Step parenting DSD at the moment is exhausting. She’s 10, CONSTANTLY seems to be in wind up mode, if you so much as change your tone if she needs reprimanding she says she wants to go back to her mums and will never come here again.
OH regularly has to spoon feed her meals, she constantly interrupts conversations, does not take it well when other people are receiving praise. Anything they can do she can do better. She really downplays her siblings/cousins achievements and at times will make comments to make them feel stupid.
She demands that her dad is at her beck and call. She will shout ‘dad’ from upstairs and then say ‘come’ as if it’s a command! And of course he goes everytime.
She will often wake up at 5am and come into bed with us, waking her 1 YO sister who is still in our room in the process. This happens on average 4x per week. I wouldn’t mind at a later time. I ask her to go back to bed but she refuses and by that point DD is wide awake.
She was in the bath the other night and I asked her to wash her hair while I settled DD’s into bed. She flipped out, started crying and OH had to come and do it for her.
OH doesn’t help matters at all, he goes along with it. I think she has confidence and self esteem issues which we really need to work on - I think making her a bit more independent would help massively but OH seems intent on STILL treating her like a baby.
She’s really quite exhausting. I’m trying to homeschool her and her sister (6) at the moment and it’s just exhausting. She will constantly put down DD’s work or tell her she’s doing it all wrong and upset her. It then takes me ages to talk DD down and encourage her to do some work all the while DSD is also vying for my attention and other DD has free reign of the living room and is trashing the place!
I feel like I can’t have a conversation with OH without DSD listening in and/or interrupting. It’s driving me mad!! She’s still awake now as OH has let her sit up and watch his iPad. She’s been going to bed when we’re going to bed and you can guarantee that we’ll have a battle to get her into her own bed when we do go up.
We’re getting absolutely no time to have an adult conversation or even an hour to watch TV. I just wish he would work with me to help DSD. I feel as though he’s hindering progress by allowing this behaviour from her.