SD16 at it AGAIN!
I know I shouldn't be shocked -- and I'm not. We grounded SD16 from her phone for the summer because she had really bad grades at the end of the school year. She is entering her junior year this year in high school. She had under a 2.0 at the end of the school year. She did terribly.
When she was given the phone, the agreement was that she had to get As and Bs on her report card. She has shown that she is capable of doing this, so we didn't think this would be a problem.
So we take the phone at the start of summer. She didn't seem that upset, and it kind of puzzled me as to why. Well, I realized today why. She purchased herself another phone. Not sure when she did, but she's had one and been paying for it while we've been continuing to pay for this stupid other phone.
The thing that miffs me is that she was supposed to be GROUNDED -- punished with no phone for the summer due to bad grades. How is she going to learn any lessons if she can just pay her way out of it!??
So my DH gets back tomorrow night and he said that we'll deal with it tomorrow when he gets home. So I decided to have a little fun with it. I also figured out what her phone number was because she texted from it and we just assumed it was a friend's phone. So when she got home from school I telephoned it from my phone but had my phone in my pocket so she couldn't see that I was calling it, and she gets this alarmed look on her face because she wants to answer it but she can't because I'm right there. She looks at me, and I was looking at her --- so I said "what?" I did this like three times! LOL
Then at dinner time I did it twice, and both times she got up and ran out of the room and to her bedroom to answer the phone! LOL But I hung up before she could answer so she got interrupted from dinner twice --- oops! She was trying to hide the phone under a blanket and be all sneaky, but I could totally see what she was doing.
I have no idea what we should do. My DH didn't want to talk about it or deal with it while he was out of town --- so tomorrow night. Any ideas people? I'm wanting to not let her know that we know and keep messing with her! Keep making her pay for it (she pays $10 towards it) ....the other thought I had was cancelling the one we pay for and she just pays for the one she has and if she runs out of money then too bad, so sad. No money, no phone.
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I would definately get rid of
I would definately get rid of the one you have 4 her to start with. Being a SM to SS16 I would be very tempted to continue making her squirm lol....but then I keep being told I'm immature(btw this is from SO who will never deal with any unacceptable behaviour ). I think yr DH should speak to her and say how dissappointed he is etc etc and request she hands over her phone too. Will DH stick to his guns or is SD able to talk him round usually? I know thats the major problem I have.
I think if you want to impose
I think if you want to impose a penalty on her the most effective would be cutting off her allowance or whatever her source of money is for a specified length of time. However, I am not really convinced that when teenagers get to this age, that any sort of punishment is that effective. If they have not learned to behave reasonably and responsibly by now, they are unlikely to learn it as a result of punishment at age 16.
I thought your response to the phone thing was hilarious, would have loved to have seen that!
I would get rid of the one
I would get rid of the one you pay for definitly she would never be getting it back now, then cut off her funds. If she doesn't have the money for a cell phone then no cell phone. Harsh but affective.
Yep,take away the phone, then
Yep,take away the phone, then the money, if you are suppling it....plus, as we did with the sd21 many times.....take away the computer, and internet...they can chat away on that you know, like Skype, etc. She wants these PRIVILEDGES back, she earns them back with better grades....simple.
Unluckily, as far as we were concerned sd21 was already getting high grades, so the punishment was just longer for her, like a month or two, then controlled pc, then the phone finally....she had by this time been in trouble for ALOT of things !!!!!
Ok calling her new phone and
Ok calling her new phone and watching her squirm FUNNY, but I wouldn't continue it does come across immature if overdone. She obviously isn't that bright if she didn't put the phone on silent or vibrate around you, anyone could have called. Does she think your too old or stupid to hear a mystery phone ringing? I'd cut her allowance down so she can't afford the phone.
Okay, so my thinking is most
Okay, so my thinking is most definitely shut down the phone we've supplied and paid for for almost two years, and I'm wondering if we should make her pay for the cancellation fee which I've found out is $70. She can then pay for the phone she has purchased for herself. We can't take her money because it's from the job she has. However, her job ends in the next two weeks because it was a summer job. So she'll be surviving on her savings -- to pay for her car insurance, gas and phone. It won't last long. So my thinking is once she has no more money to pay for her phone, no phone. She wanted it -- she got it!
My thinking on making her squirm. It was harmless. It was on vibrate so it wasn't ringing, but I could totally tell what was going on, plus the first time I called it she answered it and it was her voice. So I know it's her phone. We let her have her phone back briefly while we were on vacation and she barely used it, which shows that she is definitely using another phone. She only sent 20 texts, where normally she will send 3000 texts! It's insane !! Plus with all the crap she has put me through and what I did was harmless, funny though!!
Stepaside -- yes, sadly, I know. I had hoped it would be different, but it looks to be shaping up much like the relationship like what I have with her sister, no matter how hard I try. So I've stopped trying.
As far as her grades, I've tried to explain to her that if we didn't care we wouldn't ask and be involved. She has tried to say she hates school and she is not capable of getting good grades, however, she has shown otherwise that she is able to do well in school when we paid her to get good grades. In thinking of it now, I am wondering if she was cheating to get the good grades though. Her spelling is atrocious, her vocabulary is terrible, she is terrible in math, etc. I've even offered to get her help -- ie a tutor, etc. to help her out when she said it was hard for her. She refused. I guess so long as she doesn't get "F"s and if my husband doesn't care and doesn't follow through -- I guess I shouldn't care anymore, huh?
Well, she came clean tonight.
Well, she came clean tonight. She did because she knew she'd been busted. She tells me that she wants to come clean and stop lying, that she knew that I was the one that was the private number calling her. She overheard me and DH talking about it. I told her the only reason she was coming clean was because she was busted. I even asked her if we hadn't have found out about it would she be coming clean, and she said no. Surprise.
So the water works start up, and she tells me that she wants to talk to me first because she thinks that I'll understand better than her Dad. So I'm listening. She says that she got the phone because she feels like she has no friends and her best friend (who is a boy) moved away and she just couldn't stand not being able to text him or talk to him when she wanted to. More huge alligator tears. And she says that she has no friends at school, and we just don't understand. Now keep in mind, this girl does have friends and is always doing something with someone, so this is a load of crap. It was all to get sympathy, manipulate and try and get out of being in trouble.
She told me I just didn't understand. I tried to point out to her all the friends she does have, and she didn't want to hear any of it. I did show sympathy for her in that area, but also in turn told her that because she chose to make this bad choice there were going to be consequences. I told her that her Dad was too angry to deal with it tonight and that she would have to wait. She did give over the phone voluntarily (surprised me), so I did take it.
I do like someone's idea of making her pay for the months she was supposed to not have the phone, which would be $60, then the cancellation fee of $70 we have to pay. Neither one of us really know what to do. We don't want to go overboard, but also want it to be severe enough that she gets it through her thick head that we will not tolerate bad behavior.
We'll see what happens tomorrow!
Sigh. Well, we talked to her
Sigh. Well, we talked to her last night. Actually went fairly well. She has to pay $70 cancellation fee, gives up both phones, and is grounded for a month.
Her sob story for the reason she bought the second phone was that she has no friends and there is this boy that she is "in love with" and that was why she had to have the phone. Bull! She has plenty of friends. She was trying to manipulate us with her tears, and by saying she has no friends and blah blah blah! Thankfully, my husband stood strong and didn't give in!!! WOW!!
So then today I found out through facebook that the one night we were out of town she went out without asking and was out past curfew....sigh. Great, one more thing to deal with.