Tuesday, 20 June 2017

My stepdaughter (12) stole a chocolate bar that I gave to my husband as part of his father's day gift. Childish behavior, testing, or contempt?


To give more context to this...I am pregnant (due in ~20 days) and this is my first child with my husband so the father's day gift was probably unnecessarily sentimental to me in the first place, but so...The gift itself was a large father specific coffee mug stuffed with goods, including my husband's favorite dark chocolate sea salt bar. I gifted it to him in front of the kids and it was kind of a special moment.We try to raise relatively considerate kids so it's kind of an already established "rule" not to ASK someone to share their recently received gift, even if it's family. Being offered is different, but in leading by example, we'd hope that the kids would learn to politely decline so the gift receiver could enjoy their gift entirely. But nevertheless, my husband needed to reiterate the "rule" when daughter 1 started to inquire about the goods in the mug. Her father gave her a gentle reminder, "that is a gift for me from [x], you're not going to take it are you?"Anyway, later, daughter 2 just squirreled the chocolate bar away. It wasn't even opened yet, she didn't even ask; she just swiped the chocolate bar from my husband's coffee mug, tucked it under her arm, and walked out of the house to her mom's waiting car.I'm really fucking bothered about it. I felt sad for my husband when he went looking for his favorite treat and found that it was gone, I feel angry at her for causing his disappointment, and I feel personally slighted by her for stealing a piece of the gift that I thoughtfully put together for my husband/soon to be father of my child.To add to my frustration towards this behavior - it was only a few days ago that we all went to visit MY father for father's day, and I made his favorite dessert, but he didn't get to have any because she finished it off on her 3rd serving. Again, we try to raise relatively considerate kids so it baffled me that she went in for a 2nd (let alone, 3rd!) serving before everyone at the table had their 1st... and to completely finish it off is fucking audacious to me. But I didn't broach the dessert thing because 1: she's not my child to serve life lessons to, and 2: I thought that at 12 years old she would be cognitive to my father's obvious disappointment in missing out on his much anticipated favorite dessert and learn the lesson on her own.But apparently nothing of value was learned that day because here she is just a few days later, fucking with her own dad's father's day treat.As a step parent, I spend the majority in the background. Honestly, I feel more comfortable back here because of past experiences. So I'm not going to speak up about how I'm feeling about his daughters behavior. I guess I'm just looking for some advice. I know that I haven't painted the picture as well as it is seen 1st hand... all that I can say is that my husband's daughter was raised better than to take without asking. My concern is that she is intentionally being audacious (for lack of a better word) towards me and anything pertaining to me, and intentionally being inconsiderate to the people and things (my dad, my dog, my super expensive hair conditioner, etc) that I love.So give it to me Reddit. Am I overanalyzing, overreacting, being overly critical? Am I expecting too much from a 12 year old? On one hand, this 12 year old girl has free reign by her bio parents to wear crop tops and stay up on her smartphone all night... on the other hand, I know for a fact that I would hear "she's just a kid" if I questioned her ill-mannerisms, or merely mention that she needs to refill the ice tray if she used the last cube instead of leaving it out on the counter for someone else (me). via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2sOjDBn

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