AIBU to bar my stepdaughter from my house?

[everybodysaywayhooo]

I have a 13 year old stepdaughter who has a very difficult mother. She stays with us once a week. Recently she's become increasingly manipulative; lying about my 14 yo DD to her mother, and sending personal info from DD's Facebook account to my ex, causing a lot of trouble. AIBU to suggest she stays in her grandparents' house and not mine, until this behaviour stops?

Jessica, I didn't suggest that at all. I'm posting on the presumption that OP has already tried to explain that she could loose her own children because of these lies. I'm also presuming that she has exhausted any ideas she might have as to how to fix this given the fact she is considering stopping the child coming to her house. Of course there are often underlying reasons but I don't think, whatever the teasons are, that rewarding this kind of disgusting behaviour is ever the answer.

Keep, okay I'll bite even though you were very rude I have plenty experience with teenagers (several very troubled ones as it happens) although I don't have 1 of my own (yet) i completely advocate trying to understand why they can act up and dealing with it, however, they also need to be aware that actions have consequences. this child hasn't been caught smoking behind the bike sheds or sneaking out at night, she has potentially broken up this family. No way should she be allowed under the same roof as the other children if she is putting them at risk!

I would love to know where the father is and what he is doing. I certainly would never let a partner bar my child from the house.

I don't get the whole 'wherever the father lives is the stepchilds home' mentality. The stepchilds home is with her mother where she spends most of her time. My stepdaughter was a teenager when I got together with her dad and at no point did any of us consider the home I shared with my partner and our children together as her home too although she was welcome to visit ot sleepover when she wanted to. Op if your sd is making your own dd uncomfortable and upset in her own home I don't blame u got banning her until her behaviour improves. Your children deserve to feel safe, happy and relaxed in their own home xx

What a difficult situation. I think the biggest problem is with your DH.

Of course it is her home! No wonder the poor child has problems when her step sister is the DD of the house. I wouldn't tolerate my child being told they have a home elsewhere- they have another home elsewhere.
Obviously from the father's point if view the ideal would be to have her all the time, or at least more often.
How can you have a man with several natural children and one of them is relegated to visitor and isn't as equal to her half siblings?

I would agree that the biggest problem is DH.

Why are there some people on here insisting that this is DSD's home? It isn't.

I am a step-daughter. And I am also a stepmother. And my DDs have a stepmother. In all these scenarios, the step-children's actual home is where they live, with their mother. Their DF's and SM's home is where they go and stay, and where they hopefully feel welcome and 'at home'.

We used to go and stay with our DF and DSM, but we actually lived with our mother, so that was home. My DDs would go and stay with their dad and step-mum, but their home was where they lived, with me. My DSCs would come and stay with us, but then they would go home to where they lived with their mum. So what is it that makes some people so insistent that OP's home is her DSD's home?

OP, you and your Dh need to come to agreements about what is and isn't acceptable behaviour from all your children. They all need to know that you are together on how things work in your household, and your DH needs to not be afraid to actually be a father to his daughter by giving her boundaries and helping her to grow up into a decent person. Obviously, he cannot be responsible for how his ex chooses to behave. But he can say what he will and won't put up with as a parent. And he needs to. It is part of effective parenting. There need to be consequences for anyone overstepping those boundaries.

I don't think banning her from your house is the solution. This behaviour needs to be dealt with, regardless of what DSD's mother has to say about it. It is not for her to say what goes on in your household, only you and your DH make those decisions. If DSD doesn't like the consequences of her behaviour and strops off for a bit, then fine.

It is unhealthy for children and teenagers to think they can dictate and manipulate within the family to get what they want. This lack of respect within the household is unacceptable, and it will feel safer for all the children, even for your DSD, if they understand that the adults are actually in charge, not the kids.

If you and Dh don't see eye to eye on how to deal with DSD's (or any of the children's) behaviour, then you could always go together and get some CBT to help you sort this.

No wonder the poor child is jealous, when another child a similar age,gets her father all the time- is counted as one of the family with her half siblings and yet this poor child is equally related to the half siblings is a visitor and told she isn't really part of her father's family because she has one elsewhere. Apart from that she is not loved unconditionally like the others because it is put forward that she is barred if her behaviour is poor. Are her step sister and half siblings likely to be barred if they have poor behaviour? I somehow doubt it.
My DH got my DS for life when he married me- it is not an option to have him as a step son.

Some of the responses on here could make me weep.

None of these children asked to be born or for their parents to split up. So many seem to think it's okay for the father to swan off and have a new home and family and for his first children to visit.

How magnanimous.

Why is the only home with the mother?

Some of you need to look to yourselves, you really do.

And in this case, the father needs to remember all his responsibilities.

Hear, hear, NannyOgg - sometimes I think that MN is a parallel universe where people think it is OK to marry a man with a child a similar age to their own, then have joint children and think that his child has nothing much to do with them - just someone to put up with once a week as a visitor! Then they blame the child when they react badly and want to stop the visits. It is beyond belief.

If she passed on information from facebook how is she lying? I would presume whatever she has said is true. I am surprised everyone thinks you are on the right considering we don't know what she actually shared and why.

The father should never have allowed her to be sidelined as a visitor and made it utterly clear that she had a second home. He should make it abundantly clear that she will never be barred from his home and that you don't bar your child when they become difficult.
I hardly think he is going to bar his step daughter and suggest she goes to grandparents if she becomes difficult! If he did I expect OP would put her foot down ( as she should) and I can't see the difference.

Fantastic, maybe some people insist their DSCs children have two homes because that is how it is for them. Just because your experience is/was different doesn't make it right, or wrong, just different.

how can you compare a child living in a house 24/7 being moved to a grandparents house, to a child that stays once a week spending that 1 night at a grandparents house? Of course that's different.

What is your suggestion then, If this teenager refuses to admit she was lying and refuses to lay off the other children in the house no matter what her parents do? Tell the other children to suck it up because SD obviously has issues even if their father gets custody of them due to SDs lies? I'm actually shocked at some of these posts. What about the OPs biological children, you don't seem worried about the effect this behaviour is having on them!!

For what it's worth ive seen cases of children (resident children) going to live with relatives full time if their behaviour at home becomes unmanageable. Not ideal but certainly not unheard off. The SD would only have to stay there 1 night until she can resolve her issues and stop ruining the lives of the other children!! Or is this different because she us a SC she must be allowed to do as she pleases and it must be the fathers fault?

It can never be right for one child to be a visitor.
I would never marry anyone who expected one of our children not to count as the family.
And suggesting that they didn't even visit because they were difficult would be grounds for divorce. You can't tell me that OP would send her DD off to her father or grandparents if her DH found her difficult.
You do not give up on your children because they are difficult- especially when it is patently obvious that adults in her life have caused her to be difficult.

None of my children would be sent away because they are difficult. Families resolve these things.

Mehitabel how is it obviously the oarents fault? Did you read the post where the OP States this child's lies are the grounds for her exh applying for custody of her children? That's not 'being difficult' that diwnright wicked!

The problem is HoneyLemon, that her home is with her mum but her dad's is not 'her dads' and she is a visitor. If she could go whenever she liked I doubt there would be the problem!

I suspect it would suit the step daughter and her mother if the she stayed with her grandparents.

But the point of her being at your house is to have contact with her father. Would that still happen?

She is a child, JackieOH. I dare say she picks up on the fact that OP would actually prefer a family without her and would be horrified if she had her there to live. Picking up on this when they first got together.
Obviously for her DH all his children full time would be the ideal.

i understand that she is a child with issues I get that, but her issues are making the other children miserable and potentially breaking the family up! OP is right to suggest that until that improves the SC spend 1 night a week at her GPs house. She is hardly suggesting they banish the child to a desert island, lets get some perspective here!

This thread is really upsetting, that people think a SC is basically more important than anyone else in the family and that any behaviour is not their fault because they come from a broken home! That they should never be punished for it, instead, as someone suggested, should be taken on holiday!! The mind boggles at the entitled adults these children will become!

Another thread to hide I guess. There seem to be a few at the moment where 'nice ' children deserve to be treated 'nicely' and 'horrid' children have to take what is coming to them because it is their fault for being 'horrid' with no one actually thinking that maybe the 'nice' children might be horrid if life threw some traumatic events at them and the 'horrid' children might be 'nice' if they hadn't had the traumatic events. I would like to think that the adults were trying to be understanding and finding ways to improve things.

Not more important- equal.