To worry about stepdaughter coming to live with us.

[rainnie]

This may sound as if I am an uncaring person, but I am vary worried that my 14year old SDD will end up living with us.

I have known her for 5 year and during that time both myself and DP have been worried about her. She is agressive to other children (not just mine) there have been incidents at school and on the school bus. She refuses to take part in classes, and now only attends 3 classes aday, it is not that she is not able, just not willing to do as she is asked. She is under the ED Phy.

In the last 2 months she has only attended school for 1 day in 5 and now the truency officer is involved and a childrens panel is likely.

She has made some progress, she will now eat most foods and will make herself a cup of tea.

Her poor mother is at her wits end. She come to us every weekend but resistes any attempt to be involved in family life.

We are afraid to leave her with our young son as she has a very quick temper.

My major worry is that if she is removed from school, that her mother will say she can't stay there and she will have to come to us. This will mean alot of changes for her (school, home. rules. friends) which I don't think she will cope with. I am also worried that she will have an effect on the other children.
Am I being unreasonable to worry over this?

I don't think I have any useful advice but YANBU to be worried. Her behaviour sounds very difficult indeed.

She sounds very unhappy.. and harsh as this may sound, you got involved with a man with a child, so while you are not unreasonable to worry, you would be very unreasonable to try and block this from happening.

Perhaps living with you full time would enable her to feel that she IS a part of family life, rather than an outsider who just visits at the weekends. Sometimes at that age, a bit of trust and responsibility and treating her more like an adult (with of course, boundaries as necessary) can be the making of a teenager.

how far do you live apart from her.

i know when i was 14 i was looking forward to the weekend to chill out with my mates, could the fact that spending every weekend at her fathers and all week at her mother leaves her with little time for herself

Thanks for your replies, I would never stop her or any child from coming to live as part of our family, and squeakytoy, you are right I did take on my SDD with my DP and he took on mine.

My worry is that I can't decide if SDD is suffering from a form of depression or other issue or if she is just acting out and this makes how to handle her difficult. She has told people at school that she is bi poler. but she doesn;t seem to have the highs and lows that go with this disorder.

Sorry to moan but I feel out of my depth with is.

OP, you may want to have this moved to Step Parenting, it may be more helpful than AIBU.

You may well connect a lot better with her if you get the chance to spend more time with her.

"I am bi-polar" is bandied around way too much these days, and detracts from those who genuinely do suffer from it. It almost seems to be the "fashionable ailment to have" for some.

Your stepdaughter could simply be an obnoxious hormonal 14 year old.. I was one myself, and I brought up 3 of them... they grow out of it.

At that age I was capable of being extremely manipulative, and so were my stepdaughters. They would try and play off their mother against me and their father.. and once they realised that it didnt have much effect, they gave up on that idea.

Does she want to come and live with you? If she does, and it is a viable option, then I would say let her. She may think she would get a lot more freedom with you, or an easier life.. once she realises that it isnt going to work that way, she might buck her ideas up a bit.

You will cope... the trick is not to worry about how things might be, and take it and deal with it as it comes.