So if you've seen my posts before, you know that we have SD5 full-time and we live quite far away from BM... so her and her family only see SD in the summer and on holidays (sometimes). She went to visit during march break (last week) and came back with quite an attitude... basically telling us what to do. She'd say things like "NO i'm not taking a shower I'll take a bath" or "Give me candy!" and stuff like that.... which is NOT her usual behaviour. We're HUGE on manners at our house and she doesn't run things here, and she knows that, so usually it only takes a day or two to straighten her out when she comes home and she's back to being a little angel with us.

Honestly, it kind of surprises me every time she comes home because she really is one of the best behaved kids i've ever met when she's with us full-time. Even my parents love being around her more than their actual grandkids because she picks up after herself, she's never demanding, and she always says please and thank you. She's just SUPER for a 5 year old!

Now in the past, we've always just reminded her that we don't work that way. She doesn't tell us what to do and she better use manners if she wants something. She's pretty good about it when we remind her and like I said, she jumps back into her usual self pretty quickly. But I can't help but be bothered at the thought of her bossing her mother and her mother's side of the family around.

I think because they don't see her often, they are just happy to have her there and she picks up on that so she bosses them around. She doesn't really respect them much and while I can't blame them for being "disney parents/family" when she's there, I don't want her thinking it's okay to talk to adults like that. This time around, my DH is real frustrated with it and thinking of saying something to SD or BM about it.

We talked about maybe having a talk with her about how her mom misses her a lot so when she gets there, she shouldn't be mean or bossy to her, she should be nice to her. I don't know if this is overstepping or PASing or anything, though. Of course it would be my husband talking to her. And he might talk to BM, too, and tell her that it's okay to lay down some rules for SD.

What do you think? Is this overstepping? We've always tried to leave BM alone when it comes to her parenting time because we don't feel it's our place, but if SD learns that she can push certain adults around, that kind of ruins all the effort we've put into having her respect adults around her and people who do things for her. I don't think SD really sees her as her "mom" because she knows parents are there to set rules and correct behaviour and such.

She's said before that "mommy doesn't know how to be a mommy because nobody taught her" and I don't know if it's related, but she came home this time around calling me "mommy." I'm not sure if this is her missing her mom or her realizing that mom doesn't act like a mom but I do. I'm just worried in general and don't want BM ruining her own child's respect for her OR ruining her ability to respect adults.