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Sd behavior- new one on me!!!

lornamarie99's picture

:? First post so bare with me please?

I've never seen a kid act like this before & I'm at a loss for how to deal with it. 11 year old SD does crap DAILY that she knows she's not supposed to. Hides dirty dishes under clean ones when asked to do dishes, says she's done homework but hasn't, even attempted shoplifting (thankfully DH caught that in progress). But when confronted with these things, there's no fighting on her part. She is quiet & eventually admits to the crime. But even with taking away ALL electronics, toys, everything, nothing has changed. And on top of the repeats, every new situation that comes up is guaranteed that she chooses the dumbest option instead of making anything resembling a good choice. This kid has the extreme opposite of common sense. But I can't get over the fact that when she's confronted with her wrong-doing there is no backtalk or arguing from her. Is that normal?

Thanks in advance everyone! It's good to see that I'm not the only one who is putting up with crappy skids. The SS TRIES to be good, but is high-functioning autistic so that's a whole separate can of worms. Oh well- any insight is appreciated!!!

furkidsforme's picture

I agree. I would be when she is "good", she gets forgotten. Brother is the one who gets all the attention and all the work.

So instead, she does this stupid stuff she knows you will catch and knows you will have to respond to. It's her only way to matter.

Andie91801's picture

Passive aggressive behavior. SD behaves exactly like that. SD has very nice innocence look but she's devil reincarnation. Let the parents deal with her. Stay as far as you can.

A.

lornamarie99's picture

BM is a raging drug addict who was court ordered to rehab & parenting classes & skipped town at that point. It's sad but there's been no contact with her in 2 years (a blessing considering who she is, but sad for the kids). She was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder & I wonder if that's what's happening with her. Nothing is her fault & she doesn't care how stressed out she makes her dad & me. There has been zero "good" behavior to reward honestly because every time she does anything at all there's some downside to it. I s2fg its like the curse of the monkey's paw that anything wished for turns out to be a curse. DH is FINALLY trying to take control but it's almost like 10 1/2 years too late- BM let them get away with murder until she got the boot. I love DH to the end of the earth, but SD is evil & SS takes his sister's lead. So frikkin frustrating. But thank you all- the "negative attention" suggestion was what I was afraid of but I needed to hear it.

SugarSpice's picture

i feel sorry for the daughter as the mother is such a loser. children know when there is "something" wrong in their upbringing. at 11, she is not quite a teen and may benefit from some tlc and counselling. if she was 18 that would be another matter.

moeilijk's picture

Attention-seeking isn't reward-seeking.

You don't like this kid, so you're not the one that needs to look into a solution. Hopefully her dad does like her and makes an effort.

Maybe there is a personality disorder. Or maybe she's acting like a jerk because then someone notices her. Teenagers are by nature narcissistic and dying to be 'seen' for who they are, or who they might become.

One of my nieces was very difficult at this age. I spent a lot of time listening to her talk on and on about conflicts she had with other girls, about her judgements on their behaviour and their clothes, about her issues with teachers and homework. I didn't say much, just asked her about her goals for the situations, her thoughts on what the other people involved might be thinking or feeling, whether she enjoyed whatever it was, etc. Open-ended questions.

She didn't fit in. She looked older than she was, she felt younger than she was, most of the girls at her school were very girly but she was very sporty. All she wanted was to be ok the way she was, but no one was telling her that. I just tried to give her an sounding board so that she could tell herself that she is just fine.

She struggled, she's been through a lot of tough things too, but she has grown into a happy, independent, successful, wonderful young woman. I am glad I got to witness some of that development. If I had had to live with her, I might have gone nuts.

ChiefGrownup's picture

My ss13 is autistic. He also has a very troublesome older sister. Welcome to the board, you are definitely not alone.

In our house it was ss, the autistic one, who was neglected while domineering sis got all the attention. I changed that dynamic because I could not stand to witness it. So moral of the story is every family is different.

I also want so say it took me at least a year of marriage to become really comfortable as a care provider for ss. He was 11 when we married. There is a lot to learn with an autistic child. Give yourself time to really understand both him and his sister.

Do whatever you can in the here and now to get that child to develop healthy emotional and other habits. My sd is now 16 and we consider her "cooked." There's pretty much zilch we can do at this point to mold her character. I begged my dh when she was 12/13/14 and warned him it would be too late when she was 15/16 but he really couldn't understand me then. Now it's come true and he is sad about not doing more when she was still somewhat malleable.

Regardless of your dh's parenting, do your best to enforce your OWN personal standards of behavior in your house.