Step-daughter
Don't know if any step-moms encounter such step-daughter and what should I do since we live under the same room everyday.
One of my step-daughter is 12 years old now and soon this year she will be turning 13. Another younger one will be 9 years old by the end of this year. I'd like to talk the older one here.
Background : married 3 years & live together 3 years. Their mom passed away 6 years ago.
The older one is kind of a moody, mean, selfish, messy, very forgetable, stubborn, undisciplined, bossy, crying a lot, waste mondy, spoiled and more. Here are some examples:
She is very forgetable like forget turnning her homework, forget her daily-basis chore,forget her waterbottle on the bus, forget her cloth at school, forget her ipod in her friend's house, forget where she put here DS game, forget bring her blah blah blah at the very last minute every time we go out & more. The ridiculous thing is no matter how many times you kindly remind her, she still keep to forget it and show you the " I don't kind" attitude or I can not remeber where it is. Before I live with them there is no NOBODY(either my husband or her grandma, they are the closest persons in her life) tell her this is some habbit you could change or find a way to help her to change it, what her grandma said is " she is just like this" and they just let her to be like this, my husband's way is endure it by keep silence. I was always wondering and sometimes I am asking him" you are her only parent if you saw she has some problem why don't talk to her to let her realize she can get improvement, if you do not teach her whoelse could do it".
Very mean and selfish, don't know sharing at all. And very jealous, if you have this kind of personality step-kids in your house, you know what I mean. Nightmare.
Super moody, this is not from after her mom passed away, my sister-in-law told me she is like this since she is 2-years old. You can not give her a little lecture, even you talk to her in a very kind, low voice way she can start crying right after you open your mouth, and last night she said she is going to suicide herself to her father it just because we gave her a small lecture and said if she can not change it she has no chance to go xx in summer. How dare she said it to her father? It's very hurt since my husband is really a super good father to them since he may feel sorry for them who lost their mom and he is kind of spoiled them. But how dare she threatens her daddy in such a cruel & cold way.
Also, she has nothing to talk to us, not just me but my husband too. Everytime we try to develop a conversation with her to get to know how's her school life, how's her daily life is she just shrug her shoulders, it's super hard for us to know what she is thinking in her mind, what she talks to us are all about " I want go to pierc my ears, I want go to movie with my friends, I want buy blah blah blah, someone has a iphone, I don't, I like to eat blah blah blah, I want to go to the mall...except those stuff, she has nothing to talk to us. And you can never hear she said she wants to participate any school's events, or she is be fond of some social activities or any positive attitue towards to the daily life. We asked her to see counselor ( which we tried in the very beginning of our marriage, but it does not work good on her, she just refuse to talk), but she keep saying it does not work. And we asked her to talk to someone she close to like her uncle or grandma,she also reject us. Her room, desk, floor are always messy and she is supper lazy, bossy, always yelling at her younger sister or order her do her part of things, like packing, feeding dog or folding her cloth.
The wrose thing is she can never overcome those bad habbits, she always say she is bored, she is bored, she is bored. Before and after I live with them at the very begining, she spent 99% of her spare time playing computer games online or hang out on FB, anyone can tell me how many kids at their 9 years old can have a FB account and hang out their day to night? Or watch TV. For this I can not blaim on her, since it should be her Daddy's responsibility to cut it for her but he didn't since he was a single Daddy. I can not complain it but the thing is I need to face those damage kids. What should I do? Either bring them back to the normal family life or just wath them to get wrose. But if you know what I mean, you should understand how difficult to pull them to be normal. Especially the one like the older one.
The younger one was also gave me some hard time at the very begining, but she just suddenly changed, very very easy to get alone with now. I can not remember when is her last time she got lecture from us, it's really really a long time ago. But also feel annoying that why the older one can't, everytime seems we helped her overcomed one of her problem, late she bring you another on, non-stop.
And can not remembr from when she starts only to ask her Daddy if she can do this or go where. And everytime my husband pass the message to me till I said yes( 99% time I say yes because I want them to have some social life or have fun with their friends) then he pass the message back to her till last night I can not take it anmore so I asked my husband who do you think I am her in the house? Cooker? Laudry lady? or Mom? Why she can not ask both of us during the dinner time when we sit at the same table? If you think I am one of the parent, you should respect my role in all the place not leave me out when you need some permition which you know you should have me involved. Just feel everytime the kid is doing something wrong, my husband can not realize it and he just let it to be happened again & again.
Also I want to ask everyone here, if the situation like this, shall I just give up to let her to be whatever she wants to or I should stress my "mom"'s position in the house? I am confusing and feel tired to deal with such kind of kid. So difficult, nomatter what you did or how you take care of her, she just to be like that. And my husband also does not work well in between of us. He is totally not a good communicator or good at handle the situation. Is it because of guy is like this??? So confusing.
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Comments
I think you have to step back
I think you have to step back and let him parent her. Sometimes, when we do this, it forces the Dad to step up. My late husband passed away and I do not let DH discipline my child. He tries sometimes and all it does is cause my son to resent him. So they can be friends and have that kind of relationship. They go to concerts all the time and he does consider him a dad. Doesn't call him that, though. He is not DH's responsibility just because he has no father. Just as my stepkids are not my responsibility. I do for them what I want, no more, no less.
Step back and let him parent....
Hard to be step back because
Hard to be step back because my husband is a "very easy going" person, even he knows she is doing something wrong, he just let it go or till I can not take it anymore and ask him to speak up.
I agree with Jsmom on all the
I agree with Jsmom on all the habits/chores this one. Your DH should be responsible for stepping up and parenting. The internet thing is tough, my generation and the one right after are attached to technology at the hip--although I broke away from it, my sister who is a year younger, spends 75% of the day glued to the computer--she is now a journalist so I guess she has to. My parents put a limit on what time we had to go to sleep, until we went to college. But we broke the rule at every chance we got. And on top of that, our company is computers and information technology so we were around it since we were very young.
On the emotional side with girls... I'm going to talk about this in first person because I still remember what it was like with my parents and this would be sort of directed to them too. (Barely out of my teens, 22 as of this past year.)
I know parents want to have real conversations with kids because you want to know what's going on in our lives and let me tell you, for us in that stage, it's like nails on a chalkboard, seriously. I know it's like, we're finally old enough to express our own opinions about LIFE, and STUFF, and THINGS, and it's so interesting that this person who was once a moldable child has now grown up. But some of the things we think/feel will SCARE you because you think "OMG, that's going to lead them down the wrong path! What do we do!" and end up with you completely disregarding or putting down our ideas.
We have nothing to talk to our parents about because we think they won't understand, and it's unfortunately really annoying trying to explain things to them. For example, how the heck do we explain peer pressure to you?
"I feel left out because all my friends have or do this."
There is almost no parent on this earth who would be like "I totally understand where you're coming from, let's see how we can come to a compromise on how to not make you feel left out but not to completely jump on the bandwagon either."
Instead, it's almost always "Don't give into peer pressure! If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you? No, you can't have it because 'everyone else has or does it" is not a viable excuse."
Also, we were in the stage where we were slowly morphing into young adults, but speaking to our parents we're always reminded that in the end, they just try to tell us what to do and we're still kids, it gets old. It's okay to offer advice in the form of open debate and respectable conversation, but sooner or later, it turns into "You should do this because we know what's best, and we've been through it."
We know! But by golly we want the freedom to make our own mistakes! So we shut down and just shrug, or say "Uhuh." or "I don't know." or some variation of.
It wasn't until I was out of college and started working and now am getting married that the parent child relationship became more adult. I rebelled emotionally as a teenager too and 12-13 was TOUGH emotionally, even if I didn't often show it.
These days, because I work with my parents, I often have to remind them to stop with the "Wear a jacket!" or "Do this because it's good for you!" or "Why are you eating that!?!" in the office because I'm sorry, I'm not a child anymore. I know you guys miss that stage, but we all grow up. We'll always be your baby, but we aren't babies anymore.
This is what goes on in the mind of teenagers, I watered it down a bit because mostly it's usually somewhere along the lines of (and I have been guilty of this high pitched internal shrieking too):
"OMG I HATE THIS PLACE, I HATE MY PARENTS, WHY ARE THEY ALWAYS CONTROLLING ME, I WANT TO RUN AWAY, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!?!?"
Thanks. I hope it could be
Thanks. I hope it could be that easy to explain.
I didn't see you mention
I didn't see you mention anything about grades at school.
Pay close attention to her actions.
I would tell Dd12, go get dressed, brush your teeth, grab your shoes and meet me in the kitchen......she would do one thing and then meet me.
She would forget her homework, she did horrible in reading comprehension, and can not remember a math fact to save her life. She struggled to tell time.
She spent 3.5 yrs battling this. To her dad and I she was lazy, unfocuded, didn't try. It didn't help that her teachers said she didn't try.
She is ADD with a learning problem. She process information at warp speed, which means she's actuly 4-5 steps further than her actual physical being.
Do some research, talk to her doctors.
Moodiness is the age of puberty.
We almost take her to see ADD
We almost take her to see ADD doctor but we give up and want to observe her more. She got some improvement but compare to her little sister it's very slow and limited.