Step Daughter - very long and very complicated

Buddingblonde

I apologise firstly - this is my first attempt at getting so many random thoughts that are shooting around in my head out in some sort of order.

I have been with my OH for 8 years this year. He has a 13 year daughter from a previous relationship. She has lived with her maternal grandmother since she was 3 with her big sister who is now 18 (and not his). Her mother died 4 years ago after a life of partying and playing the single woman so for all intents and purposes her gran has been her mum.

Her gran is an alcoholic and had recently lost her husband. OH and the Gran have joint parental rights (agreed in court after the mothers death as her wish was that her 2 daughters stay together) We were left with a huge legal bill as they wouldnt appear for appointments, kept changing their minds about what they wanted to do. Their bill was legal aid and ours was £150 per hour!

Relationship between daughter and father have deteriated over the years as she is running wild at home and hates rules and only gets in touch with us when she wants money. Any contact made by us has led to threats of calling the police, threats of CSA (OH pays maintainance by cash to the gran as she wants to commit benefit fraud!) and even threats of alledging violence or abuse.

It has recently come to our attention that she hasnt been attending school for the past 2 years. Gran has been lying to everyone saying that she has sole responsibilty for the child. She is feiging illness to stop going to school and is using the death or her mum and grandad when the school stop buying the illness stories. Social Work is now involved and they are wanting to go to a childrens panel and have asked us if we would take her full time.

TBH I would do anything to prevent her going into care but OH is very distant about all this and seems to be in denial. I think that the years of threats and upset that he has had with the grandmother have allowed him to emotionally detatch from his daughter. I dont know how we will cope with a wild child who is drinking, smoking, not going to school, hanging around with people older than her (she has one friend who she hangs about like a shadow - they even went to the funerals togother and never go anywhere without the other). She still goes to her dads mum most weekends but this is because she gives her a lot of money. If she doesnt give her money then money goes missing from the house (as much as £50 in one go). Neither OH or his mum seem to see that she needs to be challenged when she lies and steals and manipulates as they see any contact with her as positive.

I dont know how we will cope. I dont think our relationship is strong enough as OH is ignoring so much and seems emotionally incapable of stepping up and being a dad.

How do you train and support and love a child that has been mentally abused for years by a skilled liar and a thief when she has become exactly that.

I am sure that this makes no sense - sorry I am sitting here balling my eyes out as I am so scared for step daughter, for me (selffish I know), for my OH (who was raised by an alcholoic mother and suffered terrible abuse as a child too), for our relationship, for our furture.

McKneff

quote
How do you train and support and love a child that has been mentally abused for years by a skilled liar and a thief when she has become exactly that.

I am sure that this makes no sense - sorry I am sitting here balling my eyes out as I am so scared for step daughter, for me (selffish I know), for my OH (who was raised by an alcholoic mother and suffered terrible abuse as a child too), for our relationship, for our furture. Quote.

I cant help Im afraid but i just had to say that i was touched by your statement quoted above, it was sensitive in that you realise that this is not all this girls fault. Mental abuse takes its toll as well as physical.
I can only wish you all the best, dad should be even more sensitive seeing as he has been through it all before.
She needs boundaries, a united front with you and OH, with lots of love and above all consistency , say no, mean no and carry it through.
Good luck, it will take a long time, just hang in there.

RAS

Buddingblonde

Your post makes a huge amount of sense and your comments are very perceptive.

Someone I know commented that there are no rehearsals in parenting, you just have to wing it.

A bit about OH. I grew up in a very difficult family and had to assume a lot of inappropriate responsibility at an early age. It was only after i made adverse comments about the children of other people who challenged me that I realised that my expectations of what to expect of a child of that age were unreasonable. Part of this was because my mother had to assume responsibilities that were inappropriate at a very early age so her expectations of me were unrealistic.

It does not sound as if your OH was properly parented at the age your SD is now? Alcoholic parents are absent much of the time they are physically present. Even allowing for the different genders, it is very hard to be a parent if you have not been parented and this may explain his distance and denial. It may be that OH needs to deal with this if he is to take on parenting his SD.

As a starter, OH needs to ensure that copies of the court order are with the school and her GP, so that he is contacted if anything happens.

I think you need to be ruthlessly honest with OH and SS about your preception of the situation and your concerns. It may be that you have to let OH know that if he does not take on SD, that is OK, but if he does he has to change his behaviours. As SM, you are going to be the wicked witch anyway, so the bulk of the parenting has to come from him.

Even the nicest early teen with the most stable family can turn into the devil incarnate, so you would not taking on the easiest customer.

If she lived with you, how easy would it be for her to access her existing unsavoury contacts?

DVardysShadow

If OH is not on board for this, then don't go down this road. Otherwise you will lose SD and OH and everything you own. SS have no brief to look after you in all of this, to them it is just a cheap solution.

gingin_2

Oh wow.

I agree with McKneff, who put it perfectly.

You sound like the perfect person to hep her. Let her know the boundaries, give her plenty of hugs and plenty of hope. Let her see the things she could do with her life if she went to school but tell her everything you do, whether she views it as negative or positive is because you care. Keep reminding her of that. It sounds like you will have to be tough, do not give in to requests for money for an easy life, it will not hep her, or you, in the long run.

Take whatever help you can get and perhaps she might be in need of some counselling, she has been through a lot for a 13 year old but I do believe at 13 she can turn it around, the older she gets, the harder it could be.

Good luck

Buddingblonde

Thanks for comments so far - they are helping to put things into perspective for me. I dont know what questions I should be asking of myself, of OH, of Social Work.

SD would still have access to her sister and her grandmother as we are all within a mile of each other. Another option is that she comes here part time but having one home with rules and regs and another where she can run wild is going to make transitition harder.

RAS

The close proximity makes it harder to keep her away from her shadow and other undesireables. What is her half sister like?

Buddingblonde

She doesnt work, is a heavy cannabis user and has her much older boyfriend (who does work) living with the gran and SD. It was her to contacted OH mum to say that SD wasnt going to school and that she was worried what would happen.
She like her sister was abandoned, has no contact with her dad and left school with no education and hasnt held a job for more than a few months. She was drinking and smoking from 12 (as is SD).

Buddingblonde

Does noone else have anything thoughts or suggestions please - any experience of this type of situation would be greatly appreciated

Savvy_Sue

The only thing I didn't quite agree with in what McKneff said was that Dad 'should be even more sensitive'. Some people just don't 'get it', and it's possible that the poor parenting he's had means he just can't do this.

DVardysShadow wrote: »

If OH is not on board for this, then don't go down this road. Otherwise you will lose SD and OH and everything you own. SS have no brief to look after you in all of this, to them it is just a cheap solution.

And sadly I agree completely with this. It's a VERY cheap solution - Dad has daughter, wash hands ...

If your SD does go into care, it's not an end of contact with her birth family.

And your role in all this might be to make sure SS etc know the full truth. Don't hold back on the benefit fraud, the cannabis use by her big sister, the older boyfriend in the house, the alcoholic gran etc. Neither your DH nor his daughter are responsible for any of that - paying maintenance in cash isn't an offence, AFAIK.

It's clear her big sister cares, or she wouldn't have flagged up that little sis was bunking off school, but it doesn't sound as if she'd be much help in caring for her, which might have been a possibility. And you care too, and even if he can't show it I'm sure Dad cares too. BUT I don't see how you alone can give this child the love she needs.

kittiej

An abused child will beome desensitised (sp?) and will not necessarily become the understanding adult which you would think (ref your DH) rather, as an abused child they would put it into a part of the mind which doesn't want to think about such a thing, therefore they won't relate to another abused child, even their own children. Your DH probably doesn't want to confront his own past which is why he's shying away from his daughter.