What do you do in the face of blatant defiance?

[LadyRussell]

I am posting as a step mum so please don’t flame me!!

I have never had this with my own kids.

DSD1 is 13 and this weekend has been a bit hellish.

She is just blatantly rufusing to do things. For example we were at the beach and she refused to sit on the blanket so was covered in sand. We all washed our feet off at the tap and she point blank refused.

DH then made her put her feet in a bag on the way home, he was going to not do that and just get her to vacuum the sand from his car but he thinks she would have refused to do that too.

He took her phone from her (we pay for it so we feel this is ok) and then she was messaging her Mum from her sisters phone who was colluding with the girls telling them they should make an excuse to be dropped Home early today.

Several more times in the evening she refused to do as asked. I had a chat with her and asked her if everything was ok, she wanted to be here etc and she opened up to me a bit but there was nothing she disliked about being here.

We are running out of ideas of how to deal with this? What do others do?

Ah, I know who this OP is now.

Huge backstory and nothing anyone says will convince her she's wrong on this or any other matter!

total obedience

You regard asking a 13 year old to wipe the sand off her feet before getting in to a newly clean car as asking for **total obediance”?

I have read the book. Oh dear. OP you sound really rigid and you think you know better than everyone else.

Also thanks for the whole feet/sand/car shizzle. Yet another reason I'm glad to be rid of my ex. How I hated him when he had been to the car wash and didn't want a single grain of sand in his car AT THE BEACH FFS. Also I spoke to another dad with a campervan. His children weren't allowed to eat or drink in it. Not even water, he bragged to me. Way to go to remove every shred of fun from camping.

You've had good advice. No doubt you will ignore it. Your H is the main problem here.

I have on occasion tried 'when you won't do a reasonable thing that I have asked it makes me feel upset and disrespected. If you don't co-operate when I ask you to do something reasonable, the next time you want me to do something the answer might be no.

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.

Some of us like sand in our cars and on our feet, some of us don't. It's a metaphor for life and parenting, perhaps. That's OK.

BlackBeltInChildWrangling

Yes, and the OP did mind, and as it is her car, she had a right to ask that feet were clean before coming in. In your eyes it is not a battle worth fighting, but in the OP’s and many other parents - it would be. Not so much because of the sand, but because the child’s refusal is not just a refusal with no consequences. The consequence is additional work for others.

The person who doesn't want sand in the car probably shouldn't force the person who doesn't care about whether or not sand gets in the car to go to the beach when they don't want to.

Crikey, not much work though. She's not looking after a severely disabled child 24/7 is she?!

why on earth would you ask a kid not to get sandy or sit on the sand at an actual beach?

No wonder shes rebelling

I have no idea what half the people on this thread are talking about now so I will bow out. I don’t know who I am supposed to be but I am certainly not some evil bitch with any type of “back story”.

It was a whole catalogue of behaviour and shit attitude which led to this and her phone being taken away.

She then went into our bedroom and took her phone back.

Yes, the not sitting on the sand was OTT

She wasn’t told off for sitting on the sand.

Parenting and step parenting isn't easy OP, I totally get that. I realise most of the advice isn't what you wanted to hear, but you have had some good advice on this thread, and a variety too. Just give it some thought. You did ask.

Missy may - are you Nanny mcphee