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Lizzy.A's picture

Submitted by Lizzy.A on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 1:58pm

Recently I have had some issues with my step daughter coming home from her moms house with a bad attitude/acting older/not kind. She is only 6 almost 7 but her mom tells her things that arent age appropriate and lets her watch pg.13 movies/grow up to quick. I have been in her life since she has been 1 and her dad and I have her for the majority of the time. Me and her are super close and I always support the relationship between her and her mom even when she is unhappy with her mom and I always try to be helpful in what she can to  and keep things on a healthy balance and she responds most of the time to that because she is so smart and kind when she is being her authentic self but prissy mean girl stuff really gets to me especially if she doesnt snap out of it. I don't want to feel like I am saying what her mom says or does that she is copying is me having a issue with her mom but the past couple weeks I cant get her to come back down to earth! Any tips or tricks to either let it go or to correct certain behavior without it being an attack

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ESMOD's picture

Submitted by ESMOD on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 2:29pm

First, while you may attribute the behavior to her mom.. that is a dead end road and no good will come from any attempt to approach it from that angle.. "your mom is wrong we are right" etc..

There is also the fact that lots of kids can become unsettled when they have a house switch.  My SD's would usually have a little breaking in period.

But, what you CAN do is address actions and behaviors as the occur.  Mean girl attitude?  Well.. she can have some time to herself to think about it.. and she can learn to write sincere apology letters or mini essays about how she understands what she said was wrong.  She can lose priviledges ... tv or electronics.. or not get to stay up as late as she normally does.

Of course, if DAD can be the primary parenter.. great.  but if she views you as an equal authority in the home.. you can also correct and guide her and try to help her build her empathy and kindness.

Kids will try out stuff they see on tv etc.. so when they see that sassy kid mouthing off to the parents?  They think they can do it too.

I actually recall a particularly bad episode with me as a child.  My dad was military and we had just finished a super long trip from one base to the next assignment.  We had just gotten to a hotel room.. and my mom was tired after traveling with two young kids.. I think I may have been 6-8 at the time.. so my brother would have been 4-5.. so yeah.. that HAD to be hard...

Well.. I was hungry.. and my mom said she was going to lay down for a bit first.  Well.. after a little bit of BATMAN the TV show.. I went up to my mom.. hauled back and punched her complete with the "POW".. just like you see on the TV show... and said "I want to eat NOW".  Yeah.. you can imagine that did not work out well for me or my little behind.  I also was forbidden from watching that show forever..haha.

So, yeah kids are impressionable.. but parenting can also set expectations for behavior... you can't control what she sees at BM's.. unless your DH wants to have THAT fight with his EX..

Lizzy.A's picture

Submitted by Lizzy.A on Tue, 09/21/2021 - 10:56am

We try and pick and choose what we bring up to BM because she has a tendency to blow small things out of the water and we want to stick to absolutely necessary issues you know? It's really hard because on one hand she doesn't remember a time where I haven't been around in her life and her mom has been in and out so I am a constant sense of comfort and stability for her but I also have to be careful when it comes to these situations. It's hard when I have a daughter that is two weeks in age difference to her and I have raised them together and always picked up whatever slack needed to be picked up and stayed out of the court and communication drama so that I can stay nuetral for her but sometimes it just stresses me out!

ndc's picture

Submitted by ndc on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 3:48pm

I would just discipline the behavior you don't want to encourage (or better yet have her dad do it if possible). If she says her mom does or allows something, I would just say "in this house we don't do that" or something along those lines. There are plenty of CODs who have different sets of rules in their 2 homes.