Blended family

Hi. I'm writing on here in hopes that someone out there can help me. My 13 year old daughter & I just recently moved in with my boyfriend & his 12 year old son, and it has been a mess lately. Everything was pretty good the 1st couple of weeks, but now I feel like everyday is a struggle. His son always wants to be hanging out with my daughter, but most the time he just pestered her & does what he can to start an argument with him. She can't stand to be around him & is even starting to say she hates him. Last night he through a big fit & said that I hate him & that he wished we didn't live here because I sent him to his room for yelling at me. Then for half the night after that he kept saying things like that. Which in return, I think, caused my daughter's crying this morning & saying that she didn't want us to live here anymore. I know he didn't mean what he said last night and that he was just mad. He apologized to me & my daughter, but she won't let it go. I'm at my wit's end because I don't know how to get them to stop fighting & actually want to be around each other again.

You really want to have a family meeting where you all sit down together. Have a stick or something and only the person holding it can talk. Everyone gets a chance to express how they are feeling. Ground rules need to be laid.

Some suggestions:
Your daughter's room and the boy's room should be their own private spaces. They should be respected. If you daughter doesn't want to be around him she should be able to go into her room and he has to respect that and leave her alone while in there. And vice versa. Obviously communal areas are going to be open to all.

The other thing that I've heard time and again is that it causes a lot of problems and friction when you try to discipline someone else's child. Make sure that the rules are clearly laid out as are the consequences. You should leave discipline up to his dad whenever possible. If not possible you should try natural consequences such as "I'm sorry you chose to yell at me, that's not appropriate behavior. By yelling you've made the decision to spend some time in your room. I hope later you will choose to speak respectfully". This puts the behavior and decisions on him. You are not "punishing" him, he is making his own decisions and therefore choosing the consequence.

A lot of these things I've learned in parenting classes, from my T, and from professionals in the fields of health and child development. I hope some of them are useful to you.

It may be good to get some family therapy. Both your daugther and step-son are having to give up time with their respective parent because you now are giving attention to your husband and step-child. It is a hard adjustment for kids. Letting her know that you still love her and you are not going anywhere is important. Making sure that she still has some one on one time with you and your step-son has some one on one time with his dad is important too. Your husband needs to step up and support you when his son does things that are not appropriate. Otherwise this can cause problems with your step-son thinking that it is okay for him to treat you this way because his father does not say anything.

Good luck.

Having to live with someone eles' family is very diffecult at first, I know, I had to live with my step-dad and his daughter my almost a year and it was a living hell.

But anyways, how has your daughter been taking it, is their any other problems that are there.

I take it that you and the boyfriend are not married yet. Im assuming this because you called him your boyfriend not your husband...

did you and the boyfriend sit down and talk with the two teens --before-- you moved in together and explain things like living arrangements and rules and discipline that will happen after the move to live together..

if not the two teens may be having a problem because they dont know what to expect out of this venture.. they dont know if its permanent, they dont know if any rules have changed, which set of rules yours or the boyfriends they need to follow... all kinds of things like that go through teens heads when they are thrust into a new family living situation. kind of like too many hands in the pot kind of feeling..

suggestion - I agree you all may need to sit down and have a discussion. I didnt say a family discussion because you and the boyfriend are not married, right now its just two families living together.

if this was me my first move would be to sit down with the child that is mine. have a heart to heart talk with her about how she feels and how this venture is affecting her.

if this was me I would also ask my boyfriend if he can set up a guys night with his son so he can do the same thing, spend some quality time together just father and son talking.

then I would sit down with my boyfriend and discuss things like rules, disciple, privileges, activities that you and your boyfriend will require the two families to do together and activities that each family does on their own, and how to give everyone in the house hold their own space and time to use any way they want / need to.

living as roommates / house mates is hard enough for two adults to do asking teens to do so without fighting and pitting their respective parents against each other is bound to happen. if this was me I would be taking time alone with the boyfriend and getting the adults on the same page. the faster the adults are all on the same page the faster the teens will follow suit.

the teen girl and the teen boy fighting - welcome to sibling rivalry. everyone who has more than one child goes through it. its completely normal and natural. parenting classes in the USA teach for teens allow the teens to work out their differences on their own, by now they have enough "words" including those most parents dont want their teens saying, the parenting classes teach parents of teens and younger how to step back and watch from a distance unless there is a danger of physical harm. teens are very smart and know how to fight their own battles with other teens.

if it was me the next time either of them came running mom he's doing this or amanda your daughter is doing that .. I would be saying - you know what you are twelve and thirteen yrs old, plenty old enough to fight with each other so you are plenty old enough to figure out how to fix this problem you have running to me about.. then step back and watch the words fly for a bit, the silent treatment they give each other and then the well we have to live together so we might as well get along or make ourselves miserable kicks in..

the honeymoon period (the first couple weeks of living together ) is over now you have real life complete with sibling rivalry. not fun but you will survive. it just takes time and choosing your battles instead of being pulled in to every single one of their wars.

congrats on the new venture hope everything calms down for you soon.