Seems to be the new norm these days. Way too much bad behavior gets excused because "They're just being a kid". I'm sorry but forgetting to do chores, breaking curfew, and mouthing off is not part of just being a kid.

Welcome to the club...not that it is a club any of us want to join! I'm like you...I just don't get how these guys can take this kind of stance with their daughters! Any of their kids for that matter! You would think with all the stuff SD15 has done, my DH would take a tougher stance, but he doesn't...and then something else happens.

I too am tired of my husband making different rules and excuses for the kids.
I think this is bad parenting when you turn your head away like that.
They still need guidance... not just acceptance for everything.
It curls my toes every time.

i fortunately have no bios.
but you are not alone - here is a list of stuff my fiance allows of his 13 year old daughter, and im sure im missing a few things:

1. boyfriend since age 11. granted he didnt know about it until november, 2013, but he still has refused to do anything about it. we havent met the boy, SD refuses to bring him by and of course there is no punishment for this.

2. backtalk/sass/whine/get her own way

3. no punishments, no discipline, no rules at all to follow (and tells me i'm ridiculous for thinking such things are necessary/essential to normal child development). manners like please and thank you are not expected.

4. electronics galore with no limitations

5. extra curriculars while failing out of school (she deserves happiness!)

6. eating with her hands. and im not talking pizza. pretty much everything but soup has been eaten with hands (pasta, pancakes, hunks of meat, veggies, she's even lapped up gravy with her hands.

7. inappropriate clothing (short shorts, skimpy bikinis, tops that show off her fancy colored bra straps. of course he denies she's having sex or at least been hot and heavy with the boyfriend despite the fact that her lingerie is more diverse than mine.

In my experience on this Forum the only advise you can be given is to explain to your children why they're expected to perform to a higher standard. Daddy isn't going to change because he's afraid they'll get angry and not visit (or leave as the case may be) so he's shrugged off his parenting role for that of "friend".

You might want to poke around Amazon.com and see if you can find a book on raising teenage girls and give it to him.

I understand your frustration.

Only I am frustrated with my mother over her comments about her grand kids. When my brother or I vent to mom and dad about our kids teen brain fart flare ups mom always says "Oh stop it you two. They are good kids. They are not doing drugs or getting arrested or getting pregnant so you leave them alone." :jawdrop: This is the same woman who would tolerate nothing less than behavioral perfection from her own children. Dad just looks at us like we are idiots for bringing it up in front of mom. Dad is smart. His boys .... sometimes not so much.

I could probably write a book on this topic...:)
My DH is inconsistent with sd15. He went from being the Disney Dad, to the hard ass and now back to Disney Dad. He has recently decided that unless the bad behaviour happens in our house it will not be address and there are no consequences. On her last visit she said she needed the computer for homework. She has a LONG history of lying about what she's doing online so we put a parental guard on her log in. We get a report on Monday morning showing what sites she's visited. I didn't get one after her last visit so I logged on to check her browser history. She erased it. I mentioned it to DH and he called her. She said she didn't erase it. DH said nothing and changed the subject. I asked him after he got off the phone with her what he was going to do about it and he just shrugged. "She said she didn't erase it". Oh ok, so you change the rules to make you the hero and now that she broke one you still aren't going to do anything about it? Pathetic!

Love what one of my friends posted to Facebook today. It was one of those someecards:

"When I was growing up there was no 'she's a kid' excuse when I misbehaved. There was "you do that again and I'll knock you into next week."

So true...so very true! Even just yesterday...I was emptying the dishwasher, and found dishes that SD15 did not rinse off before putting in there (again, our rule is you rinse all food off the dishes before they go in the washer...we only have the cheap kind of dishwasher that comes with most houses). When I pointed it out to DH, he tried the "she's a kid" excuse. I told him, "She's 15!!!! She isn't just a kid anymore! She is old enough to know by now that she has to rinse her dishes before putting them in here...that has been the rule since forever!"

When I was 15, there was no "she's just a kid" or "it's just a teenaged thing"...heck no! I did my chores half-assed, I got in trouble for it! Mom found dirty dishes in the cabinet (as it was my job to wash the dishes and put them away), I got in trouble for it! When mom was really in a mood, she would put the dirty dish aside, and then put it at my place at the table the next meal to make me eat off of it, and when I complained about it being gross, I would be told something like, "And you expect the rest of us to eat off of that?"

These excuses are only enabling this behavior!