I’ve mentioned this briefly in previous blog/rants, but today it is a topic unto itself.

We’re having a hard time with step-sibling rivalry and I’m not sure how much of it is a real problem and how much is just my protective mom instincts trying to protect my own son.

My own bio-family unit has known the skids for years before SO and I began to live together, so I have seen SD-just-turned-7 in action with her own brother (SS15) for a long time. She loves to get him in trouble, even if it means lying, exaggerating, or goading him into doing something so that she can tell on him. From the age she was old enough to throw a fit, BM and SO have tended to give in to her to quiet her. They will also believe anything she tells them her brother did. Other family friends, my kids, and I have all seen her make stuff up. SO is kind of aware of it now, but rather than addressing the lies he just kind of brushes her off when she tells on him.

Now she is doing almost the same thing with my DS10. She doesn’t invent stuff out of the blue like with her own brother, but she takes the slightest comment or action from my son and runs to SO to tell on him. SO and I don’t discipline each other’s kids, and even if we did I don’t think he puts enough stock in what she says to discipline my son, but he does effectively agree with what she is saying by replying along the lines of, “He was mean to you? Well then just stay away from him”. As in, “Poor you, I know he was mean. You should just keep your innocent little self away from that bad person.”

Now I know DS is not entirely innocent. He and my DD15 can fight like animals. He will snap things like “shut up” at SD. Things that I think are normal kid stuff given that they live together a couple days per week. Things that if my own kids were arguing I would either ignore or essentially tell them to cut it out. But SD blows these things into epic proportions and runs to SO.

Examples of minor affronts: DS and SD7 were talking about Harry Potter. SD7 didn’t know there were books as well as the movies, DS said she was too young to read them, SD runs to SO that he is saying mean things to her. DS doesn’t want her to use something of his (usually computer or electronics that he is currently using), he is mean. DS was crying about something, SD was standing directly in front of him staring at him with her gape-mouthed stare, he said quit staring at me, she ran to tell SO he was being mean. Plus many, many more. It happens more often is DS is doing something with SS15 instead of her.

Recent example of less minor affront: We just painted/semi-remodeled my bio-kids bedrooms. SD is watching while DS and I put some of his stuff away. She gets on his bed and starts rolling around in the brand-new clean covers, saying how comfy it is. I can tell DS is cringing because she is beyond her normal grubby self, and is downright dirty, right down to her black feet from running around outside barefoot. Neither of said anything at the time and she hopped down on her own, but when she went to get back on the bed, he put his arm out to stop her. This caused her to stumble backwards and step on the metal heat register with her bare foot. I don’t think it hurt, but it did make a loud sound. She yelled at my son about pushing her, and while I don’t normally react to her, I calmly told her he didn’t mean for her to fall, he would tell her he was sorry, but that she didn’t need to be all over his new bed. My son did say he was sorry. She zoomed off down the hallway to run to SO. In just a couple angry steps I was right behind her, but she didn’t know it. She started fake crying that my son pushed her hard. SO just looked at me while he was processing what was going on and when she didn’t get an answer right way started crying that my son hates her. I calmly said, “DS does not hate you. Also, he did not mean to push you- it was an accident.” Not knowing I was behind her, she whipped around and got a deer-in-the-headlights look. She sputtered for a second and then went and hid behind a chair to pout for awhile.

I gave all these tedious examples so that I could get some feedback if I’m just being too defensive of my own son. In my mind I’m not, since I know she does this with her brother and I can see her instantly fake cry. But I also know it’s impossible for me to be objective here.

I’m also hoping for feedback as to how other families handle the step-sibling spats. I’ll add here that my son spends the very most one-on-one time with SD out of anyone in the household, including SO, and I’m reasonably certain more time than BM. Not because of anything neglectful on SO or BM’s part, but because DS will play with her, do activities with her, just sit and watch TV with her, while adults tend to be busy with chores/jobs/etc and only spend limited time with one-on-one play. All this time together increases the opportunities for conflict and puts them in a more sibling type relationship. I used to discipline my son automatically when she tattled to SO, but now I don’t trust that he’s done something wrong. If I see him do something wrong, I still will discipline him for it. I have more than once just found something for us to do away from the house to get him away from her.

One of the themes I seem to harp about a lot is that the relationship with SO has to be given its own priority, in addition to the priority of children’s health, welfare, and safety. In his guilty dad mode, SO used to confuse indulging SD’s whims/wants with making her welfare a priority. He finally realized the difference and truly did grasp the importance of our relationship. Now that he is starting to give our relationship the tending that it needs, I feel like I have to push our children’s needs back to the forefront. Sometimes I don’t think being subject to SD is fair to my kids, and if SD doesn’t like being around my family (conflict with my son plus comments that our house, pets, and numerous other things are “weird” or she hates them), then that’s not good for her either.

I just hate that all roads always seem to come back to ending this relationship when if it weren’t for SD and BM we would be pretty darn happy. I don’t mean I would end it only because of these little spats between DS and SD, but it’s just one more thing to add to all the other problems.