How much do you do for your teenager? Clubs, money etc?

[Longwinternights2975]

Obviously every family is different and there's no right or wrong way but my son is really guilt tripping me at the moment and I don't know if I should be doing more.
My son is 14. He is in a school 10 miles away that requires £75 a month transport, £25 a month for a laptop, he spends over £100 a month on lunches through parent pay. I pay £25 a month for him to play on a football team, which I take him to twice a week, 2 hours training on a Wednesday nights and a good 3 hours for the travel and match on a Sunday morning. He also had £10 a week pocket money. I buy him clothes and computer games regularly and £15 a month phone bill .
So I'd say on average it costs me £300 a month for him at least. He goes out with friends at least 3 times a week, football 2 times a week and a couple of nights chill.
Nothing is ever enough. I work full time and have other children. But he's constantly asking more and more from me financially and also my time.
He wants to join another sport which would be alot more travel to and fro, and the cost of that.
To be completely truthful I am too tired to do anything else and I just don't want to. I want to be able to come home from work and relax sometimes . I'm starting to feel burnt out.
The things he wants get more and more costly and he does nothing to earn it, doesn't lift a finger in the home etc.
I feel like he is really pushing me and guilt tripping me to agree by saying all his friends do multiple sports etc . They do and I know there parents are run ragged and spend so much money on it. Am I being selfish or am I supposed to put him first over everyone else in the family?

Decide your maximum and tell him to budget

Why do you pay for transport? Don't the LEA pay? Packed lunch for school? Is there no public transport near you?

£8 pocket money a week
£3.99 on her phone
Rugby training mid week, rugby match & travel around the county on a Sunday
Drive her to her friends.

I buy her everything she needs but anything extra she wants she has to wait for Christmas / birthday or buy it herself.
She has several hundred pounds in her bank account from family for previous birthdays and christmases and has transferred most into a savings account. She goes to the cinema / costa occasionally with friends but is generally very cheap.

It's more my time than the cost. I'm at work full time Mon to Fri and have other children. I already have to give up my Wednesday night and half a day Sunday for his football , and I don't really want to add extra nights on top . I'm really shattered but feeling guilty that I'm not doing enough
Interested to see what others do

Op I think he's costing you enough financially and time wise. If he wants to do another sport suggest he pays half the cost??

@username3678 it's a school bus and school laptop we pay for. Everyone that attends the school has to use the school buses

Just say No. He'll get over it, the other children need time to do their own things too even if that's not being carted around.

Let him choose which sport is more important.

£100 is a lot on lunches. I would reduce that if possible.

One sport with all the matches/competitions is enough. Get him to choose which one he wants to keep up

I think it's a bit unfair to talk about him "costing you £300 a month" when it sounds like a fair bit of that is out of his control? I do understand the time thing though. Would the second sport be just as time consuming?

I agree things like his bus shouldn’t be included in what he ‘costs’ you as that’s beyond his control. Let him choose another sport but say it’s one evening allocated to him so he’d need to choose one or the other. Be firm- plenty of parents won’t have kids doing loads of different sports so don’t be guilted.

We've told him one or the other but he won't. He wants to do both. This new one could involve driving up to 30 miles each way of an evening and I just don't want to do that after being at work all day.
I am just so tired and he is so demanding. I don't remember ever being like this as a teenager. I never demanded things of my parents, they never took me anywhere or paid for me to do things. I just made my own arrangements and did things with friends and got the bus
Nowadays it's all on the parents and your made to feel guilty if your not providing them with activites 24/7.
The school costs whilst being outside of his control is a specialist school that he's chosen to go to and transferred to from our local high school down the road in year 9

I have three teenagers. One away at Uni. The younger two are sporty and play an expensive sport and then football and golf also. I pay a bus pass, three mobiles, then rent contribution and living costs for uni teen and then pocket money and lunch monies for the others. We are entering driving age for middle child also so that’s going to be very expensive. Current cost without the driving is just under 1k per month! But I chose to have them, I choose to support all of the above and so I will work until I drop!

Just to add the older two do have some work so do pay for some things themselves. That’s always been part of the deal.

This is a good idea . I often think kids think money grows on trees . As adults we have to make budget decisions about what we can and cannot do so no harm in him starting now .
Personally if it costs £300 for him now I'd give him that and he budgets to his priorities eg if he walks / cycles part way to school he'll save money for an extra sport or night out .if he wants more than £300 then he works for it by doing jobs at home .

What sort of specialist school is he attending? A sporting one?

Also 30 miles is too far for you after a working day I'd not do that . Ask if he has a friend to grab a lift with or do alternative weekly drives with , you one week another parent the next type thing

I only earn £1200 a month in total as I work in a school which is low pay but so I can have the holidays off. So £300 for him is alot.

I'm honest with DDs... I can do one sport plus Scouts each. They appreciate I've only got one pair of hands. One wants to try cadets next year... weve agreed half a term of both Scouts and Cadets then they decide which one they prefer. I think its fair enough to chose hobby that they need driving too.

I don't think its fair to count the school bus and computer as him costing you... its unfortunate but it isn't his fault.

If he wants more money for hobbies, he could look at making his lunches more cost effective.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast It's a business and engineering college.

How many other kids do you have?

I really don’t think you can include his school transport, lunches, laptop etc in the list of “things he wants”. He’s a kid, you chose to have him and to send him to that school. I don’t think the extracurriculars sound unreasonable either to be honest and I’d want to encourage the exercise/teamwork but if you don’t want to do any more then don’t.

You need a stern "No! That's the end of it we don't have the time or money for X activity. I know you are disappointed but unfortunately we can't have everything we want in life. I hope you can take up sport X in the futureif you still want to when you are an adult but for now thats the final answer, I don't want to hear about it again".
And then shut him down everytime he starts.

What about his dad? How old are your other kids?

How are you surviving if you spend £300 on each child each month? Tell him no. Stop buying him computer games other than Christmas and birthdays too. He's demanding because you allow him to be.