Running out of ideas, please help, very long sorry

[wheresthevalium]

The story so far...

Met DP 6 months ago, we are moving in together to a new town this weekend. He has been very involved with my DDs (5 and 4) from the start, and has been fantastic. He has helped me with raising their standards of behaviour, disciplined them with me (after we had discussed it and agreed on how we would do it) and has been affectionate and loving with them, all of which I am happy with. He has a DD of his own (3) who he has every other weekend, who is lovely and well behaved, both me and my DDs get on really well with her too. All good so far.

Over the last few weeks we have had DP DD most weekends and went on holiday together. DD1 has started acting up and it is clear that she is jealous of DP DD when she comes to stay. DP doesn't treat my girls any differently to his own DD, and we are running out of ideas as to how to deal with her. She keeps on trying to get both DP DD and DD2 into trouble, backchatting, attention seeking etc etc.

I appreciate there are a lot of changes for her to deal with, but I really don't know how to deal with her behaviour, so far we have tried to come down quite firmly on the bad behaviour and azccentuate the good, but it doesn't seem to be working, please help.

i think you're doing it right already and while it doesn't seem to be working, I'm sure it WILL. Don't let your dd's behaviour panic and worry you into changing tack, because giving consequences for bad behaviour, while always praising and noticing the good, just can't be the wrong thing to do.

I think your dd just needs to be given your firm but loving boundaries and attention, while she deals with her feelings. She will appreciate your calm and consistency in the long run; I reckon her behaviour would probably worsen if you totally change things now. Now is when she needs things to be the same, to be safe, and secure. Ride it out and let her come out the other side.

I know that's easy to say but I really think that will be the quickest way out; there isn't a magic wand that will make her behaviour go away suddenly!

Keep going, working together as you are, and also I'd make sure that you get some time alone together with each of your dd's, when they can have your undivided attention. I realise that logistically that can be hard but if you can do it I know it can reap rewards.

Good luck with the move, btw!

oh and meant to say don't worry about the backchat, I know it's cheeky but to be honest it needs to be ignored; she can say what she likes but she can't MAKE you argue with her.

The more attention she gets, the less she will do this attention seeking stuff. Do you think there is scope for you playing with her more - maybe get DP to be extra supportive with the housework/cooking while you focus on dd a bit more?

Don't assume that her behaviour is necessarily about the changes in circumstances - back-chatting and attention-seeking is pretty standard for ALL 5 year olds, IME. And at 5, she is old enough to have a conversation about everything that's going on - maybe a "I know it must be really strange for you having X here" chat and encouraging her to let you know how she's feeling - plus lots of reassurance about how much you love her, which I think kids do need reminding of sometimes.

Thanks to you both for your replies, it's nice to know that we are hopefully doing the right things.

We really are getting worried as DP is getting thoroughly hacked off and upset that all his time with his DD is taken up with dealing with DD1, totally understandably I think. He is concerned that because of this he will end up coming down too hard on her.