DSD 2 lives with her mum (dsd1 lives with us FT and never sees her mum - they have the same mum) and comes to us for around 24h eow. Her behaviour when she is here is becoming increasingly worse, imo.
Last time she was here she swore at her dad in front of her grandmother and kicked up an almighty fuss about having to share a bed with DSD1 as grandmother had been using dsd2's room (she always does, it has been this way for years).
She then disobeyed and snapped at her grandmother when asked to tidy up after herself. I had to intervene as DP was out, which is incredibly rare as I prefer not to get involved. When she was told off for both of these incidents by her dad, she threatened to call her mum (and in fact did), asking to be collected as he was being so unfair to her.
This weekend she has deliberately made DP miss a train and thus an event that they had planned to attend together during the week - because she wanted to see her friends this afternoon and the trip would mean she could not do that. He called her on her behaviour and she swore at him again, this time in front of me and DS.
Once again, on being told off by a very upset DP, she called her mother and asked to be collected for the same reason as before. Her mother agreed to let her go and see her friends this afternoon. DP then intervened, took DSD shopping instead and effectively has allowed her - and this is just my opinion - to get away with threatening him, he has removed his authority and potentially set himself up for more of the same in the weeks to come.
I know he is terrified of her not coming at all (he was crying this morning when he was asking her to stay and go shopping instead of go to her mum's) and so is increasingly tolerating this behaviour - which he is much less tolerant of (though still allows a degree of it) from DSD1.
Is ther anything I can say to him to show that ultimately this is not going to lead to a healthy relationship for them? He is desperate for her to keep coming and maybe even spend a little more time here, but I can't help thinking that it's creating a pretty messy dynamic when she can swear, threaten and then get a reward. Ultimately it wasn't what she really wanted to do, but he's notoriously poor at consequences for bad behaviour and rationalised to me that she was being given an unpleasant experience (shopping? She's 13!) and not getting her way.
There have been many other incidents dating back a couple of years like this, but the frequency is picking up.
To note - DS was reading a book earlier (first time he has shown any interest in reading - he's 4 - and I said that i would get him another in the series when we went shopping - but only if he was a good boy and held on to the trolley nicely) - DP criticised me, saying he never had to bribe his kids to go round a supermarket. That's because he and his ex never took them - there were two of them! I don't have that choice when he is away shopping with dsd2 instead. And I felt I was just explaining the conditions of getting a book to DS, so he knew what to expect if he ran away in the supermarket.
Sorry for epic post, am sure many of you are in the same boat. I feel like I lost some respect for DP in how he handled that today. Like he could have properly given consequences and not been afraid of the outcome. Or maybe not, maybe he is in an invidious position that I can't imagine as DS lives with me 75% of the time - I haven't had to battle for his affection with his dad. yet... I am well aware that this may be in my future.
Thank you for reading this much - all pointers gratefully received and any links that I might share on how to build a bond with a NR child and still maintain a degree of parental authority would be so welcome.