I gave it 40 minutes! Wow! A lot of that fits BM! We never did get the results of her 'evaluation', come to think of it we did not get ours iether but we were awarded custody...guess we passed muster?
The evaluations were court ordered, by a juvenile judge who was dealing with SD from age 13 until this current sentence is served and SD is now 18. It's hell on wheels, but I honestly believe that BM and her PAS is hugely instrumental in our girl's behaviors. The old 'seed not falling far from the tree' thing springs to mind!
DH is 'guilty daddy' too, which adds fuel to the 'entitlement' flames and I am in the middle as step mom.
From the start I learned not say negative things about their mother, I had no clue about how vile this PAS thing was, or that it even existed. My main reason was that they are children, 10 year old twins, and their mother pumped them for information the second they got home from being with us. I happened to say that she is tall, it got back to her and she had some, do not even remember what it was now, stuff to say on that. HUSH ME!! LOL
The things she said about me were hurtful initially, one of them was that I was a money grabbing whore, and that DH voluntarily impoverished himself by taking a dependant on and she'd still expect child support checks. SD was the main channel BM used because she is outspoken and smart mouthed, smart brained too! That girl will go far!! SD felt bad about what her mother said about me because it upset me a bit. I reacted, my fault, I should not have done. SD and I got to a point whereby we could chuckle about the name calling and we'd even come up with something MORE original! If BM wanted to direct her negativity towards me it was not working but...what the hell...let her have her wee delusions.
DH was hostage to her, he loves his kids. At one point she said they were not his bio kids anyhow! When the kids told us that we were hugely upset. DH has pretty much raised all five of her kids and spent bucket loads of money on them all, their value system is monetary until they reach an age, or level of maturity, where values kick in. BM is a slave to money, it's hardly surprising the kids have no clue with money yet. As DH says, they will learn when they get older and have to manage on their own. We are supporting them until they finish college though, that's our cut off point. We've been obliged to be more generous and make the transition for them because BM was so reckless and it's not entirely their fault that they have no clue how much stuff costs in reality.
All in all I believe that the kids can still grow up to be great adults, they will have seen life from several angles and, as they get older, they will have much more resillience against the crap that life can throw at them.
SD is currently getting intensive therapy, she's in a secure juvenile facility, and the therapy is in stages. Stage one is completed, stage two is more intensive and encourages introspection and I hope it removes any 'guilt' from her.
One of the things about the teenage years is that they develop a 'selective' memory, they go with the flow of whoever is 'giving' to them at the time...mercenary little sh1ts! It's a defence mechanism though, right? Kids have to learn to survive and with SO much dysfunction I do not blame them one bit. It's hell on wheels as a step parent but the operative word here is 'parent'. SD has already said she understands why I did what I did 'back then' as she calls it, bless her heart. Yes, I chastized her and, yes, I grounded her.
DH was so intent on giving them a childhood that he forgot about the more practical aspects of parenting. The behaviors were abominable, attention seeking and negative attention from dad was still attention. He would not deal with them until they got to such a pitch that it actually became that noise that penetrates the brain.
I suggested to him that they are doing it because they want attention from him and we could turn that around to be more positive. Court ordered family counselling too, I got the help I needed to recognize button pushing and I was a bit embarrassed that I allowed myself to be 'played' by a 13 year old! However, I changed my responses and the difference was night and day! I also disengaged somewhat, just to let daddy dearest see what I was dealing with, what he was avoiding, and we came together on the same book at least...almost the same page!
Kids move on pretty quickly, right? My belief, though, is that while they are 'moving' faster than the speed of light the whole log of events is still locked up in their heads and it takes time to process it all. I believe that this is what our girl is going through right now, the sifting through all the 'files' and putting a sequence/perspective to everything and I have confidence that she will emerge as a beautiful butterfly, having gone through the 'grubbing' stage and now being in the chrysalis stage. Just do NOT go to Madagasca and flap your wings quite yet girl!!
This turned out to be longer than I really planned it being...oops...sorry! It's up to you how much you read and agree/disagree with though, right?