FD, Now that I've gone back and re-read your previous couple posts, I must say I think you're a bit off, for lack of better description. "If that's how you talk to your DH and SD no wonder"-- Huh? WTH are you talking about? "Didn't your DH said that he has a problem with your treatment of him?" Uh, no. Of course he (like most of us) doesn't like it when it's pointed out to him that he's wrong. "he took a long time to voice that" No, FD. He's never liked being wrong. "So talking about open communication at home"-- yes, talk about it. We have LOADS of it. SD is glad she can FINALLY have some. Her own words!!!!!!! "her leg broken, it is still mom's fault"---WHO SAID THAT???? "I understand you have nothing to say nicksmom."--HUH? You are losing me here? "You know I am right."-- Now THAT is about the funniest thing I've hear all day...maybe even all year! I have yet to find you right about much. Sorry 'bout your luck. "I don't know who you blamed for ankle issue."--Welllll, up above you said I blamed Mom. Which is a bunch of crap, of course, but you said it. "Pretty soon you won't be able to blame mom anymore"--again, what have I blamed her for? Unless you are referring to the guilt trips and moving kids away, which are both REALITY, I'm not sure what you are talking about. Now, let's see if you can actually respond to ANYTHING above. Or will you just continue to ramble and make laughable statements?...that aren't even true....

Hi all, I just wanted to update on SD's birthday party. It was today and it was GREAT. After telling SD that BM told us she was going to do something with her on a different weekend, SD hadn't asked again about her mom or sister coming to her party. Her mom, of course, didn't call her at all this week and called her on Saturday (her real birthday) and talked for about five minutes. She actually cut off SD when she was telling her something and said she had to go. (her boyfriend's kids had a baseball game so that might be why. Then, her sister called her in the evening while we were out to dinner. Then, today was her party and just about an hour before it ended, BM's mother drove up with SD's sister. We were cutting the cake and my MIL asked her to come sit down. She told her, 'no, we just came to drop of a present. We weren't invited so we can't stay.' We gave SD's sister a piece of cake but grandma declined taking a piece. Then they left. A while later, SD told me she gave her sister a ring pop and I asked her why she didn't stay. SD said, 'I thought she wasn't allowed' and I told her 'who said? It's your party and they could have stayed.' SD looked puzzled and said 'oh' and wasn't fazed. She had a great time and said that her friends told her it was the best party they'd ever been to. SD had a wonderful time and she's so happy. (I also have to add, that BM's mother drove an hour each way to drop off her present. She brought her a bouquet of tulips and a Toy's R Us gift card) and I just wanted to add a picture of her cake. I spent two and a half days baking & decorating it myself...

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!

Thanks for your reply Ashley, it helps to know that there's people out there who understand, even though our situation is not exactly the same. We might see the skids more, but BM's influence is still very very strong so we have a similar outcome. And just this week there's another great example of it. The skids were supposed to come to our place for a week because it's holidays. They might be coming from Fri.night to Sat.night, but this is not even sure. The reason? Because it's holidays they want to spend more time with family. You can imagine how FDH felt when they said that :-( SD14 often writes on her facebook page that family is most important, but I doubt she'd think of us when writing that. It's just so important for BM to prove the point that we don't really count. For example birthdays. When it's the kids birthdays she'll make sure we don't see them on the day. She used to make skids believe that FDH didn't care or make an effort (while turning FDH's request to see them down), but now that they are older she can't do that anymore. So now she keeps them busy and because family is most important, especially on a day like that...you guessed it already. FDH's birthday is not a day we get to see them either, even though this is not an important 'family' day on her end, she'll still keep them busy. She's clever in how she does it because she doesn't deny the kids access to FDH. When they ask if they can come here for dinner on FDH's birthday she'll say "of course you can honey". Then she'll organise something and give the skids the choice, making a point of it that they should feel free to choose and not pressured by FDH. They always choose her option, no need to say. And not just that; by always telling them that FDH shouldn't pressure them, they start to perceive that FDH pressures them, even when he's not. It's programming, that's all that is. Another example when my family visits (from other side of the world, maybe once every 2 years) BM will keep the skids away from us, also normal visits are cancelled. That is when she plans 'family' time and family is more important. And you know what? I agree that my family is not so important to the skids. They have only met them a couple of times, they don't have a bond as such, they hardly know each other. My parents send birthday cards, that is it. And that is ok. FDH and I are not married yet either, they are not family to them. No problem. But, what's the harm in the kids meeting them when they visit? Why can't we have normal visitation? We do not ask for extra time or changes, only to see them as per normal would be nice! I kid you not, when my family last visited they saw the skids for 2 hrs...