Girlfriends Daughter

Question

I recently started dating an on again off again friend of mine back in May. We've been living together in our new house since October. We're both in our mid thirties and have known each other since high school. We have a great relationship. She works and I went back to college after a car accident put me out of work.

So, now the problem. Her 9 year old daughter who I seriously think might be a sociopath. She does absolutely nothing around the house, has no respect for her mother, is rude, has entitlement issues beyond what I've ever seen in a child and she is making our lives miserable. We've tried a lot to solve the issue. We read articles, I try to pay her for simple jobs to learn responsibility, but nothing works.

I should mention that she has an unhealthy relationship with her mother. Whenever her Mom is around she ceases to be able to do anything for herself. When Mom comes home her entire demeanor changes and she turns into an invalid. She refuses to clean up after herself, or do any chores, or help in any way, really.

I know the real problem is she has such an unhealthy relationship with her Mom. She knows she can get away with anything. Her Mom can't see the lies. Whenever it seems like she cares about your feelings it's immediately followed by a 'can you do this for me' question.

She has been spoiled, but I can't seem to get the mother to stick to a program. She is addicted to technology and it needs to be given up. Her punishments need to stick.

I know her mother is on board and I honestly want the best for her, but what can we do? What more can we try? Do we take all her games away until she earns them?

One more thing. Is it alright to call the little one out on her lying? How do you handle that? The mother says she doesn't want daughter to be called a liar even though she is lying right to our faces. This whole situation is causing us a lot of undue stress and beginning to cause me at least the beginnings of depression. How should we start to handle this?

Answer 1

It seems you've started noticing that neither bribes nor punishment are very effective child rearing tools. That I find hopeful. I also read that you consider doubling down on the things that have been found not to work. I hope you'll reconsider.

Suitable chores for children are simple tasks that are carried out collaboratively with you. If she is not used to helping out at home, don't start by sending her off to complete a taxing task in solitaire. Also, don't expect great results. If you are doing laundry, you can hang the clothes up to dry together, and it'll be both slower and worse than if you had done it yourself. The first step won't be complete mastery of the task. Willingness to collaborate is a win in itself.

To that end, I don't expect coercion will get you far. Things that are usually more fruitful is telling her how it makes you sad when she doesn't want to spend time with you cleaning up, and how it takes time away from you that you could've spent doing something that she values. "Yeah, I'd love to make that dish you love, but it involves quite a lot of steps, and I'm not able to do that tonight as I am always the one who has to do all the cleaning up afterwards." When my much younger child is making a mess in a manner I don't approve of, I don't demand that she clean up, but I sometimes remind her that all the time I spend cleaning up is time I could've (and would've) spent reading to her which she loves. This of course is contingent upon both establishing a relationship where she enjoys doing things together with you, and putting enough hours in so that it's reasonable to assume that time saved actually would be used doing the things she enjoys.

As for technology, I think it's absolutely fine to set limits around things like technology use. As adults you get to define some parameters of what are the core values in your family. But I would caution against making access to technology a reward that is awarded for desirable behavior and removed as punishment for poor behavior. That still operates on the assumption that device use is the prize and you're the adversary standing between the child and it. If you think screen time should be limited, then that should be the rule regardless of behavior, because you think limiting screen time is defensible in its own right, and not just a means for punishing the child. But you also need to accept that 9 years is old enough to have quite a bit of say as to what's important in the child's life. If you want to limit technology use for the purpose of opening doors to other activities which you think might be healthy or helpful, you might just have to work harder on making time away from technology more appealing.

I thin Paul makes an excellent point regarding lying in his response. I want to second that, but I'll also throw in that children may lie because they are having problems reconciling with the truth. If they pushed someone, saying they didn't may be in part because they don't like the reality where they did that. Fear of punishment may of course also play a part, but I think punishing them both for the misdeed and then for lying about it, as may be reasonable with an adult, may just escalate the tension. It helps if you acknowledge that it's positive that the child at least wants something other than the (often unpleasant) truth to be true.

To be honest, you call the child a sociopath and a liar, and then go on to describe what I would simply call a child. I think you need to take a step back and realise that it is you, not her, who should be expected to handle this like an adult. It is your responsibility to deescalate conflict and find constructive solutions. Don't make it hers, she's not the adult.

Answer 2

On your last question, rather than saying "You are a liar." try saying "That isn't true, is it?". This focuses on the falsehood rather than the child, and pushes the responsibility back on her to correct it.