Behavioral issues and bio mom who refuses to enforce rules
Hi all, (sorry for the long rant)
Little background husband and I have been together for 4 years and married for 1 year. We are currently expecting our first child. DH was previously married and has a daughter who is 11. She has mild-moderate autism along with other behavioral issues.
When I first met my husband, I explained to him the way him and his ex were handling this child was inadequate. For example, she had no regulation when It came to technology ( I am talking about 10+ hours of unsupervised access).
Long story short, multiple issues where observed while dating ( going to sleep aorund 2a.m. and waking up around 12 p.m., poor hygine, constant tantrums, transitional issues, inability to do certain age appropriate chores, lack of all manners, skipping school, aggression, and many many more) and I brought them to his attention for him and I to an extent work on. At that time, my husband was only a little over a year from his divorce adjusting to being a single dad with an extremely demanding proffession while bio mom was a stay home mom collecting alimony and child support. I understood the situation and stood by his side and watched him implement rules/discipline, reaching out to therapists, and truly parenting her child which. He made huge strides the past couple of years, no technology in our house, less transition issues ( she is able to go on hikes, gym, grocery shopping without flipping), aggression has gone down to zero, and many others ONLY when she is with us saturday-monday.
We have her every weekend satrting Fridays. Fridays are pure HELL because bio mom does not enforce ANY rules in her house. She tries for one or two days and then it's too hard to handle so she resorts to technology to parent SD. SD has the WORSE transitional issues every Friday and has refused to come over the past 3 weekends. This has led to multiple arguments between us because I believe that bio mom should be accountable and responsible for her actions and not put this stress on my husband or mother in law. For example, last weekend mother in law had to bail her because SD would not budge to come with us and I am not okay with my husband staying over at his exs house to babysit while she goes to work ( now she works only Sat-Mon). This weekend poor husband had to wake up at 3 am saturday morning drive 50 minutes to try to get SD to come so bio mom could go to work after both of us working 50+ hours each. He found his daughter asleep with her phone ( which we thought and discuss was to not be used since March) I am over this ruining our weekends especially with our baby arriving in 3 months. We are both in demanding fields but still make time to travel and go out to explore and do new things all the time. I had the hope to incorporate SD into our lifestyle but it has become extremely difficult without the support of bio mom. It scares me to think that I wont be able to enjoy family time with my hiusband and child during the weekends unless is SD approved ( staying all day in house lounging bc her anxieties without technology are too much too handle)
Bio mom has his own set of issues anxiety/depression, however, to my knowledge she refuses to seeK for help. My husband has very nicely mentioned this multiple times to his ex we need to work on X,Y,Z. However, every time she feels attacked and gets her feeling hurt. He does not know how to approach it anymore and has taken the mentality I will just have to do all the work. Obviously, this is not working since SD spends 50% with bio mom and picks up all her bad behaviors. How can we make bio mom see this issue without offending her, I honestly don't know how.
She's not your kid, just let
She's not your kid, just let her have the screens to keep the peace in your home, unless her dad is totally gung ho about the no screens (but I'm guessing not). You can set different rules for your child.
I put a TV in my SD's room because she would beg and beg for it, and DH would turn it on to make her happy. I'm super anti screen time for babies/toddlers, and very limited after that, so I put a tv and game system in her room she could veg out all she wanted and my kids were not affected.
Not your circus
Not your monkey. You are not this child's parent. Disengage. She is on your DH to figure out. You need to be ready for your child and can implement all the rules you want.
Trying to step in to his lack of parenting of DD will bring resentment to you, your SD and soon to be child. You have enough going on.
Just make clear at 18 you will not have SD moving in to your house. It's in her parents to make sure she is ready to launch.
Good Advice: Disengage
I like both the posts, above, which basically say the same thing: Not your circus! I realize it's VERY hard, but you are fighting an uphill battle (basically against BOTH bio parents) to enforce rules that work. Good luck. And make sure to take care of YOU. You deserve it and your baby will thank you. Hugs!
You're stressing yourself out
You're stressing yourself out trying to control a situation you're always going to lose. Her mom can do whatever she wants with her daughter when she has her so she doesn't have to believe that screens are bad for her child because YOU believe screens aren't good for her. I get it. One of the most frustrating things about being a stepparent is trying to navigate someone else's train wreck parenting style when what you're doing works but it's their choice. I find comfort in knowing what I suggested works and the proof is in my biochild and how different he is from Bm's cluster mess.
I know this
I have a sd of 8 who is diagnosed asd but not sure it's the right diagnosis to be honest. We have done the work of toileting, finally getting her to wipe her own backside just before her 8th birthday without her screaming the house down claiming its to tiring why should I! When I first met her at age of 3 I admittedly did the discipline because she didn't want to see daddy just wanted mummy because she basically let's her do what she want. Like your sd loads of screen time, the school have mentioned it because sd gone to school scared, or saying she can't worktoday because she's to scared as she saw a scary video in bed. Bio mum won't engage either, everytime do she ignores my husband and either don't see sd or her husband deals with him. SD has caused my daughter to be in hospital because of panic attacks because of the stress and targeting behaviour towards me and then towards my daughter her response was it was my daughters fault for keeping it bottled up.
Where we are now is that sd openly doesn't like me says it and it's for ridiculous reasons like I didnt get her sweets, or I tell her off. But they way we try to do it now Is we keep rules the same I try not to tell her off which is extremelyhard becausejust the sound of her voice irritates me. We have a baby here too and she don't bother much. We go straight to school now with any problems we think she has and bypass her mother. ( I have a sister with autism and I know every autistic person is different) but I've never come across a deliberately malicious autistic child, they can still follow rules and be kind. There's a difference from saying the wrong thing because of social cues to openly not being kind and lieing etc.
Diaper and let it simmer.
Diaper and let it simmer. Once her ass is adequately raw and painful she will wipe all day every day there after to avoid a repeat.
This is not a young child. This is a kid approaching the double digit age transition.
This kid is toxic and needs to be contained by a state of abject misery until she either shapes up or disappears from your lives when she stays at BM's permanently.
Protect your family.