. If I worked for a few months I probably could of earnt the money for it myself. These days the kids are walking around with £1000 phones like it’s nothing and no idea how many man hours they would need to put in to actually buy that for themselves

Crikey I had no money at that age just the odd 10 pence now and again when I was 15 it was a pound a week this was 1981 though but family were very mean with money, not where drink was concerned or fags.

Fuck me this thread shines a light as to why we have entitled 20 year olds! I had my first job (paper round )at 11DH did at 12. So far all our older ones have had a job by 13. They save up money if they want to do stuff. And they do chores around the house because that's what they do. We do give them to do to do stuff (about £20 a month) everything else they earn. They have learnt so many skills having jobs (time management, how to be professional, how to deal with customers, how to deal with wanker managers, organising leave) etc worth more than the money in the long run.

However OP I would ease up, give clear expectations of chores in advance in writing and clear understanding of punishment if fail to do chores. stick to it (with one gentle reminder) No argument needed. Don't get cross just calmly remove privilege. Then reinstate when do chores, again with no fuss or mean comments.

I’ve always said she should get a Saturday job when she’s 13 to earn her own money

Seems harsh to me, and my dc have worked PT since they were 16 (and odd bits here and there before that.) Difference is, they chose to, they didn't feel like they were being forced to.

Also, they didn't have £65 a month coming in anyway (even allowing for inflation) so they had more incentive.

I've never linked 'chores' to pocket money either. Everyone has always been expected to do things like load the dishwasher, because the live here, and are part of the family. Are her sisters expected to do that too?

@Tootsietootie. Thank you 🙏 I know I’m a hardass but everyone who I know that is successful shares that same trait to some degree, I do think our teenagers of today are too molly coddled and will experience issues when trying to be independent because they don’t know how.

I totally agree with you about the clear expectations / no arguments. I guess if it’s written down there really is nothing to argue about. We do have a family chore chart affectionately named the FHATR (Farter or family household allocation task rota - dp made it up 😂) maybe it would be worth giving that a regiggle or making her own to keep in her room along side her class time tables and expectations / consequences set out there so she doesn’t need me to nag her - that’s probably half the problem she hates been told what to do (and I don’t blame her cause she definitely gets that from me!)

Since she won't do chores, cut her pocket money, if she wants to work at her dad's to get money let her, as that's a work ethic.
Start some kind of system that when she does things without being asked she gets points, and these can be called in for lifts and treats .
Amazing once I told my DD that no I was not taking her into town if her room was not tidy, that she went and did her room..

@BackforGood yes the little ones (5 + 3) also do chores such as emptying their plates into bin and putting on side for rinsing before dishwasher. Or taking toys upstairs to their room at the end of the day - once a week they have to tidy their room with my supervision to make sure all toy bits and bobs go back together and are ready to be played with another time. My 5 year old also voluntarily gets her clothes ready for school the night before and I get the youngest ready. When they wake up they get ready with very little prompting and then come to me ready to have their hair done and I make all their breakfasts (this is the one thing I continue to do for them including 13DD as I think they’re all amazing not causing me much stress getting ready for the day - plus I want them to have something good before going to school! DD13 was the same as a child never any problem, we thrive on strict routines because they’re easy for the kids when they know what’s coming next and what’s expected of them.

But I do think I’m not being clear enough with DD13 about expectations. I think me and Dad need a good chat to agree our expectations of her and then we should talk to her as a united front

You’ve all really helped me gain some clarity. Extremely grateful over here thank you 🙏

I can never decide if I'm lucky or not, not had disposable income since my son was 7, he's now 19, he got a job at 16 (which he unfortunately lost during lockdown) and contributed to the house but now can't. He's never gone without food and has clothes, he was so happy about us buying a water filter replacement that cost £2.50 last week, I'm glad he celebrates the small things, I would like to give him the world but can't. However my ex paid for everything, car, phone, clothes etc for his child, he doesn't see him now as many thousand pounds in when he stopped paying for everything, his son decided to stop seeing him. It's difficult op and you've clearly got through and done well but times change and my 19 year old can't find a job let alone a 13 year old.