Am I making too much out of this?
I have two sd's. Four years ago, they both moved in with us. After a year, my younger sd chose to move back with her mom. My oldest sd is now a freshment in college and we see my youngest sd every other weekend. She is 15 and I've had serious concerns about her behavior for years, though my dh never seems to see it. She has behaved in a verbally abusive way (in my opinion) to our 6 yr old son. She has stolen items of mine, which I later found in her room. I could go on and on. So, recently, I was accessing facebook from our home computer and her account popped up. She was the last one to be on there and didn't log out. My dh and I discussed it and decided to snoop around. In doing so, we discovered that she's been cutting herself, seeing a doctor for the last year and is on medication for depression. None, of which, her bm decided to share with us. We also found out that she's been shoplifting.
So, here's the issue. Her bm downplayed the cutting. My dh downplayed the shoplifting. Personally, I'm concerned about her being around our son. I've already said that she will never babysit him (even before learning all of this) simply because I don't like the way she interacts with my son.
Am I making too much out of this? Should I be concerned? I definitely don't want my dh to have to choose, but I feel like it may come to that. Any suggestions/guidance you have would be very helpful.
I appreciate that, and my
I appreciate that, and my instincts are generally pretty good. It's such a tight rope walk, however. My dh's mother and brother both committed suicide. However, he's stuck on the fact that my sd's behavior is just "looking for attention". I know that it's more than that. I will always stand up for our son. Definitely going to be some difficult times ahead.
I would also be very worried,
I would also be very worried, given the suicides in the family and her destructive behavior (cutting, stealing). It's a hard call to make until you have your own child to watch out for, and then there really is no other way to look at it, besides protecting your own. I hope you guys can find a way to help her work through stuff, while keeping you child safe. BM should not have hidden this- very wrong in my opinion, and dangerous. DH may be down playing it because he has been exposed to much worse so this may not look all that bad to him. Sad, because you'd hope he would be very vigilant about warning signs like this.
You are in a difficult situation, particularly because DH is not on the same page with you. Not much advice here.
I am really sorry you are going through this, it must be very scary.
If your SD is engaging in
If your SD is engaging in self mutilation, she isn't a danger to your son. She has emotional issues, sure, but cutting is usually an physical outlet for emotional pain.
It doesn't sound like she wants to attack your son.
But at the same time you
But at the same time you never know. I wouldn't trust her around my kid either, what she suddenly thinks that her brother is the cause of her problems. With someone or kid that is that unstable you can't ever rule anything out. She needs to be in a place that can help her sorry but I feel these kids that do that need to be in a place that can watch her 24/7 and have all kinds of people to help her get to a good place and not do that to herself or if not treated be a danger to others.
I would be concerned about
I would be concerned about SD. Even if it is "just to get attention", that's an extreme behavior and could escalate. I would guess that most people who commit suicide don't wake up one day and kill themselves. There are things leading up to it, and if you're lucky, you get warning signs.
Unfortunately, since both parents seem to be closing their eyes to what's going on, I don't know if there's much you can do. While she may not want to harm your son, I wouldn't leave them alone together. She's proven she doesn't make good choices. She needs to be in counseling. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that her parents are downplaying these behaviors. :?
Good luck and keep us updated about what happens.
She for real sounds like she
She for real sounds like she might have borderline personality disorder & present to DH. This is something you need to look into.
The cutting by itself does
The cutting by itself does not represent a threat to your son. Cutting is actually fairly common among adolescent and young adult women. That not to say it's a healthy behavior or that therapy isn't needed (because it is). I'm just saying this doesn't make her a psychopath or crazy person. She's a person in pain, and in all likelihood she has experienced some sort of sexual trauma. However, along with the other problems, it does signal that there is something serious going on with her that may or may put your son in a bad position.
What worries me most is that you don't like the way she interacts with him. That, in my opinion, is the strongest sign that there is a problem or danger concerning her relationship to him.
So don't leave him alone with her.
She should be in therapy, and I think it's an extremely bad sign that both her parents are downplaying these issues. I would talk to your DH and help him realize that pretending there is not a problem does not make the problem go away. In fact, it just gives the problem room to grow.
I agree w/ Snickers. Follow
I agree w/ Snickers. Follow your gut. Mine has hardly ever steered me wrong. Lots of kids do cut-I went to jr high w/kids who gave themselves "bowl burns" burns on thier arms from a potpipe- and that was in the 70's! But cutting or no, protect your son.