That is a sticky situation you have here!! I also have a step child, 9yrs old, but luckely we couldn't have a better relationship even if he was my very own. He was 2yrs old when his father and I met, so he doesn't remember a day without me in it, thankfully! In my opinion it sounds like there are issues with your SD's mother. She must not like you and most likely says bad things about you to her child. If that's the case your hubby really needs to step up and let your SD mother know that this is not acceptable and it is only hurting their daughter and that is not fair to her. Also, how does your hubby respond to his daughter treating you poorly? Not to sound harsh or anything, but he !!!!CANNOT!!!! allow his daoughter to treat you badly and disrespect you! He needs to let her know that he loves you and you're not going away and she is NOT allowed to treat you in that manner. She needs to know that he loves her sooo much and you are not going to replace her but her bahavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated anymore. My SS will sometimes (very rare!!) argue or try to get away with more when he's with me, which is normal with it being your natural child or step, but his father nips that right in the butt before it becomes a habit. He lets him know that he loves me and he will not allow him to treat his wife bad or disrespect his wife for any reason!! imamommy is right that it helps to let the child now that you love them and you want only the best for them. Even if there is a stain between the parents, it has nothing to do with her and doesn't change the fact that she is loved by her father and you. Are the two of you ever affectionate towards eachother? (you and SD) Do the two of you ever spend time together alone doing girly things? (painting her nails, curling her hair, putting on perfume and make-up) Get her a surprize for no reason? My SS and I have always spent alot of time together just the two of us and it has always been a thing that has always strengthend our bond. Maybe make a special dinner for her, her favorite foods, or take her to lunch to her favorite place. My SS and I always have a great time going out and buying his daddy a specail gift together. Or getting a new toy or game and playing with it together or as a familiy. If she is having behavior issues, not listening to you, giving mean looks and refusing to be in the same room as you, there is obviously a lack of consistancy in disapline. You have to let children know what the rules of the house are, before you begin enforcing them though, and what the consciences are if they break the rules. And be consistant!! No matter what, even if it's their birthday!! Things should not be going on this long or be where they at today between the two of you. Your hubby needs to get a hold on this behavior before she gets any older and begins to apply her incompliance to everyone in her life. By that time the behavior is almost impossible to reverse or mend and now you have a wild teenage girl running around making everyones life miserable!!

theotherside Just to let you know a person does get a good credit rating with a cell phone account, as long as it is properly paid. He would not be responsible for the account we would be paying it, however, if he wanted to change or purchase anything with the account he would have free rein to do so. SS has a history of foolishly over spending and then coming to us to pay for his over spending. I could see him order a fancy phone and extras off the account and then telling us, leaving us to pay for his new francy phone and any extras he decided he wanted. Yea and he knows we would and with no worry for him. He might get a little talking to from dad but he would get his phone and what ever else he ordered. That is how past history has gone with SS. There is no way to set limits if the account is in his name. SS will be considered the main account holder and have all control of the account. Sweeby, maybe I am sensitive, but past history have caused me alot of stress in regards to extravagant spending on SS part and then expecting us to pay. What do you 2 think about him having his own account? The two of you did not respond to that. Why is it that we are expected to pay his cell phone bill? Although we have paid for his phone for the last 6 years. What is this about now days. I guess at 22 year old my parents were paying for nothing for me.

After lots of hard work, yes. We're 20 years into this marriage. When we married (2nd for both), I had a 14 yo daughter, he had 5 and 10 yo sons. Within 3 yrs we had one more son and one more daughter. Needless to say, we both worked full time. The first years were hell. My daughter was a princess and was not thrilled about the male invasion or the loss of our "Gilmore Girls" lifestyle. She was - to be charitable - difficult for the first year or so... she loved my husband, but hated the change in lifestyle. Thankfully, her acting out was limited and her girlfriends all loved the idea of babies and a big family and being part of the herd; peer pressure was in our favor. The s-sons were a challenge. They were with us every other weekend, 6 weeks in the summer, and most school vacas. There were many issues - lack of personal hygiene, disrespect, walking away from their messes, plus throwing footballs, baseballs, etc in the house - often directly at breakables... intentional damage disguised as accidents (that came to an abrupt end when they mistook one of their father's prized possessions for mine). Much of our trouble was fueled by their mom - she gave them permission to call my daughter and myself D----- B--s... "because that's what they are!", they would chew their food at meals and spit it back on the plate... "It's a game we play at home - my mother says we can do it here if we want." They were not big fans of soap, shampoo or water - clean clothes were unheard of ( they would arrive with a bag of dirty clothes) and the younger one even arrived one time with an awful rash on his 'lower extremities' that the doctor said was strictly from filth! The younger one actually went through a spell where he would not use toilet paper; he wiped whatever on the walls!!! I cried with relief many times as soon as they went out the door and headed for home. My husbands guilt was enormous; his fear of alienating and losing his kids was crippling. I was afraid to rock the boat or come across as a witch and I didn't want to undermine my husband. Ultimately, after many terrible arguments, we came to the conclusion that we were not presenting a united front. We also came to realize that my daughter and I were really fringe issues. The core problem was the boys lack of respect for my husband and his condoning their disrespect and their behavior by catering to them. He also realized that the problem had become so significant that he was well on the path to destroying his relationship with them by virtue of his behavior. Kids instinctively smell fear and they know just how to leverage weakness. We had many family meetings where we invited their input but made clear that we set the rules. It took a long time (and a lot of tears) before there was any progress, but it happened. I think ultimately the boys stopped being so angry when they recognized that they were hurting themselves as much as (maybe even more than) anyone else and expending a great deal of energy doing so. Over time, they started to become more objective - sometimes a little embarrassed - and they eased into our routine. I found that "the more the merrier" helped - we encouraged each of the older kids to bring friends along and we kept them busy  we went many places with two strollers and as many as 8 other kids between 7ish and 16ish? The herd/peer thing takes them into a world of their own where their behavior reflects on and impacts them - it's not about the parent/step parent. The kids are now 33, 30, 24 and the Âbabies are 18 and 17. All the kids are doing well. The older 2 have long since finished college and have good jobs. Number 3 is in his last year of college; number 4 started college this fall and number 5 is the only one still here at home (and we're broke, needless to say). I am not the boys' mother, but we have developed pretty decent adult-to-adult relationships. They come to me for advice and the older one asked me to do a reading at his wedding. Our first grandchild is due this month. We all consider ourselves to be family. The kids do not think in terms of step and half sibs - they are brothers and sisters and are insulted when someone outside corrects them on the legal status of their relationships. The boys mother has backed off significantly, but has not given up. She has worked very hard to gain the allegiance of D-I-L and recently let me know that she was the babyÂs real grandmother. It has been a great deal of work and I sometimes wonder if I would have done it if I knew how difficult and painful it would become. After all the ups and downs and all the noise and confusion, we now find ourselves having to adjust to a new and much quieter life, and to each other. Our oldest recently reminded us that we had never been/lived together without kids - I guess that will be our next adjustment/ challenge!

This article goes along with the theory that mothers are more likely to be the abuser because they pend more time with the child. They refer to this as "time at risk" in the article. Causes and Effects of Child Abuse - Abusive Mothers A national survey in the United Kingdom of the childhood experiences of young adults ages eighteen to twenty-four found that mothers were more likely than other household members to be violent toward their children. Child Maltreatment in the United KingdomA Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect (Pat Cawson, Corinne Wattam, Sue Brooker, and Graham Kelly, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, London, England, November 20, 2000) was the most comprehensive report of childhood maltreatment ever conducted in that country, involving 2,869 interviews about young people's childhood experiences. Of the 11% of respondents who reported physical abuse, nearly half (49%) indicated that their mothers were the perpetrators of violence. Violence took the forms of knocking down the child, burning, threatening with a knife or a gun, kicking hard, shaking, or hitting with a fist or a hard implement. Another 40% of the respondents identified their attackers as their fathers. Some Experts Say Social Factors Cause Abuse by Mothers Straus and Smith, in "Family Patterns and Child Abuse," found that women are as likely, if not more likely, as men to abuse their children. The authors believed child abuse by women could be explained in terms of social factors rather than psychological factors. Women are more likely to abuse their children because they are more likely to have much greater responsibility for raising the children, which means that they are more exposed to the trials and frustrations of child rearing. Women spend more "time at risk" while tending to their children. "Time at risk" refers to the time a potential abuser spends with the victim. This would apply to any form of domestic violence, such as spousal abuse and elder abuse. For example, elderly people are more likely to experience abuse from each other, not from a caregiver, if one is present. This is not because elderly couples are more violent than caregivers, but because they spend more time with each other. Risk Factors and Chronic Child Maltreatment by Mothers To determine the connection between psychological risk factors for child maltreatment and chronic maltreatment, researchers conducted interviews and tests of a group of abusive mothers in Quebec, Canada, on three separate occasions: during the initial recruitment for an intervention program, two years later at the end of the program, and four years after the initial recruitment as a follow-up (Louise S. Ethier, Germain Couture, and Carl Lacharité, "Risk Factors Associated with the Chronicity of High Potential for Child Abuse and Neglect," Journal of Family Violence, vol. 19, no. 1, February 2004). Fifty-six mothers were evaluated: twenty-one mothers whose files at the social agencies had been closed for at least four months (transitory problems group) and thirty-five mothers who were still abusive (chronic group). The risk factors were categorized into two general groups: the mother's history and her characteristics as an adult. The mother's history included placement in foster care, childhood sexual abuse, running away from home in her teens, break-ups with parental relationships, parental unavailability, neglect, and physical violence. The mother's adult characteristics included family unemployment, limited social support, past intimate partner violence, low level of intellectual functioning, low level of education, and high numbers of children and partners. Ethier et al. found that mothers who reported a history of childhood sexual abuse, placement in foster care, and running away from home during adolescence were more likely to have chronic problems of child maltreatment. Overall, mothers exhibiting more than eight risk factors had about four times the risk for chronic child maltreatment. Those with a history of childhood sexual abuse had 3.75 times more risk of having chronic child maltreatment than those without this risk factor. The risk for chronic child maltreatment was 3.57 times for a childhood history of placement in foster care and 3.02 times for a history of running away from home in adolescence. The study also found that the following risk factors predispose mothers to chronic child maltreatment: childhood neglect (0.58 times more likely than those without this risk factor), physical violence (0.69 times), and unavailability of and break-up with parental figures (0.92 and 1.54 times, respectively). The authors concluded that traumatic experiences of childhood sexual abuse (77.8% of mothers in the study), placement in foster care (80%), and running away from home during adolescence (77.3%) had adverse effects on the mothers' ability to parent their children. Results also showed that mothers with a low level of intelligence were 2.75 times more at risk for chronic child maltreatment. A total of 78.6% of the mothers showed such risk. However, the researchers cautioned that some studies have found that unless a parent's IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is below sixty, his or her low level of intelligence does not impair parenting abilities. Still other studies say IQ has nothing to do with parental competence. Mothers with a large family were found to have 3.13 times more risk for chronic maltreatment, with 80% of the sample displaying such risk. Here's the link: Causes and Effects of Child Abuse - Abusive Mothers User Comments Add a comment Name Email Body Cancel or Copyright © 2008 Net Industries - All Rights Reserved