Hi Cindrillon, I feel obliged to respond to your post, since it mirrors my life so closely. I am an American, married to a Frenchman living in France with 2 step sons (6 and 8 years old). Although we have them EOW plus 1-2 days per week. I have a couple of questions. How long have you been living in France? Do you work? Do you have many friends here? I ask this because I started following this forum because I was having major problems adapting to life with my step sons when I moved here 2 years ago. I felt they were rude, babied, not very kind towards me, etc. And I wasnt completely wrong. They yelled at adults and no one reprimanded them, they didnÂt do anything for themselves, couldnÂt (still canÂt) tie their shoes, didnÂt dress themselves, had at potty chair that they still used! Keep in mind they were 4 and 6 at the time. I think a lot of this has to do with culture. To me it seems the French donÂt value kids being independent as much as Americans do. It also has to do with guilt on my DHÂs side. Plus, everyone was so busy fighting and getting through the divorce earlier that I think, unfortunately the kids kind of slipped through the cracks a little bit in the "life lessons" department. However, I think a major part was me too. I was in a new country, I couldnÂt speak the language well, I felt overwhelmed, tired, and every problem was magnified. Plus, since my life was so narrow (only DH and work) when something was going wrong it felt like my entire world was going wrong. But, it gets better. The kids adjusted, your DH will adjust and YOU will adjust. My DH was good and stepped up to all the "parenting". He let (and lets) me have time by myself if needed. Whereas before he felt we needed to re-create a family and do everything together. But you canÂt force it. (It probably will come, though.) Get out and about. Do things for yourself. Pick up a hobby. I wonÂt say learn the language because thatÂll come naturally (and trust me, the last thing I wanted to do after a long day and a 3 hour round trip commute was sit my butt in a language class). Now weÂre happily married, waiting on our 1st baby together (which the Step Sons are thrilled about), with ups and downs like any other family. I still get annoyed at the kids but itÂs more for "kid" things than "step-kid" things. So, to recap my rambling post Make sure you DH does the "parenting", but jump in for the fun times and try to build a bond. Try your hardest to be nice to your SS. He can sense your feelings even if you donÂt voice them, and youÂll get nowhere. Take time for yourself and try to build your life here. Be patient. Problems always seem magnified when your dealing with so much change to begin with. I know this stuff isnÂt always easy, and IÂm still working on it, too. But I found that it helped me immensely. Also, thereÂs an online group in France for parents called MESSAGE. Maybe look into that. TheyÂve got great support and are always organizing outings. And if youÂd like, let me know and you can email me personally. ItÂs always better when someone understands your situation. Hope things get better. Hang in there.

Hi MidWest I'm glad you didn't take what TOS said to heart. And I'm impressed at how honest you were about your feelings towards your SD. It's hard to admit that you don't like kids, and even harder - a specific kid (I'm not saying it's a good thing to not like your SD, just that I'm glad you had the guts to say it) Anyhow, I understand your situation well. I love kids, but can sometimes find my BF's 9 yo son, A__, very frustrating. He has a wonderful big heart, and I love him to teenytiny bits, but there are days that he drives me up the wall, and then possibly across the roof and out the window on the other side, and it took me awhile to get to love him so much. So I think I have a bit of a perspective on how you feel and I will share how I have grown in the same sorts of things. "She whines, lies, hits, cries at the drop of a hat, breaks things and is generally disrespectful of everything when we are together as a family." A__ did that sort of thing too. One night that A__ wasn't there, I calmly discussed with BF that "I love having A__ around, but I'd like to talk about some of his behaviors that I don't think are acceptable. Ultimately, the decisions about A__ and his behavior are yours, but I want you to know what's a problem for me. How can we remedy this? What are you willing to do? What would you like me to do?" etc... And then we started doing what we talked about. All those sorts of behaviors are getting better every month - A__ hasn't even been sent for a time-out since before Christmas!! I urge you to talk to DH calmly, at a time when SD isn't there. Obviously you have to be tactful, and let him know that you bring this up because you want to happily include her in the family and you think the two of you need to find a way to facilitate building a good family unit. Talk to him quietly and when you're both relaxed, don't blame him for it, try not to say "she's a bad example for our child", just be clear that you want to improve things so that everyone can be happier. "so I feel for this girl so much that it hurts and makes me cry. But at the same time, she infuriates me to the point that I have to walk away or I will haul off and smack her." Look at the bright side - if you truly hated your SD and the relationship was irreparably hopeless, you wouldn't feel for her. You wouldn't cry at what a rough go she's had. You'd think "that brat deserves all the hardship life can deal her" and wouldn't care how much she's been hurt. To me, right there, that says that you can build a good relationship with her! To help form a good bond with A__, I looked at myself and the things I like, to try to find things in common with a (then) 8 year old boy who has monster ADHD. I came up with that I love science, and hockey and sci-fi/fantasy, I do judo, and I like to build things and make crafts. So I started looking for things I could do with A__ in those areas. We started going to junior hockey games (sort of like college hockey for you Americans). We watch Buffy together and are reading some of my sci-fi books from when I was a kid. I bought a whole bunch of markers and construction paper and crafty type things for he and I to make "scenes" for his dinosaurs and squids and knights etc and then he wages epic battles and tells me about them. I teach him how to escape from judo holds (I won't teach him how to put them on yet - he's not mature enough). This was a helluvalotta work, but I found things that I enjoy doing with A__ and that makes spending time with him MUCH better. We're both enjoying ourselves! He doesn't like to cook or shop or alphabetize or go for walks, so I don't involve him in those things with me (alphabetizing is a perfectly valid hobby!). I don't like to play video games or soccer, and he's cool with that, because we have lots of other fun things to do together. On days when I'm not thrilled with him, it can be hard to motivate myself to sit down at the table with him and colour a scene for him to wage an epic battle on, but I know that he'll be better behaved for the rest of the day if I do it. It's also convenient to use "if you can go without whining / if you can leave the cat alone / if you can clean up after yourself / ALL afternoon, I'll teach you a judo escape before I make supper" as motivation to be good. I really suggest finding some things you and your SD both like and making them into joint hobbies. It made a world of difference for us! When I'm at my wit's end, I just go have a quiet cup of coffee with my book or I run a bath. I say "I need alone time" and I go take it. That's the luxury of when it's not your OWN kid - you get to walk away when you have to. I often say quietly to BF on my way out of the room "Can you please calm him down while I am in the other room? I'm ready to crack" and BF does. Funnily enough, A__ has actually taken to doing it too - he was fed up with us the other day and said "I'm going to go read my book on the couch and I don't want anyone to bug me for ten minutes because I'm mad". We were impressed at that he found a quiet way to calm down and commented on it afterwards, that it was a very grown-up thing to excuse himself and calm down, instead of throw a fit. So setting a good example goes a long way! "DH does not know how to deal with her, and life with BM has no dicipline... ... How do we start to dicipline a six year old who has never really had any rules?" Oh, I sure know this one. Until A__, BF had never spent time with a kid. He has no nieces or nephews, no young cousins, no friends with kids. He feels quite overwhelmed by A__ on a regular basis. He admits it, and tries to deal with it, so I think it's OK. A__ lives at FOUR different houses (BM, her mom, us, and BF's dad) and never has any idea where he will be next. Grandma had virtually no rules for him and doesn't even make him do his homework. BM is a good mom when she bothers to be a mom, but mostly she wants everybody else to take care of A__ for her. Papa and SGM are pretty good with him, but I think maybe they're a bit too rigid and expect him to conform to what they like for him to do, rather than letting him have his own interests and ideas. So when we get him from Grandma's, he's running wild like a hellcat and won't listen to anything because he's had no rules. When we get him from Papa's, he rebels against the slightest structure because he's had too many fences while he was there. When we get him from BM, he's either sad to leave her because he rarely sees her, or he's mad at her because she was making him do chores and his bad mood stays all day. So, what we try to do... Whenever possible, we chat with him about his day in the car, then come straight home, and pop in a Buffy episode or some cartoons for a bit while he colours or something and we work out what the plan is for the day. This is good no matter where we pick him up from, because it's structured enough that he'll switch out of hellcat mode if he was at Grandma's, but he gets "free-time" during this 45 minutes or so to relax from being at BM's or Papa's... We also have family rules now that are working really well. When BF and I made them, we went through them with A__, using silly examples of "following the rules" and "not following the rules"... Like for the rule of "accept it of you don't get your way or have to share" I said "So if there's one cookie left, and we all want it, what should we do? Share it, yeah, that's right! Well, but what if I want it all for me? Can I run off with it and stuff it all in my mouth before you guys can have some too? Can I scream and yell and stamp my feet? What if Dad didn't want to share it? Could he throw it in the garbage so no one else could have any either?" Our rules have been working really well and we can just say things like "Is that respecting things like furniture and electronics so that you don't break them?" and he gets down off the back of the couch. So in response to your later question about the rules, I'd say go through them as a list, but be a little fun about it - she'll remember it better and not feel quite as imposed upon. Try to keep to no more than child's-age-plus-two for the number of rules (we have 11 rules, you should have no more than 8) and try to keep them positive (ie - "Keep your hands and feet to yourself" instead of "No hitting or kicking") I know how hard it is to have a kid you're not used to steamroll your home and way of life, but I really believe they don't mean to be steamrollers, they just don't know how to adjust. For awhile, we had to be hard@sses, and tolerate very little nonsense. We all spent a few pretty unhappy weekends, where A__ spent hours sobbing in time-out, BF and I were ready to strangle each other and I was on the brink of walking out the door, never to return. But once BF and I learned to be a united front, A__ learned that his Dad and I were now a united front, and we wanted to have him around regardless of if he was being good or bad, but that when he's good, everyone gets along and we have lots of fun, things started getting better. BF has gotten much more patient with him because he has me as support, I've gotten much more patient with him because I have BF as buffer, and he's gotten much better with us because he knows that there are rewards and consequences. We set up rewards and consequences (Like if you're nice to the cat all day, we'll have popcorn in the evening. Or if you brush your teeth and put on jammies without stalling, you get an extra 15 minutes of computer time, but if you stall, you go directly to bed.) We tried really hard to be consistent (and it was HARD, let me tell you!) and we made sure to say each reward or consequence whenever it became applicable to remind him ("The cat looks mad, it's time to let her be, or there will be no popcorn") and eventually it started working! If SD is a kid that likes stickers and charts and stuff, maybe you could set up a rewards chart? That didn't work when BM tried it with A__ (he cheated and snuck stickers on it himself) but lots of people have great success with it. Another good approach used by many moms and SMs on here is rewards for when the kids are "caught being good". The rewards range from a high-five, to picking a goodie from the surprise bag, to swimming at the public pool the next day... Whatever works for you, but when you "catch" her being good, acknowledge it. I made a HUGE scene the other day, complete with hopping up and down, cheering, hugs and kisses and high-fives because while I was in the shower and blowdrying my hair, A__ got dressed, put his pajamas in the hamper, put his juice glass in the sink, and tidied up his colouring! I was so freaking happy I almost cried! He pretended to be embarrassed by my scene, but you could tell he was really pleased that I noticed it all and made a big deal of it. "I think this girl is LOST, she needs help. She needs a home with positive attention and people who love and support her... ... She is six years old and I feel like if we don't do something to help her soon, her life will end up so much worse than if we stepped in and helped her.... ... I really feel that it is in SD's best interest to come live with us and DH agrees with me. At the same time, I have no idea how to deal with this girl.... ... How do we approach her BM with the idea of her coming to live with us? How do we approach SD with that? " I feel the same way about A__. His life is a MESS and no one but BF and I seem to think this is a problem. He's a tween now and he needs more support and stability than he has if he's going to be successful when he hits his teens. There's no way he would be coming to live with us, but we want to have him more, so that he can have more stability and support than he has right now. At the same time, I question if I'm really able to give him that support and stability. I think we are, but am quite worried about it anyways. Our life is upside-down right now because BF's home flooded, so he moved in with me, and I'll be moving to his place once it's all renovated. A__ will finally have his own room once we move back (BF's brother lived with him before, so A__ slept on the couch) and it will be a much better "home" for a little boy. BF has talked to BM about that once we're at his place again, we'd like to have A__ a little more and help him have more structure. In your case, why not start small? After this week, say "we'd like her for two weeks right when school lets out". At that point, once BM sees two successful visits, broach it then, first to BM, and then include SD in the conversation. It will be less out of the blue if SD has just spent time with you and BM won't feel as though SD has been coached if you haven't talked to her about it yet. I would suggest talking to SD about it when both Dad and BM are there (you and her stepdad are less essential to this conversation and may put even more emotional pressure on her without trying) While SD is with you, make sure SD feels like she's at her own home, not visiting yours (her own toys and space, her favourite foods in the fridge, her own brands of toiletries in the bathroom). BF was out of the country at the time of the flood, so I moved him into my place on my own. I made sure to unpack all A__'s stuff right away, and stock the bathroom and cupboards with his favourites before the first time he came over. He settled in right away and seems to have adjusted to the change really well. He even told his mom that "Ceph had all my stuff set up for me right when I got there! All my toys and toothbrush and everything! She even had up pictures of me!". I really recommend that you and DH make sure there are photos of her and her "own stuff" to make her feel like part of the family. This is a hard spot to be in... But just judging by that you sought help by posting here, I think you'll all work it out!

Good luck Green. Have you done or are you doing a business plan? seriously recommend it. Some answers to your questions will be found there. There is always the matter of what you can get- my area is crowded with kitchen dealers. Brand marketing- I avoid any brand associated with conglomerates so nothing I carry has great brand recognition. It has not been an issue. I market our company. Been willing to grow slowly and keep service level high (er than any). Base- after 5 years I have just found one I'm willing to handle here. Did not miss much because of it. We just moved (next to Lowes) , picked up a contractor who needs it, and found a small regional that I like. Will see- have worked with most of em and don't want em. Semi- just a price point. Look at how flexible- you may not need to dovetail with a custom. Custom-longer conversation. I expect a lot if a client has to pay more. In my experience privately held brands often (should?) have better service. No guarantee though. Shipping is key. I want either their own trucks or with a dedicated shipper - nothing else but cabinets on the truck. Evaluate the rep as much as the brand. Go to the factory. I've handled around 2 dozen brands in my career and seriously investigated at least another half dozen. Let me know if you want to talk on the phone and I'll get you a way to get hold of me. This post was edited by jakuvall on Fri, Jan 9, 15 at 17:57

You could also maybe give your friends a break. I had a close friend who was very self involved. I told her three times what I wanted her to do (come see my very big project). She had time. She was in the area. She made really lame excuses why she didn't. Then she moved away with no notice and instead of calling me where she knew I'd be, she left a message on my answering machine saying the only time I could see them before they left was at a party they were having during my work hours. I didn't know how to respond and the advice I got was "who says you have to?" Then she wrote some letters without one word inquiring or commenting about me. Not the 2nd grade "How are you?" that we're taught to open with. We've been in touch a few times since, but I basically dropped her. I regret it. I know I needed to do it rather than be hurt by her, and I have better friends, but I do miss her and I wish I could have just let it slide and accepted that that's the way she was. Another friend stopped talking to me because I didn't understand what she needed from me after a death in her family. I didn't know why until at least a decade later, when she got back in touch, briefly (I'm guessing a therapist told her to mend fences). When she told me, she mentioned that she'd done what she needed for herself for me when my uncle had died. I didn't know that she was doing it so couldn't pattern it. It wasn't articulated that that's what one does (in her lights) when someone loses a family member. I would have tried. I miss her too. I have closer and better friends, but I wish she could have explained or accepted, and given me a break.