Who Should Pay For Phone Chargers?

[RabbitsRock]

DD16 got a new phone a couple of months ago. An Iphone 16. At the moment she pays just £5 a month towards it (with the clear understanding that this will increase when she gets a job). DH & I pay £40 between us. DD gets £25 a week pocket money which she is always complaining isn’t enough. She’s now asking us to shell out £15 for a magnetic ( I think) charger to use in the car on a 4 to 5 hour journey & refusing to buy it herself. She uses Spotify constantly & claims that it drains the battery, so our suggestion of charging her battery fully before we travel might not be enough. DD has mental health issues & her music is a form of therapy. She’s trying to guilt trip us by saying if her phone dies when she’s out & about then she’ll blame us. There’s a festival coming up where we will need to be able to track/contact DD. Tickets already paid for. How would you handle this situation? This sort of thing comes up a lot, with DD believing she shouldn’t have to pay for stuff.

GrowlyBear83 DD’s phone charges are only just over £16 a month with Tesco Mobile. The £40 DH & I pay is towards the phone itself.

Apologies - I misunderstood a previous post.

We’ve always bought phone chargers and power banks, on top of giving an allowance.

plus £40 for phone = £140 (and £16 for phone bill? =£156 crazy!)

At 16 mine got an allowance to pay for socialising, their phone top ups (we’ve never paid for contract handsets) and sundries like this. Although there are multiple chargers and power banks in the house for general use if they wanted something specific they’d pay from their money or wait for their birthday/ Christmas.
We made this crystal clear when they moved from minimal pocket money to a generous allowance.

I think it sounds like this is not just about the charger.

she has been gifted a very expensive phone but is whining about buying a charger - when there are plenty of cheap ones available (and easy to increase plugs in a car)

secondly - I question the constant pressure on young people to have their phone charged. I know this is the modern way - but when I was 16 I was at festivals without a phone! (sorry old person talk there) - we just made arrangements to get home and stuck to them.

If your child can write down your phone number they can survive without a phone hsould it 'horror of horrors' run out of batteries.

I think if you start obsessing that a teen has a charged phone you are hostage to fortune of them using that as a control tool

I'd tell her it's no odds to you whether it's charged or not and if she wants to keep it charged plus listen to music that is her issue to solve.

we are creating a generation of big babies!!

OP there is a word called “no”. You say “no DD you can charge your phone using the USB or buy the wireless charger yourself. The discussion is closed” this is perfectly reasonable mental health or no mental health. Until you learn the word no she will continue to push you

You’re paying £56 a month for a phone and contract. You must be mad.

I don't think you can refer to this Christmas when we've barely had Easter, it's 8 months away 😂

Will you really be taking the tickets into account when you're buying for Christmas 25?

Going against the grain here a bit but yes I would pay for a phone charger and we have a few family power banks that dc can use if needed. However if they lose it then they pay to replace it.

So overall your paying £56 a month for the iphone?? I think you can certainly get a better deal than that- look on mobiles.co.uk

Once the actual handset is paid for, it will be £16 a month.

Thats still very overpriced imo, for data you could get voxi which is currently a tenner a month for 70 gb

Buy a cheap brick phone for the festival. Teens lose stuff at festivals.

@RabbitsRock Tell her you will buy it and she can have £10 that week for her pocket money

You need way stronger boundaries with her if she is demanding and refusing. Go back to thinking young child. My 6 year old didn’t clean her room despite a few reminders and a warning that everything that was a mess on her floor and chest of drawers she would loose if she didn’t sort it out. When I was putting her to bed I followed through. I scooped up two boxes of toys and she lost them for the week. I did this three times over 6 weeks. She got the message. Same with her lunchbox this week I told her to take it out of her bag when she came home from school. She said “no I said “no problem but you will be heading to school tomorrow with exactly what is in your lunchbox right now”
she said “you wouldn’t do that”
I said “yes actually I would, and you will be a very hungry girl but you will never say “no” to me over your lunchbox going in the sink again. It would be better if you put it in the sink and didn’t have to learn the hard way”
She put it in the sink.

they are small examples and actually following through was annoying for me but the penny has dopped. Do this with your daughter and remain totally calm. Let her have the big reaction but what she is doing now is waiting you out until you buy it for her before the festival. Don’t. If it was me I would be saying she will have to sell the phone and change it for a phone with a larger battery capicity or buy the charger herself. Her call. And let it happen. If she won’t buy the charger I would arrange to meet her with a power bank and charger her phone at the festival but no I wouldn’t be buying it for her.

dont cave. You are responsible for raising a decent human being and she will get much harder knocks from society if she lands in it this entitled and demanding.

good luck

They, them? The OP clearly states it's her daughter.

I'd buy her the charger.

Weird thing to reply about, I didn't even realise I did it!

Even weirder to use they/them pronouns when it was clearly a female, but, hey, no harm done...👍😙

Well if she is refusing to buy it then she doesn’t get it - simple ! it’s not a necessity - most cars have a USB Charging point. Time your DD starts to learn about how much things cost and what pocket money is for. At 16 she really needs to understand this and if you and DH are not teaching her this you are actually doing her no favours.

if she’s getting £100 a month then she should pay for it herself. If she is being demanding then you need to deal with that, pocket money is a privilege not a right!

Absolutely no intention behind it, probably just lazy writing on my side tbf!