When do you give up on steps to focus on bios?
We got called into the school yesterday for a meeting with the entire 6th grade team of teachers. SD12 has had 23 write-ups so far this year. Her new offense is not going where she is supposed to...more specifically, hanging out with bad news 8th grade boys when she is supposed to be with her 6th grade class. The write-ups included holding hands, kissing, being disrespectful, extremely tardy, and being disruptive during class. She says she is scared after an older girl beat her with her cell phone...but not scared enough to stay with her class and away from that girl! DH knew she wasn't going where she was supposed to as she got a detention and he told her she better be where she was supposed to be the next day...well she wasn't. He wants to give her a week to straighten up...well she totally went against what he told her and what her teachers told her...I am thinking take the door off the hinges, take her electronics and leave her a mattress! So I am a bit upset we aren't on the same page, hell we aren't even in the same book!
My main concern here is for my bios, BD4 and BS1. Last night from the next room I heard SD ask BD where I was. She then said "don't touch it" as meanly as she possibly could...she didn't want BD to touch her empty paper CD cover and she spoke to her like that. I got to thinking, if I heard one of BD's preschool teachers talk to her like that, she would NEVER go back to that preschool. But here I am, allowing this to happen in her own home. She didn't even tell on SD as she is so used to hearing those types of things. SD gets in trouble but it never stops.
So when do I decide to give up on SD and send her to her mom or juvenile hall and focus on my bios? I feel like in trying to help SD who doesn't even want help, I am failing my bios. She could be a lot worse...but how long do we wait before we give up? Drugs? Sex? Where do you draw the line. I don't want to lose precious time with my bios or them get hurt because I was too stupid to give up on SD.
I think you give up on steps
I think you give up on steps at this point:
1. Steps behavior is out of control
2. Bio parent can't, or won't, deal with it
3. You are convinced step is beyond hope, and there's nothing you can do about it
-OR-
Steps behavior at the present moment is beyond your capability of dealing with and also retaining your mental sanity...like, say, if I had a seven year old who chronically shit his pants, and hid the shitty diapers around the house and made messes with them (borrowed from another poster on here...). Something like that that would just make you lose your mind and Your only options were disengage, divorce, or mental hospital.
Thanks for the responses.
Thanks for the responses. This is just such a hard situation. Sometimes I feel like a failure at life to have ended up in this mess, or God thinks I am much stronger than I do. SD DOES bully my younger two. She has spanked, thrown them into couches, pinched, yelled at and made fun of them. The physical stuff doesn't happen much anymore as I am always on the lookout (although while she was standing in the corner last week BS1 started sobbing and told me SD did it). I do think she is bad for my kids, but how bad? I do think she could hurt their self esteem. I know she has physically hurt them in the past, I don't think she would really hurt them while I am in the next room or I would have left long ago. On the positive side, she isn't doing drugs (yet anyways) and she isn't pregnant (yet anyways). She doesn't follow rules at home or at school. We were going to spend $10,000 on therapy, but now we don't have the money and I am not so sure it would help anyways as you have to want help for it to work. She likes the "bad girl" reputation she is earning and she thinks I am a prude for being moral and expecting her to be moral.
It is hard to decide when you need to pressure your husband to give up on his daughter. It means a ton to me that he would even consider it, but I really don't want to have to ask him to do that. I think that could really hurt our relationship as how can you NOT resent someone that asks that of you? I have pointed out how much happier and more relaxed the entire family is when she is gone for a night. When she is home the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. I think my bios are better off being raised by their mommy and daddy even if that means SD is around them. If we sent her to her mom, we would likely have to pay child support and that doesn't sound pleasant either seeings how we have had her over 7 years and haven't seen a dime...but I would pay money to be done with her I guess. She has an attachment disorder which makes her the way she is, so I KNOW this isn't a phase she is going through as she has been "strange" since I met her and she gets worse by the year. Hubs knows I expect SD to move out at 18 even if it means to go to a homeless shelter. But at that time my oldest will be 10 and will be imprinted with SD's horrible influence right before puberty. I want to have a great relationship with my bios and I don't want SD to hurt that. I really don't think she will as my home is full of love and hugs and kisses and I am super close to both my bios. I am also now fully aware that our problems will not end when SD moves out...she will call for money, a new car, to bail her out of jail, etc.
I wish I had fallen in love with someone else, or perhaps he had used protection even though someone said they were on birth control. We have a great relationship now, but he used to be a serial cheater and was verbally and emotionally abusive. I am so happy we are great now, but REALLY? Why do I, a normal, smart, supportive, great wife and mother, have to go through years of abuse and unhappiness and now have to deal with not only a difficult SD, but one with a disorder that makes living with her torture? How did I get so lucky? Why did I bring only good things into his life while he brought so much shit into mine? It isn't fair! I guess I just need to be able to verbalize (well sorta) these things running through my head because I know it would really hurt him if I said this to him.
Yes, they are his bio kids,
Yes, they are his bio kids, too. He sees the SD hurts them and is mean to them and it bothers him, too...just not as much as it bothers me because I don't have that bio-attachment to his daughter. He tells me he will try to locate SD's mom if I want him to. But I don't want to make the decision to ship her away. Her mom is bad news, drugs, lost custody of her other child. She at least used to live 5 minutes from us and never even calls on birthdays or Christmas.
SD has also stolen from us. She even stole a few pairs of my panties! She lies about everything, too! Thank you for sharing your story. It makes me feel better that even bio-parents can feel they need to ship their kid off for the good of the family. It sounds like you really care and I appreciate that. I have always felt that if one child hurts the rest of the family, that child should leave for the good of the other members of the family. It is just hard to know where to draw the line. She can be a good kid...we just don't see that kid very often.
I can understand that, and my
I can understand that, and my BD does push SD's buttons at times. But you should see the hate in SD's eyes. Most kids don't genuinely hate their siblings, SD does. She screamed in BD's face when she was 4 months old and thought I was out of ear shot. She threw her into a couch (at 12 months) when she was at her grandma's house and then admitted she did it to me. I can understand some arguments and a bit of bullying, but this is not normal kids stuff, this is troubled, hateful stuff.
No kidding! When I was 13, I
No kidding! When I was 13, I had a 3 yr old sister and a newborn sister. I babysat for my mom ALL the time. She started a part-time job and from 14 through 17 I watched the little ones and cooked their supper. I LOVED those girls like my own and I spent every free minute playing with them. SD NEVER plays with them. She even stole my 4 year olds birthday present!
I agree with the serious discipline, it just seems nothing we try works and we end up giving up because we get emotionally exhausted.
I see my duty as BM to raise
I see my duty as BM to raise my DS and do what is best for him, not to raise my skids.
Ever since I married my DH, I knew his daughter (she's illegitimate, DH barely knew her mom, it was a stupid drunken hookup when he was a teen and he didn't even know about her until she was 2 and the state was demanding CS). The last thing I want for my child is to be associated with PWT drug addicts like that girl's family.
Yes this girl has a sob story, but my job is to protect my DS from negative influences, not bring them into my home.
When she unfortunately had to come live with us, I set up structure and rules to keep her in check, but when that did not work, she had to leave. No questions asked. It's insane for anyone to allow people you would never allow to associate with your children to be around them just because your SO was stupid enough to sleep with their bioparent.
There's a point where even the bio-parent needs to realize they need to protect their other children as well. SD15 was such a negative influence on SS7 and SS9. They aren't my biokids, but I hated to see the change in their behavior when she was here and dreaded how badly they would be acting in the future due to her.
My SD is now living with her aunt and uncle. I looked into a lot of programs for troubled teens that she could go to, but that didn't work out. If she had to go to foster care, that's what would have happened. She wasn't going to live here.
Thank you for your story. I
Thank you for your story. I don't know why it is so hard for me to decide she has to go. I feel bad for her as she has had a rough life...but I have been a great mom to her for 7 years...starting when I was a kid myself (19).
Maybe it is time to sit her down and tell her, "look here, you either obey the rules...or you leave, starting NOW".
What is your DH doing about
What is your DH doing about this? HE tells her to straighten up but did he follow through on it? Maybe he needs to take some of his vacation time and haunt her at school. He needs to take her camping far away from civilization. SHE should become his pet project for the next year and straighten her out.
She basically has you all at ransom or holding you all hostage.
I suspect she is jealous of your DDs and hates that her mother is a dropkick loser whereas you aren't. Her hormones are rearing their ugly heads and it is likely she has such low self esteem (don't laugh) that she thinks hanging with the cool kids (aka losers) will get her liked. She may eventually have sex with a few of them and get a reputation as an easy lay and get 'attention' that she wants but doesn't want. She wants to be a cool kid but hasn't got the self esteem to be herself.
However, when your kids are threatened and she is mean to them, take her to one side and tell her that picking on little girls is not funny and stupid. A smart girl like her would be babysitting responsibly and earning money for herself. But right now she is missing out because she cannot stop being mean to her half sisters. Give her a clue that her bahviour is losing money for her.
Now you know and I know that it would take some months of serious attitude change to allow you to trust her to babysit. But the hint that she is missing out on her OWN money will give her clue.
Sadly, where could she go? To her mother? What would that prove? And her future is doomed. It may be better to look into some kind of military school and search for financial assistance. This way she is still in school and being under control moreso than now. Has she some minority blood in her veins that could prove financially viable?
My husband sees the problem
My husband sees the problem and he tries to straighten her out, but I really don't think he knows what to do. It seems he does well for the minor offenses but when something major happens (like having to be called in to her school) he totally drops the ball until I step in and ask him to tell me his thinking. Then of course since he had already halfway punished SD and when Mom gets home she gets more punishment, it is obvious it is because of me and she then hates me even more. Our conversation this last go round was me: "so what is SD punishment?" him:"I told her if she is good for a week we won't punish her" me: "oh, so I had to leave work to get called into the school and she doesn't get punished?" him: "they already punished her" me: "yeah you see how well that is working. So she gets away with deliberately disobeying you and her teacher when you both told her she HAD to be where she was supposed to be?" him: "Oh. I guess we can ground her".
We have already had the babysitting talk. She told me she wanted to babysit to earn money. I told her I would not allow her to watch someone else's kids unsupervised until I can trust her to watch her own siblings without hurting them.
I think the best place for her if we have to send her off would either be DH's parents (whose kids were all screwed up in one way or another) or a special program for troubled kids. I haven't found any place that takes 12 year olds though. She isn't a minority so that won't help.
i am in the same boat as u
i am in the same boat as u but have already begun to disengage a little from my sd13. she is beyond parental control and i try to employ the 'not my kid not my problem' as often as i can. i have a bd who is 5 and disabled, and even though i NEVER put sd ahead of bd, now that i am slowly backing off sd, i can see that i could be MORE involved with bd5. honestly, i dont think us 'steps' should interfere in ste skids lives...we didnt make them how they are, so why should WE have to deal with them? especially if they dont want our assistance....
UPDATE: Last night DH and I
UPDATE: Last night DH and I talked to SD. I told her the road she is headed down will put her in jail. She said she would never go to jail. I said that once you start breaking rules, you don't just stop...that it becomes a sort of addiction and you start breaking bigger and bigger rules until you wind up in jail. I told her she needs to break the habit now before it is too late. I said detention is like a 6th grade version of jail. She snickered and said "no juvenile hall is". Her dad yelled at her for being disrespectful. She kept blaming getting in trouble on her best friend so her dad said she can no longer hang out with her and she started crying. I told her (probably not a good thing but I think she needs reality and a chance to stop before just getting kicked out with no warning) that my ultimate obligation is to my biological kids. I told her that if I EVER heard someone else talk to them the way she did, they would NEVER be around that person again. I told her I feel horrible guilt that my kids are exposed to her and that she IS hurting them and gave examples of how she is hurting them. She said if she is so bad then why don't we send her away. I told her that it would be a hell of a lot easier to send her away but that we love her and we are trying to help her get her life back on track. I told her how miserable she makes the entire family and that it isn't fair to everyone else and she needs to work on obeying rules. It took forever before she said she would even try to obey rules so I doubt she does. She mentioned not caring about us and wanting to see her mom. I told her her mom didn't want to see her or obviously she would. I reminded her she never calls on birthdays or Christmas. She said her mom doesn't know our number so DH reminded her that she does and his number has never changed. I said at 5 she begged to stay with us and she said "but I was 5". I told her she came to us at 6 pm and hadn't had anything to eat all day, that she always had lice and I would treat her and tell her mom she needed it again and she wouldn't do it. I told her she had lice for three months and as soon as she came to live with us full time it was gone. I reminded her that her mom almost got arrested for truancy when she wouldn't take SD to school. I reminded her that her mom would say she was coming for her and never show up. She has this glorious memory of her mom and it is sooo far from reality. She said she would like to live with her mom and her dad got really upset. He reminded her that DVRs cost money, internet and nice clothes cost money and that her mom has none so life with her would be drastically different from life with us. We told her that her counselor told us not to allow her to see her mom as her mom is why she is emotionally screwed up.
I hope this was a bit of a scared straight tactic, but it might actually work the opposite way because now she knows if she doesn't straighten up she will go somewhere else and it seems like that is what she wants. Any person that could take her is dead broke so I doubt she would like the situation for long as she is a spoiled brat. She is used living very well (until DH's orders got messed up leaving him without a paycheck for a while). This kid is so far from reality it is crazy. She always wants to blame not seeing her mom on us and quite frankly, that p***es me off! SHe can consider this her warning. If it doesn't improve immediately, I think we will be talking to DH's parents.