I'm certain that your daily life is interrupted by a large-and-growing teen SD. SD is likely wrestling puberty AND 4 shared nights of visitation per month.

Do the math.

I hear the excuses, the reasons, the explanations & justifications. Been there. Reality for SD is that she may see her father 4 nights per month. Of those 4 niğhts, SD has to compete with SM & the blended kids for minimal attention units. Likely fact.

We see overgrown "warthog" & family sees charmingly gawky kids. Can you cut SD some slack while keeping your boundaries?

I disagree that this is acceptable or normal behaviour due to the EOWE schedule. Kids need rules & boundaries & parents are supposed to teach their children to be respectful of other people.

Interrupting or blocking conversation is rude, and this girl is old enough to be taught to behave better than that. The fact that your OH only sees his daughter a few nights a month is irrelevant, he still needs to teach her manners & correct her when she’s being rude or disrespectful.

That said, I do think it’s important that kids get 1:1 time with their BP’s, time where they know they’ll get the BP all to themselves & no one else to share them with. Nearly every weekend we’ve got my skids DH will take them out for dad time, which I think is really important!

I don’t believe you need to take a ‘backseat’ to SD, I certainly don’t take a backseat to my skids because I’m the other adult in our home & the boys don’t rule the roost. They need their dad time for sure, but they’re still expected to be polite, respectful & decent kids while they’re with us. 

My SS does this and it drives me nuts. I however am done worrying about being rude since he is so rude. I simply stop talking, look him in the eyes and say “I wasn’t speaking to you” until he walks away. I am done with it. He seriously eavesdrops non stop. 

It's pretty common for kids this age to eavesdrop...but it should be stopped. My 9-year-old niece loves to listen in on adult conversations...she'll walk slowly out of the room if she thinks her mom and I are talking about something interesting. It's kind of hilarious. 

My sister laughs and tells her to scoot and "quit being so nosy about everything!" That's how parents should respond to this kind of behavior. It's not awful of her or unusual...but it should be addressed. 

Problem. For not making it clear to his DD that there is times he is having a adult talk and she should leave and go play 

I dont do in a public room, like the kitchen.  

The thing is, it may not bother DH.  There is a wide range of parenting that's "good enough", and this falls in that.  You may not want your kids to do that, but he may not care, and it's his kid.  I would probably think it's annoying as well, and ideally, he doesn't want you to be annoyed.

But if you talk to him about it and he won't set limits, you can't do anything other than set your own boundaries.  If you are having a conversation with him and she does this, just say, "I'll talk to you about it later,"  and move on. 

How irritating! 

What I would do is stop speaking when that happens next time. Look down at her and then back at your DH and turn around a walk away. If DH says anything to you just say "we can talk later". 

Keep doing that. He will get the clue and hopefully start correcting her for being rude.

I have a similar situation with DH's 11 year old DD, she interupts non stop. I also have the lap sitting, climbing all over him stuff and I honestly think that as an almost 12 year old....stop acting like a toddler climbing all over your dad that is so weird and to me a sign of immaturity and some issues.I have an almost 12 year old DD and I can't imagine her acting like that.

My SD is the same age and she used to do this ALL THE TIME, even when she spent 50-90% of her time here (DH and BM have changed custody agreements quite a bit). If the conversation is private, I tell her to go to her room or the living room - anywhere besides where we are talking. Yes DH should probably be the one to do it but if he won’t, I will. I’m not going to be disrespected in my own home. I tell the same thing to my BD so I’m not singling out SD. I think it’s rude for any child to do that when adults are speaking privately.  She’s gotten better over the years after being corrected tons of times but she will still try to do it if no one tells her otherwise. 

you know this reminds me about this weekend when we were invited over to SS& DIL's house, me and DIL were watching SGD4 jumping on trampoline, and shes doing flips and "Watch ME!!" over and over and we are sitting in chairs outside the trapoline and netting, and me and DIL are trying to talk about some topic and SGD keeps on with the "Watch ME!!" and I just keep finishing my sentence to DIL while watching SGD4 do flips.  then DIL interups me to yell to SGD  "Don't be rude!" "Me and grandma are talking!" and then I forget what we are talking about and feel awkward.  In my day of raising kids, we just finish our sentence while the kids ramble on then we talk to the kids about manners afterwards.   It's distracting to talk to a person with a face in their armpit.  I would forget what I was talking about too.  My DH used to put SD up on his neck and carry her around like that if we went to a park or library or something.  It was her throne.  all the other kids and skids had to walk and be the normal size of a child.  and I had to have a 9 foot tall totem pole wtih my husbands face protruding out from SD's thighs and legs for a husband.  It was super annoyoing and I told him so.  that stopped.

No, you are not being unreasonable.  She is doing this crap on purpose and needs to be pulled up short on this crap.

By you and by your DH.  If she can't behavior appropriately when around others, she should not be around others.  

Zero tolerance solves this. It should not be tolerated and for sure she needs to be led to her room when she goes all lap dance on daddy when guests are present... or any other time for that matter.

And what SD is doing with her body language (inserting herself under DH's arm, staring rudely, sitting in his lap, bossing toddlers/pets around, etc.) is essentially telling everyone that SHE is the Alpha female in your household.

Nip that cr@p in the bud right now.  At the age of 11, she is intelligent enough to understand boundaries and also know the facts of life.   IMO, once a girl gets to puberty she should no longer be aggressively sitting in her father's lap.  You need to point-blank tell your DH that she is now too big to be doing that - especially in front of others - and he MUST tell her to stop. He also needs to explain to her that YOU are his wife and when you are having an adult conversation, she is not to interrupt.

To me this isn't related to the EOWE schedule at all, it's just a matter of manners which need to be taught. Interrupting is inpolite. Period. My stepkids used to do this when they were younger and I simply said "Just a minute, OSD (or YSS), we were talking...." Didn't take many times before they understood. My DH just looked at me blankly when I did it but then he understood and was fully on board.

I think you'll get differing opinions because people have different tolerances for this type of behavior. I agree with some others that this isn't an EOW issue and honestly not even a child of divorce issue really.

My personal opinion is that kids especially at your step daughters age should know how to be respectful and not interrupt a conversation. This behavior drives me nuts, luckily I never had to deal with SD acting this way.

I do have several friends who allow their kids to do this without trying to correct the behavior at all. If I'm on the phone with them I just tell them to call me back because I'm not about to sit in the phone listening to you talk to your kid.(I don't say the last part to them) I think this really has to do with more parents treating kids as equals than children.

Does anyone know why when you state that some posters aren't stepparents, the comment gets deleted and you get a warning for revealing private info (which I got), when it's not private info when it's written in people's bios? But when you state a fact, for example like STAround did about Rags, that he doesn't have his own bio kids, it's ok? (Mind you, I don't think it's wrong for STAround to point out that fact.) A fact is a fact, right? Neither good or bad. Some posters have pointed out other facts about other posters - that they have a certain number of kids, that they don't have kids, that they're their husband's 3rd wife, etc. etc. Why is one fact in particular - that a poster is not a stepparent - taboo and grounds for deleting comments stating such and grounds for warnings? I am really confused about this. It doesn't make sense to me that certain facts cannot be stated and others can.

well I got a private message warning that I was having "Mean Girl" behavior and that "Mean GIrl Behavior would not be tolerated."  In the past, I have defended other posters from the real "Mean GIrl" behavior and gotten my responses deleted, but the real "Mean Girl" responses remain on Step Talk.  So Go Figure  so now I just ignore the real Mean Girl responses and hope that the OP's who are hurting and looking for comfort are smart and brave enough to see through the bad intentions. 

I have one SS who does this. If DH talks to me or god forbid, shows me affection when SSs are around, this SS has to swoop in and get attention, too. 

This SS would also periodically spy on us. One time, I saw him sitting outside our bedroom door late at night, just staring at the door. 

I find it creepy. I don't try to interfere with his time with DH when he is around. 

A couple of times, DH has told this SS to buzz off because we were having an adult conversation that was none of his business. DH has also laughed about how SS is competing with me for attention, so he knows it's happening. 

"I  think it’s time I stopped being so laid back and put my foot down."

^^^^^^^^Yes you need to shut this rude behavior down like YESTERDAY. When I was growing up I would have never dreamed of pulling some disrespectful BS like that and my parents would have had my @ss for it. This all comes down to teaching SD about respect, boundaries, and remaining consistent. She continues to do it because no one corrects her and she will keep doing it because she knows she can.

You have to make your role in the home KNOWN. You have to establish your position. She is the child and you are the head female in charge. She doesn't run sh!t and have a say in anything. She is a child and needs to stay in her place. When she's older and gets her own place she can do what she wants but this is your home and you run it as you see fit.