Feeling Like A Heel!

Teens have a tendency to be self centered and blind to what is really going on around them. They think that they are entitled to be given things all the time for nothing in return. I saw it with my nephews when they were growing up, with the daughter of a friend at work and I was like that myself as an adolescent and older. I know what you are going through and can only tell you that you are not alone. My wife has not been able to get her hair cut professionally in a coulple of years or get a pedicure. I need a radiator and I can't get my drivers side door open. If I had a daughter with demands I don't know what I would do. I wish I could say the magic word here but all I can do is tell you that I hear you and feel you! Like all else this too shall pass!

2n, Please do not feel like a bad mother. Having raised three teens myself, I well remember those "discussions". I remember having them with my parents....she will get over it. I agree with Frog. often times our children forget we are human...they also do not realize that all the nickles and dimes they ask for add up...They have no concept of what we make and what we spend. I actually took my boys grocery shopping one time and then once I paid the bill discussed with them how many hours I had to work to put those grocerys on the table. For a week or so, I would tell them how many hours it took me for each ammount of $$ they asked for...they soon realized I was not trying to be mean but all the bills and things they want or need add up. You are an awsome Mom and she may not appreciate it now but she will.

Trust me, you are not a bad mother. Thats just how us girls act sometimes :) She will get over it. She needs to realize that money doesn't grow on trees and should appreciate the fact that she has a wonderful mother like you!

OMG - I so feel for you right now. Just a few minutes ago, I had to have a talk with my daughter. She is in a competition tomorrow of which I am the advisor. So, she wanted the team to spend the night. I spent the entire evening running around getting the things that they needed, taking care of her dog so she could be with her team, buying food and pizza for them, picking up after them, having to listen to the loud music. And did I hear one Thank You from any of them - NO. Then to top it all off, my daughter gives me an attitude. I was so angry :twisted: I had to leave the room until I was calm enough to talk with her. She still does not get it. Believe me - you are not alone. To them, it is so important to be with friends that sometimes they forget. I am sure once she thinks about it, she will realize why you had to tell her no.

I'm sooooooooooooooo happy I have only boys

2nband....teens (mostly the girls) are miserable creatures a lot of the time - trust me! I have one girl and 2 boys, and I've found that the girl was the WORST when it came to the teenage years. All sugar and spice until about age 15 - then all heck broke loose, and it took about 5 years for her to get a dose of reality and realize maybe I wasn't such a bad person! I found letters & poems written and left laying around that described me in terms that were much less than favorable - in fact, there were a few nights I didn't sleep at all, thinking maybe she was turning into one of those teens that ends up doing away with their parent because they thought they were being treated unfairly by them. It was that bad.

It will get better - she's just being a teenager right now. You have every right to say "NO" when you feel it is warranted, and I don't think you were being unfair at all. She has to come to the realization that you have a life too, and it doesn't completely revolve around her wants and needs. Trust me, teenagers aren't above using every trick in the book to get what they want - including guilt and plays for sympathy (like the statement about her brother).

Please don't think that I'm trying to be harsh - but teens are no fun sometimes, and it's hard to tell when they're being genuine and when they're playing you - but I'd be willing to bet that given the circumstances you've described, this was one time she was just trying to get what she wanted.

Spatterson - no thank you from any of them? Not even from her friends? I would hav called the parents and told them about it. I grew up in the south (North Carolina) and we HAD to say thank you and sir and maam to any one who was our elder. We also had to show repsect to everyone we spoke with. Our peer, our elders, people in stores...you get the picture. That's why southern culture has such a genteel reputation. But, on the flip side, it can also be really fake. But, that's another topic. I would call those parents and let them know. I think they would want to hear about it, especially if they raised them better than that.

I think that boys are just as bad as girls as my nephew is at that obnoxious age of 14 and has an attitude. I think he things that money grows on trees and can't understand that gas is $3.09 a gallon and no he cannot just after school to go to rec after I have gotten there to pick him up and take him from school..frustrating....but I still love him to death...but geez...

Well, she did eventually appologize! Took her grocery shopping and reminded her how much things cost!!! Plus I showed her what all we pay out each month for bills and how much we are short on some things and how much we put out for her and such, all of the sudden she is saying that she wants to get a job and help out like her brother did! Hopefully I opened her eyes a bit.

As far as saying Thank You, I have had that happen to me also and yes it does make one a bit angry. When my kids forget their manners, I look at them and say, in a low voice, "What are you suppose to say?" I just don't know what it is with kids any more. Not that they weren't taught better, well most of them have been. There are a few that haven't.... But for now, things are back on the right track, for a while.

Well that's good to know..sometimes you have to snap them back to reality but that is all in growing up...I know I acted like that when I was a teenager

2nband...trust me, she'll do a lot more "waking up" when she gets out on her own and has to pay for things herself...

My former teen terror is now 20 and out on her own, living with her fiancee in another state. They just recently got their own apartment, and her fiancee's mom keeps me posted on how they're doing, so I don't have to be nosy about it. She related a funny episode recently when my daughter's cat, who is really still just a kitten, discovered how much fun it was to unroll all the toilet paper off the roll and shred it into a billion pieces on the bathroom floor. My daughter saw that and was yelling at the cat, "DAMMIT! THAT COSTS MONEY!" :lol: :lol:

Funny, we went through up to 6 rolls of toilet paper a week when she and her fiancee were living with me, and it was never given a second thought...but now that it's HER money paying for it.... LOL