DD becoming too materialistic

[Anonymous]

DD is 12 and over the past few months has started obsessing over all the things she “needs” but doesn’t have, or have enough of (in her opinion). I swear every week she is asking for something. Last week she was begging for Ugg slippers because everyone is wearing them to school now. This week it was a specific lip gloss all her friends have and a new color of a Lululemon sweatshirt “everyone” else seems to have. A couple weeks ago she came home from a friend’s birthday slumber party upset that she was the only one who didn’t have a pair of these $150 pajamas (and yes I could see from a picture the mom sent out that all the girls were in fact wearing these PJs). All of her requests are so expensive, which I don’t think she recognizes at all.

We live in an affluent neighborhood and from what I can tell many of the kids do have these things. DH and I both work and are fortunate that we make a good living, but we want to make sure DD understands the value of money and isn’t just handed everything she wants. Right now I would say she gets about 60% of what she wants, but I think we need to set some clear ground rules/limits. More than anything I just want her to stop talking about all the things she wants non-stop as it gets tiring and makes her sound really obnoxious.

Anyone else deal with this? Curious how you reigned it in.

[Anonymous]

Make her earn the money for these luxuries.

Find some above and beyond chores/tasks she can complete around your house and pay her $10/hr to do them. Like cleaning baseboards and cabinet faces, scrubbing showers, yard stuff, etc.

She will soon see what $150 is worth.

I find this to be incredibly useful — my kids do work for what they want, but also are realistic about how much they want something.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry, but you’ll be forced to talk with her.

Ask thoughtful questions to help her tease out the perfectly valid social reasons she wants these things, then help her interrogate them for consistency with her personal values.

That won’t work, obviously, so then just give her a budget to manage and stop listening to any complaints related to her discretionary spending and don’t make any snide remarks if she picks something you think is dumb.

[Anonymous]

Brace yourself for a few more years of this. The young tween/teen years are a lot of this.

[Anonymous]

What are the $150 pj's? My kiss wear t shirts to bed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make her earn the money for these luxuries.

Find some above and beyond chores/tasks she can complete around your house and pay her $10/hr to do them. Like cleaning baseboards and cabinet faces, scrubbing showers, yard stuff, etc.

She will soon see what $150 is worth.

I find this to be incredibly useful — my kids do work for what they want, but also are realistic about how much they want something.

We do something similar.

[Anonymous]

oh my daughter went through the $150 PJ phase at age 13. lol. All the girls had them.

I didn't buy them but I did give in to about 80% of her other "materialistic" asks (generally as Christmas and birthday presents)

The good news is that the girls seems to phase out of the brand name obsessions. You're not setting her up for life to be status and brand obsessed.

My daughter is now 17 and will wear anything. She is no longer asking for only lululemon and $150 pjs.

[Anonymous]

The “value of a dollar” stuff is fine and good, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that a twelve year old is just trying to navigate the social waters in the affluent environment in which you have placed her.

It’s not like she woke up and was like, “I don’t know what a dollar is worth so I desperately want this stupidly expensive cup.” The cup is just part of the intensive, mostly ape-like friendship jungle she inhabits every day. In another school it might be a cup that costs half or twice as much and it wouldn’t have anything to do with the kids knowing “the value of a dollar.”

Obviously yeah, she has to take her puny little frontal cortex and try to think logically and big picture about the stupid cup and accept the short term social consequences of nonconformity as unfair and/or unimportant. But it’s asking a lot! Being twelve is hard. There will be whining. It’s not because she’s a bad person or “materialistic,” necessarily.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if I have a great solution. My tween DD is into the name brand shoes ( Nike/Jordans) but not to bad about other stuff. We do talk about different families making different choices on what they spend money on etc.
She has a friend similar to yours and her parents started giving her an allowance and telling her she needed to use that and stop asking for things. She will save up though and still spend money on things I wouldn’t let my DD get. Like AirPods and recently a Stanley cup. So I like the premise of doing that but I still wouldn’t want my kid spending allowance on expensive fad stuff.

[Anonymous]

Yep, we were in the same boat a couple years ago. We ave her a clothing allowance of $150/mo in addition to her normal allowance $30/mo. Now she is responsible for all her own clothing, makeup (recently), and entertainment. We set out guidelines around what we will buy (school uniforms, school lunch, extra school expenses) and everything else was up to her. On the spirit days or dress in white shirt day or whatever, she was responsible for finding and budgeting the right clothes or wearing her uniform. It worked out great. I got to spend quality time with her teaching her how to spend on the basics and skimp on the frills that she will only wear a couple times. We still buy things (within a budget) that she asks for for Christmas. I also got a chance to talk about our values quality over quantity, we prefer to own everything without financing (home, cars, etc) and these things free cash in other families. Plus, some families are super wealthy - we are "just" rich, like poor rich. We initially hit a couple bumps, but I'm so glad we did this. Now when we shop in not a giant piggy bank. She's doesn't bother me for anything. She sees frivolous spending for what it is. She is fashionable but not at the height of it. I think she is also grateful for the trust and autonomy over this. She even orders her own supplies for projects. We include her in our annual budget reviews now. If your daughter is smart amd mature enough to do this, it worked well for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if I have a great solution. My tween DD is into the name brand shoes ( Nike/Jordans) but not to bad about other stuff. We do talk about different families making different choices on what they spend money on etc.
She has a friend similar to yours and her parents started giving her an allowance and telling her she needed to use that and stop asking for things. She will save up though and still spend money on things I wouldn’t let my DD get. Like AirPods and recently a Stanley cup. So I like the premise of doing that but I still wouldn’t want my kid spending allowance on expensive fad stuff.

So you want to control her allowance?? That's a bit much.

[Anonymous]

Service projects, like volunteering at a soup kitchen, can help foster an appreciation of what you have

[Anonymous]

Kid: I want $150 pjs.
Me: great, put them on your birthday wish list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if I have a great solution. My tween DD is into the name brand shoes ( Nike/Jordans) but not to bad about other stuff. We do talk about different families making different choices on what they spend money on etc.
She has a friend similar to yours and her parents started giving her an allowance and telling her she needed to use that and stop asking for things. She will save up though and still spend money on things I wouldn’t let my DD get. Like AirPods and recently a Stanley cup. So I like the premise of doing that but I still wouldn’t want my kid spending allowance on expensive fad stuff.

So you want to control her allowance?? That's a bit much.

I’m the PP. my kid doesn’t get an allowance. This was a friend. I like the idea of an allowance but yeah I don’t love that then they spend it on what they want. My kid hasn’t asked for an allowance yet so I’m not going to bring it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Service projects, like volunteering at a soup kitchen, can help foster an appreciation of what you have

I’m dying with laughter remembering what the horrible frat boys said about their volunteer work in college.