Overly materialistic friend of DD

[Anonymous]

1. Teens need to learn money. A small allowance is fine-- good, even-- but you should add the option to earn more with extra chores or top grades or whatever works for your family. Teen jobs are important. What you must not do is hand out money for each and every whim. This will negate any connection between effort and gratification in her developing mind.

2. I know a lot of teen girls, and there is a very strong correlation between those who obsess about makeup and brands and appearance, and those who engage in risky behavior like casual sex and substance use. So just keep an eye out for that. Don't let a superficial girl who's desperate for outside validation drag yours down. I can't say if that means limiting their time together; I've rarely had to do that with mine, but we talk about everything and I've made the connections that have guided her to better decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Teens need to learn money. A small allowance is fine-- good, even-- but you should add the option to earn more with extra chores or top grades or whatever works for your family. Teen jobs are important. What you must not do is hand out money for each and every whim. This will negate any connection between effort and gratification in her developing mind.

2. I know a lot of teen girls, and there is a very strong correlation between those who obsess about makeup and brands and appearance, and those who engage in risky behavior like casual sex and substance use. So just keep an eye out for that. Don't let a superficial girl who's desperate for outside validation drag yours down. I can't say if that means limiting their time together; I've rarely had to do that with mine, but we talk about everything and I've made the connections that have guided her to better decisions.

This is exactly what we are worried about too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your daughter is doing something you don't want her to do, then address it with your daughter. Blaming your child's misbehavior on someone else, just teaches her not to be responsible for her own manners.

To be clear, my child isn’t misbehaving. We just don’t agree with the other family’s values. There are some other red flags we notice with the other girl as well. We want our DD to branch out and focus on other friends with values we agree with.

My daughter had a friend like this...it came from the mom. The friendship was toxic and always trying to match or "one up" my daughter. Constant bragging about how much clothes cost..I'm pretty sure parents will buy that girl a very pricey car to drive when she is able. Grandparents didn't like the friend either. We learned quickly, criticizing the friendship only drew her closer to toxic friend. So we just held our tongue until the friendship ran its course and our daughter finally figured out the friendship was not a friendship. That friend then of course turned on my daughter and bad mouthed her to everyone (mom even criticized us as parents to the friends). A year later, this girl doesn't have many friends.

My advice...let your daughter know you are there if she needs advice but you limiting the time will only prolong the friendship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your daughter is doing something you don't want her to do, then address it with your daughter. Blaming your child's misbehavior on someone else, just teaches her not to be responsible for her own manners.

To be clear, my child isn’t misbehaving. We just don’t agree with the other family’s values. There are some other red flags we notice with the other girl as well. We want our DD to branch out and focus on other friends with values we agree with.

My daughter had a friend like this...it came from the mom. The friendship was toxic and always trying to match or "one up" my daughter. Constant bragging about how much clothes cost..I'm pretty sure parents will buy that girl a very pricey car to drive when she is able. Grandparents didn't like the friend either. We learned quickly, criticizing the friendship only drew her closer to toxic friend. So we just held our tongue until the friendship ran its course and our daughter finally figured out the friendship was not a friendship. That friend then of course turned on my daughter and bad mouthed her to everyone (mom even criticized us as parents to the friends). A year later, this girl doesn't have many friends.

My advice...let your daughter know you are there if she needs advice but you limiting the time will only prolong the friendship.

OP here. Good advice. We don’t say a word about this friend to our DD and I haven’t said anything about limiting time. We are doing it more subtly - suddenly having more plans than we used to, meeting other friends. We are also looking to get more involved in some EC activities which should help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your daughter is doing something you don't want her to do, then address it with your daughter. Blaming your child's misbehavior on someone else, just teaches her not to be responsible for her own manners.

To be clear, my child isn’t misbehaving. We just don’t agree with the other family’s values. There are some other red flags we notice with the other girl as well. We want our DD to branch out and focus on other friends with values we agree with.

My daughter had a friend like this...it came from the mom. The friendship was toxic and always trying to match or "one up" my daughter. Constant bragging about how much clothes cost..I'm pretty sure parents will buy that girl a very pricey car to drive when she is able. Grandparents didn't like the friend either. We learned quickly, criticizing the friendship only drew her closer to toxic friend. So we just held our tongue until the friendship ran its course and our daughter finally figured out the friendship was not a friendship. That friend then of course turned on my daughter and bad mouthed her to everyone (mom even criticized us as parents to the friends). A year later, this girl doesn't have many friends.

My advice...let your daughter know you are there if she needs advice but you limiting the time will only prolong the friendship.

agree with this. friend is compensating for their perceived inadequacies and comes from parents who value $ over values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't really limit a teen girls friendships. I was friends with a girl my mom considered "trashy" (her mother was, indeed, trashy) and she tried to limit that friendship and encourage ones with girls from "good families." That friend is still in my life 25 years later!
If your daughter is catching this bug, she'll have to earn her own money. You explain your different circumstances.

You actually can. You don’t plan as much with certain friends. You keep them busy and apart.

The point I was making is that teens make their own plans. We walked home from school together. We purposely got summer jobs together. We signed up for the same electives. If you are doing all this FOR your teen, then you are a very different parent than mine were or than I am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't really limit a teen girls friendships. I was friends with a girl my mom considered "trashy" (her mother was, indeed, trashy) and she tried to limit that friendship and encourage ones with girls from "good families." That friend is still in my life 25 years later!
If your daughter is catching this bug, she'll have to earn her own money. You explain your different circumstances.

You actually can. You don’t plan as much with certain friends. You keep them busy and apart.

The point I was making is that teens make their own plans. We walked home from school together. We purposely got summer jobs together. We signed up for the same electives. If you are doing all this FOR your teen, then you are a very different parent than mine were or than I am.

Teens really can’t make plans without involving parents. They need to ask if we are doing something as a family and they may need rides. We can easily say no, we have plans. They can’t walk home from school (not on walking distance). They are too young for summer jobs. And we heavily influence electives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is what the cool teen girls do. Obsess over clothes, makeup, and how they look. It's developmentally normal.

Cool? Try insecure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always talked with my DD about wants vs needs, and would say things like "This sweater is nice, but not $120 nice," and "If you want this , we will wait until it's 50% off and then we can go halfsies if you still want it then."

So I set her up to think about all that years before her friends were dropping $200 at Sephora what seemed like weekly.

I don’t get this, because I think a lot of people end up with a mentality that if it’s on sale or a “good deal,” they should buy it. That’s how you end up with too much stuff.

[Anonymous]

I think that materialism is a terrible “value” system that is nearly impossible to avoid in this culture. It’s not new for people to care about stuff and flaunting wealth through status goods but something has changed where it is seen as acceptable for this to be your main or only measure of a worthwhile life. It is so damaging. I don’t think we need to demonize or even criticize people for expressing those values (they are the air we breathe) but it is essential to cultivate better values in our children and to point out the deep problems with unbridled materialism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what the cool teen girls do. Obsess over clothes, makeup, and how they look. It's developmentally normal.

Cool? Try insecure.

Maybe, maybe not. For some kids this is truly an interest. My kid is really into all this stuff and is not insecure in the least. I can see how it might be an issue for some, but would be careful to paint with broad brush. There are definitely kids she knows with more access to more money for these types things, but she understands that different families have different resources and that she has to make choices about how she wants to use hers. We talk about these things. It’s part of basic parenting

[Anonymous]

This whole thread seems to have a viscous undercurrent of criticizing Indian and Indian-American people. And it is kinda racist. You see that too, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread seems to have a viscous undercurrent of criticizing Indian and Indian-American people. And it is kinda racist. You see that too, right?

No, you’re insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread seems to have a viscous undercurrent of criticizing Indian and Indian-American people. And it is kinda racist. You see that too, right?

No, you’re insane.

What is the matter, PP? Does the truth hurt?