Tired of tween sneaking and monitoring her crap
I really am. I'm so tired of it. The rules are not that bad, but she breaks them so badly that finally we take the phone at 9pm every night curfew (for sneaking texting late on school nights). She texts when with grandparents completely disrespectful to the point that they call me about her, grounded, and guess what, she did it again. So, she had a friend over all weekend, and I STILL took her phone when I saw it on the online website (Damn straight). Guess what she does? She takes her friend's phone and texts all night on it!
She had the phone grounding weekend after weekend and kept doing it (sneaking to text after hours, even stealing the phone). She got the 9pm curfew from her DAD. She is told never to disrespect the neighbors and grandparents again (guess what..)...
I AM FED UP. I am so tired of having to tell her morning and night to brush teeth, TOO.
CELLPHONE:
1. Do not disrespect people you are with by nonstop texting.
2. Do not break curfew.
INTERNET/FACEBOOK:
1. Do not friend strangers.
2. Do not have conversations with strange men or boys.
3. Do not give out your phone number or address.
4. Do not post your picture on non-facebook sites.
5. Do not go to unapproved websites.
I am so tired of all the facebook internet rules being broken. This is stuff any person should follow FFS. I told her one more serious infraction and facebook is GONE.
I personally need a f&*&&ing break from monitoring her shit. No computer and no phone for at least a week or two, I am done with this crap taking up my time doing this shit and sneaking.
I DO have to say, she DID admit to using her friend's phone to sneak text this boy when she was grounded from texting and texted past curfew. HOWEVER, she ONLY admitted it after she accidentally slipped. I asked her "did you sneak and text this weekend?" She said "Not on MY phone I was grounded from MY phone"... I said "what exactly does that mean, not from MY phone?" she stared at me about five minutes with that "duuh" look on her face and said "well, I uuhhh, texted on my friend's phone all weekend, but not on MY phone"... Like I was going to say OH NP! She tried that "I didn't know it was wroooong" BS, and I told her if she treats me like a moron I will respond in kind, and she admitted, at least, that she was being sneaky and thought she was really pulling one over to get away with it.
Now really this texting is not anything compared to what most 13 yr olds are getting in trouble for, however, if she keeps this up with breaking every rule, what happens NEXT? I have had that talk with her too, about curfew, respect, trust, how this is working towards when she is 16 and driving, but she still sneaks, lies, and does what she wants.
I'm just tired of having to do this every day.
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Comments
Daughter or
Daughter or stepdaughter?
Daughter? Need tighter controls.
Stepdaughter? Butt out and let dad handle it.
^^^THIS!^^^^ When SD14 was
^^^THIS!^^^^
When SD14 was still coming every other week, DH would make her show him that her cell phone was NOT on her when he picked her up from BM's. If she wanted to talk to BM, she could use HIS cell phone, in HIS presence and not run off with it.
As for the laptop - it's off limits to her, period.
I know you have SD full time, so I'd deactivate her FB account or at least change the password so she can't access it secretly, and take that damn phone from her, lock it up and don't let her have it back!
My SD16 lives with us
My SD16 lives with us fulltime. I got sick of monitoring her crap so I stopped. I told DH that if you don't want her to text all night into the morning, take her phone away. Does he? Nope. Do I give a crap anymore? Nope.
I also told him that if she oversleeps because of her texting all night I am not driving her to school.
I no longer monitor her fb either. I don't really care what she says or does anymore. If he is so concerned, then he can look at it.
When my DD10 is old enough to be doing all this crap, you bet at 9pm I am taking her phone, laptop, ipod and whatever else she has and she will be held accountable.
I am done trying to enforce rules if he doesn't care that much. And I feel sooooo much better not caring one bit!
I can completely understand
I can completely understand your frustration at the constant disrespect of the rules & then the extra addition of sneaking as well. I would feel exactly the same.
I remember being that age & unfortunately it's the case of "when there's a will there's a way". I'm guessing if her mobile/Internet access is taken away for an amount of time that she will find other ways to access these things (such as the use of her friends phone). It would be a big hassle for her but I don't think it will make her think about things & change her ways. I would be so angry that she would continuously ignore the boundaries set by you & your DH. You are only doing these things for her (& the familys) safety & well being & trying to teach her manners by not texting 24/7 while visiting at someone's house. I'm sorry that I cannot offer advice only support in the fact I understand completely & feel your pain. I wish I did have some good advice! I guess the tighter measures suggestion is what I would do - not sure what kind of tighter measures though?
As for letting DH deal with the issue - it appears you have your SD full time & both yourself & DH are active parents to her. You have not disengaged & don't want to, you want to help parent SD. I applaud you for that as it is a very thankless & hard task to be a stepmom & be so involved. Good on you for caring & wanting to be so involved with her even in the rougher times :-). She is lucky to have you.
Why not block her texting?
Why not block her texting? She gets it blocked for 1 month and no overnight guests. Also no computer time unless she is in the main areas of the house. When she learns her lesson she gets the technology back. If she screws up again she loses it for 2 months.
What is wrong with people? Why is it so important to have a freaking phone? Geez! It is like Long Island Medium's daughter last night... I want a car so I can be cool. Duh!
In my home (and yes, it is MY home) no cell phones at the dinner table even if you are a relative and don't live here. The only exception is if you are on-call for work or waiting for an organ transplant. No takers on either point yet.
If you DO get up from the table to take a 'wassup' call from your friend you obviously must have finished your dinner and it goes in the garbage disposal. I will not allow bad manners in my home.
Just detach her from the thing and no friends over for 1 month. No computer access either unless it is for school. There. Done.
She is biologically my
She is biologically my stepchild; however, for all intent and purpose, MY child.
I am not trying to paint her as a bad child or anything, ALL tweens are sneaky little stinkers, myself included, though I did not have internet and cell phone/texting. It is just so frustrating sometimes.
I do not want to just take cell and facebook away, then she doesn't get trained on being appropriate, she will just sneak it at friends' houses unsupervised and when she is 16 or 18 will be roaming internet and have no text etiquette. So "no internet/phone" is just not realistic to me in the long-term as far as until she is 18 or something.
I will continue to monitor and enforce consequences for sneaks and bad judgement. HOWEVER, I have decided there will be no phone or internet for a while, to be determined by my ability and willingness to go back to daily monitoring. So, she will have no internet or phone for this week so I can have a break from dealing with it and to enforce the respect for the boundaries.
I am still happy with the x = y as far as action = consequence and not a blanket grounding for the petty sneaks (like sneaking and texting on the friend's phone as that is not really a BAD thing like talking to a stranger on facebook was, so different level action has different level consequence).
Still, like I said, NOT a bad kid at all. She never has a bad attitude (except like any human being being grouchy or moody, but no more than anyone else and not snotty) and I am really blessed 99% of the time. It is just this internet and phone following the rules that she keeps trying to break. So why is it a big deal? Because I look at this as training from 11-14 for molding her behavior as a teen 15-18 and her independent internet use as a young adult 18-21 to have it ingrained in her to not be stupid online or just believe strangers when they tell you they are a new boy at your school and want to meet you oy.
But yes, I am the first to tell stepmom's to back off and leave it for the parents, especially those who have an involved BM, and I believe it doesn't matter if SM thinks BM sucks or not, it is BM and DH kid for them to deal with and raise however they choose. Difference is, my BM handed over Mom role, I am "mom" and even BMs family refers to me as "your mom", school, doctors, etc. I make a point to point out SM for legality, but otherwise, I am just waiting to save the money to adopt her.
She IS a great kid. I AM proud of her. We do try to raise her right with some freedom, yet with a lot of monitoring for her own direction and well being. I think we've done pretty great; she is so caring and empathetic and generous, a REALLY great person.
BUT- I can still be worn out and frustrated and tired having to keep on this texting respect and facebook stuff. I HAVE had mono for five weeks, then two back-to-back kidney stones, then hemorrhoids exploding, then yeast infection one right after the other all in the past five months, and of course anxiety disorder off all medications...and all while pregnant and now in my third trimester and falling asleep literally at my desk while working.
I think me getting a "monitoring your electronics break" is the best for both of us right now.