How to stop step siblings from arguing constantly.

[Fuckduckcluck]

Hi,

So I have 5 wonderful kids two daughters and two ss and a sd. My daughters live with us full time and go to their dads a couple of days a week overnight, and his come over for four days every other weekend (thur-sun). Us living together under one roof is new.

Everything is great, I love his kids, he loves mine. They argue constantly when all together (his youngest ds and dd argue all the time anyway but everyone else gets dragged in when they are all together). So every fortnight is hell on earth to the point my youngest dd has decided to go to her nans or dads every fortnight.

My partner is great, he tries but the older they get the more out of his depth he is and it’s got to the point where they have got used to not having discipline here and are under the impression they can do what they want which is being reinforced by the fact he lets them get on with it. I also worry that if I try to do something I’m overstepping.

As much as I love her, his daughter is a lot, and this weeks altercation involved her hitting my daughter in the back of the head with a bag of sweets that she got from a party because she wasn’t being played with. I sent her to tidy her room, and took her phone off of her (to which she went behind my back and got it back from her dad). There has been other times where she has physically hurt the others in a temper tantrum (she’s 9), I don’t know what I can do to make her see it’s not how we behave towards each other angry or not. It seems like we don’t have them for long enough for any consequences to take effect.

Her older brother delights in winding her up to the point that she gets all lashy outy, and then loves the fallout that it has.

Her oldest brother is a typical teen and is usually out with friends, on his PlayStation or texting, he’s the only chilled one in the bunch.

We need this to stop as a family.

Some suggestions on how to manage this so my anxiety doesn’t turn me into a wreck would be very much appreciated. Any tips on what to do when kids you don’t have often misbehave that are effective? Anything before this affects our relationship, because my strain is starting to show.

I don’t even think it’s that she doesn’t understand it’s unacceptable, I think it’s just that she doesn’t care because if she acts out she gets more attention.

Your house your rules. Need a conversation with partner and agree to work together, kids are very good at manipulation and know when one parent is easygoing

Family meeting and family rules. All of you sit down and you draw up a charter of what ‘good’ looks like in your house. Then the kids make most of the suggestions. And it’s for everyone to abide by, not just the kids.

Let the children take the lead, the adults moderate and contribute but very much take a back seat. Sometimes it’s surprising what comes out when you give kids the space to share.

Then also set out what happens if the family charter is broken. What are the consequences. And again this applies to everyone.

Your DP has to be on the same page as you re parenting and cannot not back you up in discipline. Consistency and transparency and fairness is what will help you all.

But what starts to happen with the above is suddenly it’s not just parents disciplining. The group can easily say xyz behaviour is not what we agreed and some of it starts to become policed as a family if that makes sense?