Too harsh??
Ok a little background first. I am stepmum to two kids SD just about to turn 13 and SS just turned 10. I will be perfectly honest due to 2.5 years of horrible behaviour off my SD I just do not like her at all any more. I stay out of the way as much as I can. However, my husband likes us to go on a family holiday every year. I hate them, every year so far they have been awful. Not surprisingly I was not looking forward to this year's, which was last week. Now for my SS's birthday I made him some bunting with pictures of sea creatures to string across his headboard. He loved it and SD loved it and so wanted a handmade birthday gift for her upcoming birthday. She has a double bed and I didnt want to hand sew all that bunting so I started making her 2 cupcake themed cushion covers instead.... the proviso being that she had to behave herself on holiday in order to get them....
This was all agreed with hubby and SD before we went on holiday. The holiday started well, Friday - Monday were ok. Tuesday SD would not move more than 3 feet away from hubby and I which started to get annoying. Hubby had a word with her explaining that he also wanted to have some time alone with me. She apologised. Wednesday she did nothing but nag and whine as soon as we arrived at a theme park. After being told to stop nagging and whining she decided to behave as if I did not exist and sulk. It made for a delightful day at a rather crap theme park. Wednesday evening I had a word reminding her that she needed to behave in order to get her handmade gift. She gave me attitude so I just walked out of the room.
In the morning she very begrudgingly apologised for the attitude and I explained that her gift was in two parts, one part already made the other part not made yet. I also explained that as she had been badly behaved the day before I was not planning on making the second part unless her behaviour was excellent for the remaining 36 hours of our holiday.....
In that 36 hours she:
1. gave attitude and spoke extremely rudely to her father
2. lost her coat then tried to make out that she did not actually bring her coat with her when we went out rather than go and look for it, then when we found it where she had left it refused to admit she had been wrong
3. SS had a nightmare in the middle of the night, SD woke both me and hubby (it is extremely hard to wake hubby when he is sleeping) by yelling at him repeatedly because he was crying and had the light on.
4. SD refused to acknowledge in the morning that she was in the wrong saying we were lying that she was shouting as she was whispering, hubby pointed out that for her to wake him up she must have been yelling loudly, we both also pointed out that she probably also woke the poor neighbours. She refused to acknowledge this or to apologise.
5. It was our last day and we only had an hour to pack up and get out of the room, I asked SD to add a little cold water to her coffee so she could drink it more quickly, she refused saying it can cool while I dress, I explained that we were in a hurry and that it was not an unreasonable request so could she please add some cold water. She replied rudely it would cool while she dressed. I told her she either put in cold water or she didnt have coffee.
6. Both kids were told to make sure they had cleared out any rubbish from their room, SS reminded SD that this still needed to be done, SD asked to go and wait in the car, I said fine as long as all the rubbish is out of your bedroom. She confirmed it was and disappeared. I went to do final check of bedroom and had to clean up a whole bag full of rubbish from under her bed and in the wardrobe with the help of SS.
So on returning from holiday tired and pissed off I decided that not only had her behaviour not been excellent it had actually got worse and as such I was not prepared to give her either cushion cover. I told my husband this, whilst disappointed he seemed fine about it. Mother in law asked if SD was getting her birthday gift I said no and explained why. Mother in law then basically told me I should give it her for Christmas as she should not miss out. I explained that as she had been warned 3 times about the consequences that no she was not getting it at all.
Yesterday was the first chance I had to tell SD that she was not getting the gifts. She promptly burst into tears and now hubby is fuming with me because he says I should at least give it to her at Christmas if she behaves. Now given the fact she could not behave for 36 hours, a good proportion of which she was asleep, there is absolutely no way she is going to behave for the next 6 months.
I feel mother in law and hubby are being unfair, I gave her 3 warnings and I put up with a number of incidents of poor behaviour before I got to my final straw. I put a lot of my own time into these gifts and I really don't think she deserves my time and effort.
However, I consider hubby and Gran biased in favour of SD so I would appreciate the opinions of some more detached adults please would you consider this too harsh a punishment?
Just tell MIL that hubby
Just tell MIL that hubby agrees with the consequence and since both of you are on the same page, she can butt out.
A gift is a gift - especially
A gift is a gift - especially for a birthday. While what kind of gift you give can depend upon general behavior, holding a birthday gift over a kid's head as a bribe or reward seems.. not quite right. Either you are giving a b-day gift or you are not.
If you wanted to make the cushions conditional on her behavior while on vacation, that's ok. That just shouldn't be her b-day gift.
Generally I think those kinds of rewards don't work because the reward (or punishment) is too far removed from the incident. I think it's better to address behavior right when it happens, i.e. the coffee. If she insisted on doing it her way, fine, but when it's time to leave, it's time to leave, coffee gets poured out, and out the door.
Personally, as I read about your trip, she did fine for a few days then the last few days were harder. That's not unusual, people are out of routine and getting cranky.
As far as teen misbehavior, I think you are expecting too much by expecting perfection. Some nagging, whining and sulking is pretty normal.
I think you were already expecting this to be a miserable trip, based on past experiences. If you hate this annual trip, why do you go? You aren't getting any real quality time with your DH and the activities and events are not absorbing enough to you that you can enjoy it while ignoring the teen sulk.
Teens do not make good travel companions. IMO you should not have made the cushions part of the deal at all. Now you have two choices: either keep to your word or apologize and say it was not a good choice to make the cushions conditional on vacation behavior.
If you dislike the girl and don't want to make things for her, then don't. She can learn that part of getting along with others means you get cool handmade things.
I should clarify that is not
I should clarify that is not her only birthday gift. She is getting bought birthday gifts off both Hubby and I - a case for her kindle and a silver charm bracelet. This was in addition to her bought gifts.
erm no I am upset she behaved
erm no I am upset she behaved badly on 6 occasions. She didnt even try to wake us up by knocking on the door she just yelled repeatedly at SS to be quiet. I am pretty sure she could have got her butt out of bed and knocked our door instead if she had wanted to rather than just yelling at a frightened little boy.
Ok well she's 13, not a
Ok well she's 13, not a parent and woken out of her sleep too. Personally I would not have them in separate rooms at their ages in a hotel. Even a connecting door can be locked from the other room and is no guarantee of access.
I think you are misreading
I think you are misreading the ss waking situation.
The ss had a nightmare. The sd woke up because of it. Instead of waking sm and dad to deal with it she just screamed at her brother repeatedly.
OP didn't expect her to deal with him, didn't have a trouble with her being annoyed at being woken, but at 13 she should know enough to just wake the parents and let them deal.
Having said that. a 13 year old girl? Just screaming at her brother would be a fairly normal response anyway.
All her other behaviours seemed fairly normal teenage stuff to me as well. They give lip, they want to do things their way, they can NEVER admit they are wrong LOL
I do think that you are being too harsh. As someone else said, you went in to the trip expecting to have a crap time, expecting her to ruin it for you and you let that happen.
Do you have kids of your own? Teenagers are pretty hard to get along with even when we "own" them LOL Holidays with teenage girls? There are always dramas. It's part of the whole experience. You need to learn to not sweat the small stuff. Ok, she was rude, she disrespected, etc etc. but it was pointed out, dealt with, and really there was no huge issues of bad behaviour.
The gifts should be just that, gifts made with love and unconditional.
I wouldn't say anything else about them, just surprise her with them at Christmas, or heck, finish them and pick a random moment when things are going well and you are happy with her behaviour to reward her with a surprise? Small steps from you and hopefully she will learn in a positive way.
I think you are being to
I think you are being to harsh. A birthday gift is not something that should be held ransom from a child dependent on their behaviour. If this was your intention then you never should have told SD about the gift. That way she would not be so upset, unfortunatley it just makes you look really mean in her eyes.
I do not think you were being
I do not think you were being unreasonable at all. She is old enough to know better on how to act and behave and old enough to understand that if she DOESNT behave in a proper way that she will not be getting a present/reward for her misbehavior!!! Big fucking deal if she breaks out in tears, that is a completely typical manipulation tactic of a 13 yr old girl!!! Boo whooo I cry and act all sad and then daddy and Grammy feel bad for me so I can get what I want because now SM is the bad guy!!! F that!!!
If you dont behave no matter what the condition was...you dont get the present/reward!!! PERIOD!!! How the fuck else are we supposed to get these skids to shape up and act right if we dont teach them that they will not receive things from us, gift or otherwise, if they do not behave and show respect??!!
I am with you on this....you did the right thing...dont be a skid/dh/gm doormat!!!
thank you for the comments,
thank you for the comments, both in support and in criticism. The kids were not in a separate hotel room, we had a chalet but I was not sure everyone would understand what a chalet was (think tiny 4 roomed house the size of a caravan), there were no locks on the bedroom doors. SD was not screaming at us to help her brother, she was screaming at him to shut up. No SS is not golden child he can be a right little sh!t in his own right, he is however disabled so getting out of bed requires a light on and he is also paralysed by a fear of monsters after having a nightmare. I do not expect SD to look after him, I would have been fine if she had a) just yelled for me or Dad (I normally see to SS if he wakes up in the night) or b) had come and woken us up knocking the door. But screaming at a crying boy to turn off the light and shut up was not helpful to anyone.
He is not special needs, he
He is not special needs, he does not need to be that close to dad - he sleeps further away when we are at home. He just needs to put the light on so he doesnt trip..I dont think expecting SD not to scream at her brother is too much but hey that is just my opinion.
To me the issue here is that
To me the issue here is that it is a handmade gift. This is something that you are going out of your way to create-not something you picked up at the store in 15 minutes. Since you already warned her and she "failed" I dont see how you can give her this gift. At some other point in the future if she has good behavior you could reward her with it. But I dont feel you can go back on your word.
I made my ss a scrapbook for his last birthday. We had a run of good behavior about a week before his bday in April (wow what a coincidence)and I went out and got supplies and spent hours making him this damn scrapbook. He never knew about it-it was a surprise-but his behavior got worse and worse with each passing day-often directed specifically at me-that I didnt have it in me to give him a gift that I personally had put so much time and effort into. He got a new bike and the scrapbook sits on my shelf now. If nothing else it will be a keepsake for dh.
I do think you are being too
I do think you are being too harsh. I also think you expect WAY to much. Did you really get mad because she would not add water to her own coffee?
I'm with the harsh group. My
I'm with the harsh group.
My DF does the if you do ABC, you'll get XYZ thing. I HATE that. Kids should behave because it's the right thing to do, not because they are going to get something.
I think that us Step Parents
I think that us Step Parents see these children as they really are, family are biased, I think that you were right to not give your Sd this gift, to be fair to children we must stick to what we say, if you'd promised to buy her a new dress and then did'nt, that would be unfair, you are just trying to get some half decent behaviour from her, you are helping her, you do not get far in life, without some manners, please don't doubt your decision, you did the right thing, our partners have a habit of trying to make us feel as though its our fault, you showed good judgement in my opinion.
I don't think there is
I don't think there is anything wrong with that punishment. BUT I do think you and your hubby have to be on the same page to make it work.
I've gone through the teen-aged SD a few times and for me, it wasn't worth the battle with EVERYONE just to prove your point. Sit down with your husband. Tell him how all this is making you feel and what it's doing to you (for me the stress literally made my hair fall out). Then, before you deal out a punishment, discuss it with him and agree before hand. That way it's not you against the world. It is the two of you as a united front. It will be easier on you and more effective for your SD.
As for your mother in law... Hopefully your husband will have the courage (that mine never did) to tell her to back off! Good luck
I believe you are right! My
I believe you are right! My SD is 11 and if she did that Shit I would not give her the gift I made on my OWN TIME Being 13 she should know how to behave! Attitudes are mos def expected in girls that age. My SD has that now! But she is old enough to know how to behave. So the punishment is not harsh. I would do the same thing u did. I might would go ahead and finish the gift and if good til Christmas give it to her. If not... o well, give it to someone else who deserves it lol.
I used to make CTBB (SS) a
I used to make CTBB (SS) a special dinner that only he and I like. In other words, I would make 2 dinners, special for him, the way we all do special things for our kids/steps. He insulted the special dinner one time while he was shoveling it down his Dorito shoot. He was 21. He's 33 and I've never made it for him again. You get what you give in this life, and you're never too young to learn that.