Reply to DDs best friend is expensive!

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Reply to "DDs best friend is expensive!"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My best advise is have a conversation about money with your teen child and be very honest.  It is very fair for your child to know and understand that her friends’ families are able/willing to budget only so much toward kid activities and your family is only able/willing to budget so much toward kids activities.  Your child is old enough to sort out how to choose activities to do with her friends that all of her friend group can afford even if that limits the activities she does. There are plenty of free things tweens can do together.  If your child does want to do an activity that costs money, your child needs to know that doing that activity with her friend will cost your family X amount and that your family only budgets a total of ? amount for activities during the month so she needs to sort what activities she most wants to do with her friend that fit in the family budget.  It is perfectly reasonable for your family to stop paying for the friend to go to activities but then your family must also accept that the friend will not come to these activities since the friend’s family has demonstrated that they cannot/will not pay.

As an alternative to one off activities that cost money, you could stock your house with more reusable items.  For instance, If your child likes roller skating, you could look at buying from a thrift store or used online two pairs of roller skates and keeping the extra that  fits her friend at your house as guest skates.  If the girls like riding bikes, get two used cheap bikes or the same for scooters. Basically get fun things that can be used more than once and are cheap.  You can then donate or sell these items once they are outgrown.

If you are looking for ways the girls can do more out of the house activity together, maybe have them join a Girl Scout troop together.  Girl Scouts has all type of scholarship money available so the friend should be able to join for free after filling out some forms.  Church youth groups often also have free activities if that is something that would work for both families.  I don’t know where you live,  but some areas have scholarship for joining rec sports teams.

Having friends with different amounts of money to spend for ‘fun’ is something your child will need to learn to navigate in a compassionate manner that does not mean your child must always pay. [/quote]

It sounds like maybe OPs parents need to sit down and have this conversation with OP. [/quote]

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