So this is a kind of weird issue I'm having and I'm not sure what to do :? My fiance and I have full custody of his daughter who is 3 years old. I am not a strict parent but I strongly believe in teaching her to be polite, ask for things nicely, help clean her room, that sort of thing. As a result, I have found myself in the position of disciplinarian which I'm sure many of you can relate to. My SD3 and I get along just fine and for the most part she behaves very well. The only thing is that I think she is a bit afraid of me which is causing me a lot of frustration. Let me first say that I hardly ever raise my voice to her and I absolutely do not believe in spanking or any kind of physical punishment such as that. I will use a strong tone when she is misbehaving though and unfortunately I do find myself being the one that has to correct her behavior the most. My fiance will also discipline her if she is misbehaving but he is so absent-minded half the time that he doesn't notice it or dismisses a lot of her behavior for one reason or another. I don't believe in disengaging either as I feel this is a duty I have taken on and she needs a mother in her life as her biological one is currently in prison. I also do plan on adopting her and I love her very much. The issue is that now she seems to tiptoe around me with everything, even when I'm not angry at her. Just this morning I walked into her room and said, "Ok honey it's time to go." and she just stares at me while moving all slowly out of her room as if I had just yelled at her or something. She does this staring thing often and it's driving me insane. Last night I asked her to go potty and then take her clothes off so I can bathe her. She went then started pulling her underwear back up so I reminded her nicely that she is taking a bath and that her clothes need to come off. She just stared at me and slowly brought her underwear back up. I had to tell her again that she needs to remove them and started to lose my patience a little. This sort of thing happens a lot lately where she just stares at me with this look as if I just punished her and often does the opposite of what she has been asked to do. I know it's not malicious, she just seems to have a hard time paying attention or something. I thought maybe it's just her age and she's still trying to figure things out but she doesn't act this way with my fiance. I know my patience is something I need to work on but I get so discouraged when everytime I approach her she looks at me as if I'm going to yell at her I don't want her to be afraid of me but I don't believe in raising a child who is badly behaved either and I will continue to correct her when she is acting up. I'm just starting to feel a bit left out from the loving aspect of our relationship because she is just all about daddy lately. She still tells me she loves me here and there and I know she seeks my approval a lot but I want to try and find a balance with her and I'm not sure how. I want her to understand how much I love her and that I'd do anything to keep her safe but also that I don't tolerate bad behavior. It's just hard to sit down with her and try and tell her all that as she is still young and her comprehension isn't fully developped yet. I also want to note that I make sure she and I get to bond so I do things with her such as painting her nails, reading stories, watch movies & cuddle, play... I guess I'm just hoping someone else might have a suggestion or advice on how I could handle discipline with her in a manner that doesn't always make me the bad guy. Thank you for reading.