How do I handle the 10 yo SD
I am a step-father to two boys and one girl. The boys are 8 and 15, the girl is 10. I have been dating their birth mom for 3 and a half years. We are getting married next April, engaged for almost 10 months now. I have no children of my own. My fiancee is not capable of having any more children. The youngest boy and the daughter live with us almost full time, they stay with their birth father every other weekend. The oldest son stays with us every other weekend but stays with his dad full time otherwise. In the summer we split time a week with us then a week with him.
Things have been typically easy going for the most part, but within the past few weeks the step daughter is out of control. She's acting like a spoiled brat, arguing with anything that's said, talking back, giving attitude, not doing what she's told, and after almost 4 years I was waiting to hear these words: you're not my dad. Thank God for that. The children's birth father is a difficult burden on us. He has held two jobs in the 4 years I've known him, and the jobs have lasted only a couple months at best. He has an on/off relationship with a woman who has 4 girls of her own and refuses to work. The kids often spend the night at this woman's house when they are staying with the father.
She is fighting with her BM too so it's not just me she's battling against. We've both stopped just short of beating the child. We've grounded her, taken her electronics, chores, you name it, nothing is working. We thought she might be doing it for attention so we tried to provide attention in a healthy way without over doing it. That did no good either. The issue is compounded by the fact that the SD refuses to talk to anyone but mom about her feelings and I have to really pry to get any kind of answers from her. The other night she pissed me off to no end and didn't want to talk to me "ever again." So I obliged. Then when she decided she was ready to talk about her feelings I said I didn't want too because I was still too pissed off. My fiancee was pissed immediately that I didn't reach out to her daughter and shut her down. Then I get told to be the adult and stop acting like a child because I didn't want to talk for fear of saying something I would later regret.
This is getting out of control. She's in to see counseling so I'm hoping that helps, and we will eventually do family counseling together once the therapist thinks the SD is ready. I just don't know if I'm prepared to hang around that long. What if this never gets fixed?
Welcome to pre-teen girls. It
Welcome to pre-teen girls. It gets worse
My daughter is 12 and we are about to throw down. OMG and my son13 isn't much better.
She may have some other stuff going on at her dad's, but just remember that every mole hill is a mountain when you are becoming hormonal. She will learn how to handle the hormones eventually.
While what her mom did to you regarding how you reacted isn't fair to you, I get why she did it. It's sort of like trying to coax a wild animal to come to you with a cracker, and then as soon as it's about to take it from you, you scream in its face. She probably felt like you're going to have to go back to square one with her. You are all human and you need to give each other slack. Just never stop communicating to one another, because really words is all you have to understand each other better.
How I've handled the hormones w/ my kids is this: I acknowledge that there are crazy things going on in their bodies. But I tell them they HAVE to learn how to manage them because their behavior is not okay. My son was always angry and had no idea why. My daughter would cry for no reason (at first, and now it's Dr. Jeckel/Mr. Hyde). I started puberty at 8 and my daughter around 10/11. The hormones start before any visible changes, so you never know when it's actually happening.
Good luck!
I believe she is in the same
I believe she is in the same boat, her mom started puberty early, her grandma as well. So it's very possible that it is sprouting from there. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if that were the case. Especially since it seemed to spring out of nowhere. I know everyone says to run but I know she's a good kid. The boys are great. I think the SD just has some serious issues regarding her dad and interacting with men in general. He was a horrible man, abusive, degrading, and I believe that she's taken on the roll of the abuser. Her counselor said it could take 4 to 6 sessions to gain SD's trust. After that she wanted to start working with the family to resolve issues especially with communication which is where we all seem to suffer greatly.
Snarky, lippy, volatile 10yo
Snarky, lippy, volatile 10yo ... squirt bottle. Any time she goes on a rant to you or your fiancé, squirt bottle to the face. She escalates, more water. When she shuts up then you tell her .... there will be no disrespectful bullshit tolerated from children in this house. If the water in the squirt bottle does not get her attention, add Tobasco. That will definitely get her attention.
No quarter, no tolerance, confront every bout of unacceptable behavior. The only way to stop these situations is to win and tolerate nothing but unconditional surrender from the snarky brat(s).
Your partner needs the message that never again will she disrespect you as she did when giving you the "adult" lecture. Tell her she has a choice. Step up, parent, and discipline her spawn before you have to or shut up while you deal with it. Her choice. Her shitty parenting should not be tolerated in your home any more than her toxic 10yo's behavior should be tolerated.
IMHO of course.
Good luck.
Finally found someone in the
Finally found someone in the same boat as me. I feel for you dude. I also am in a relationship raising step-children for 10 years and BM can't have any more children. So, I tried to raise them as my own.
The SD waiting until 12 before turning on us. It's a hard thing because she was like daddy's little girl to me for years, BD was never a big part of her life, then BAM out of no where, suddenly Biodad started becoming SD12 best friend, more phone calls, next thing I know it's as if I never existed.
We had to punish her many times for her misbehaving, taking away devices, etc, and we "THOUGHT" he BD was on the same page with us, but when he got on the phone to talk to her after getting in ttouble he was doing things like saying "I wouldn't have punished you, and if they keep doing it you can live with me". That was the beginning of the end, she got worse and worse, dad gave he the OK to have boyfriends, electriconic devices, and not many rules.
I regret taking this on after 10 years. My wife was the one for me, that's only thing keeping me there, but taking on these kids and doing all I did to see them turn on me and jump to POS BD. ITs crazy. You almsot wish there was a refund in life to where you can get your time invested and money invested in these kids refunded to you.
When you take on someone else's kids other people tell such positive things like, you're more of a man than their real dad, and they'll see it one day, it's all BS.
All I can say to you is to disengage from the SD. Especially if you start prying with feelings, they are evil enough to pop up and make false accusations against you or some other crazy things to get even, or saying you're making her talking about things she doesnt' want to talk about. The way this world operates now give kids a free reign to be an evil as they want, and the parents get blamed. But there's 2 parents dragging these kids in two directions to win points.