DP daughter is challenging

Channel your guilt into something useful.

Frame your chat with him in very simple child appropriate terms.

X and Y have not been treating us very kindly so I have decided its best we do not visit them any more.

Sometimes adults have complicated relationships and sometimes its best not to be friends any more.

Keep it very simple and do something nice afterwards.

Tell him EARLY in the day and do a favourite activity with him afterwards.

Hopefully by bed time he will have forgotten.

Schedule some nice playdates and stuff for you both to do this week.

The best thing you can do is learn from this.

Do the www.freedomprogramme.co.uk to help you establish good boundaries and expectations of how you should be treated.

Your son really needs you to be his best role model.

You can do this.

Its ok to feel sad.

But you need to realise your child needs you to be the adult and protect them, even if he did like them, they often weren't kind to him.

Your child will learn his self worth and value from how he is cared for and treated by those in his life.

She and her child were sending an awful message to him, as were you by allowing it.

Grieve for sure, but realise this woman and her child were mistreating your small child and that is so very wrong for him.

I mean this kindly, but you really need to take a long hard look at your own parenting, which is sorely wanting too.

You put this awful woman and her child ahead of your own small child.

You allowed him to be bullied and treated poorly by this woman and her poorly behaved child.

This is really dreadful.

Your poor little boy.

He deserves a lot better than a parent who puts their relationship ahead of them and stands by as he is mistreated.

You need to rethink your priorities and put your child first.

The mother had already promised her that type of ice cream. They went to the shop and she put them in the basket.

I guess you could nitpick the way she worded it in the shop, but it sounds like there are bigger fish to fry in relation to this child. It's a valid parenting choice to let something like that go through to the keeper. Especially for a child who is going through a lot. It's not fair on her to be constantly criticised- sometimes we need to pick our battles.

OP should have just bought her son the ice cream he wanted instead of attempting to parent someone else's child in front of them.

But ultimately these two sound ill matched, and different parenting styles are just one aspect of that.

Maybe you should rethink your relationship with your parrner?

It’s quite obvious the issue is not about her choosing which ice cream she wanted,
it’s her just helping herself
and saying “I don't care about anyone else I'm having these” putting them in the basket and then her Mum just allowing this.

Sounds like the classic non parenting ‘parenting’ which has created a brat,
you see it all the time sadly. Whether it’s from laziness or guilt she isn’t doing her child any favours. It’s quite sad really.

I agree! My first thought was that this child probably feels very insecure. Although starting a life with a new partner and having a child are welcome, joyous occasions in an adults life, from the child's perspective that is an awful lot of change to process!

I can't imagine sitting there munching a bag a crisps by myself while a child watched without offering them some. Such awkward behaviour.

It's a snack and they're all on holiday- just tip them into a bowl and share.

OP seems to be getting into a power struggle over the smallest things with a child who has had no choice in her less than ideal circumstances.

I agree with PPs, there needs to be more empathy for the child's situation. She's been an only child of a single parent her whole life. She is used to choosing the ice creams! There's been no one to debate ice cream choices with- ever. Extrapolate that to every minor decision in her life. And now you're expecting her to suddenly be graciously thinking of and considering your DS's needs as well. That's brand new to her- and a massive step down from the control she had before. Of course she will struggle and resist that. Especially when she gets fuck all say in the big decisions- whether her mother has a partner, let alone a partner who brings another child into the mix, let alone a partner who resents her and mentally lists all her faults following a holiday.

Let her have a little control over the small things that don't matter. You're the adult- you have all the real power over big things.

😴😴😴😴

Yes we've all heard what you think. I don't see how it can simultaneously be "not her fault" AND "she's a brat". She's behaving the way she is because she's in a shitty situation, not because she IS inherently a nasty child. "Brat" us what you say she IS; acting up is what she's DOING, for totally obvious and explicable reasons that wong be undone by her mother taking the side of the new partner who dislikes the kid against her DD.

It's not *euphemism " it's a very important distinction that avoids monstering a CHILD who has been put in a very difficult situation.

And why would you not offer the crisps to the kid first?, if there was one packet of crisps, I would ask kids present if they wanted them before scoffing them myself, crisps are more kid food anyway

What is her diet like? It sounds like you just eat crisps and ice cream as normal course of business. Sugary junk affects mood because of sugar crashes and it affects the gut which also leads to poor mental health.

Is her behaviour better on days she is fed properly? Might be something to monitor for.

On the one hand you admit she's 'acting up' and on the other you take huge offence at someone saying she's a brat? You're just using a euphemism to say the same thing.

Why she's a brat is a separate question. Yes everyone knows blending families can be hard. And one of the ways some parents react to it is by indulging and spoiling their child to make up for the stress that the parent's relationship decision has caused them. Obviously that's a dysfunctional and lazy way to respond. As is sulking and giving your partner the silent treatment when he tries to point this out.

No one is condemning the child as evilly evil and irredeemable. She is what she is right now and it's not her fault. No it's not inevitable that a child will react like this to a difficult blending family situation. She's reacting as she is because of how her mother has parented her through it. And that includes her mother's failure to either resolve this conflict about parenting with the OP, which will be affecting the child too, or end the relationship with him if it can't be resolved.

I felt my stress level rising just reading this.
Some kids are rude, they are kids, they are still learning about social interactions and relationships and it is our job to gently correct them.
I suspect the kid has been through a lot in her short life, for years she had her mum to herself and now she's got to share her with someone who sidelines her, and excludes her, re the "private conversation" wow! I've raised 3DC and if I ever need to have a word in private with their Dad then we make sure they absolutely won't find us whispering in a corner. She must feel very insecure.
Also, unbelievable that PP are diagnosing an 11year old with a personality disorder.
My advice would be that you need to try and look at the reasons why she is acting like this and try to see things from her angle.

Well yes, operatively you've raised 2. So they're siblings, they rub each others' corners off, they get used to not being the focus. It's different being the only child of one parent. This girl is adapting from that to suddenly having a ready made sibling (without even the tiny non-moving baby but to get used to it) and another adult who has suddenly started saying the way she and her mum have always done things, presumably because it worked for both of them, is no longer ok - it's a LOT, and she's 11 - she's not going to just get it immediately, she's going to struggle.

I think people underestimate how difficult it is for kids to blend families. The eternal assumption is that if the parents are happy, the kids should be too - but it doesn't follow. And in this case it doesn't even sound like the parents' relationship is even strong, so of course the kid will be acting up!

Basically she's been jammed into a dysfunctional situation and is expected to deal with it better than either adult is - get real!

Jesus some of these replies ! It’s not normal for an 11 year old to be a complete brat no, she sounds awful. I’ve raised 2 kids past this age and neither acted this way ever. I couldn’t be arsed to be around a kid like that I would leave if your partner doesn’t sort her out she will be a nightmare teen!

Some of what you describe is normal behaviour that I would classify as sibling rivalry. My kids don't have step or half siblings but my dd would have done the guest book thing and fished for compliments about her handwriting being better than her brother's. I would see a lot of her behaviour as a sign of insecurity of her place in the family. Seeing the world as her world is far from unusual for kids her age too.
Whilst I agree that a lot of the issues that you and your son face are a result of your partner being soft (would she accept the same from your son?) , sd isn't unreasonable to push boundaries in her favour when she knows that she'll probably get what she wants. This is basic human nature.
Your job is to protect your son and consider how much contact he should have with sd. Sibling relationships are complex never mind half sibling relationships.

I did a post a few pages in setting out exactly what she did which was unacceptable bad behaviour and normal for a 3 year old rather than an 11 year old. I appreciate some of you just landed and can't be arsed to read the thread, but it's very tedious to repeat myself so I won't.

Just leave this whole relationship. It isn't good for any of you.

Interesting how you can instantly tell from the OP's very one-sided post, in which she details the child's hideous crimes of "choosing some ice creams", "writing excessively in a guest book", "being bossy to a younger child joining her game" and "being a bit nosy and trying to join in with the adults conversations", that this child has massive behavioural problems rather than just being a bit "main character" as is pretty normal for her age group. Anyway I was talking to the OP not you, you are a sideshow. Carry on.

Some of you have deeply weird beliefs about what teenager and preteens are like. I don't know where this is coming from, but it would explain a lot about the state of mental health among teenagers these days. If large numbers of people believe this is simply a normal response to hormonal changes then they're probably responding just as this mother does and indulging it.

There's also a very weird pattern that some of you focus on 'defending' the child from random posts on the internet which she'll never see, and completely and utterly ignoring what we're told about the mother's parenting, and now her behaviour to the OP also. Is the mother a protected species or something?