Hope it works. But having experience with SD14 and countless talks and arguments, I don't have high hopes for you. It seems like they get to this magical age of 14 and they get a smart mouth and think they know everything. Happily and as bad as it sounds, she doesn't live with us anymore and now she is her mothers problem. Her mom wanted her and encouraged the bad behavior and now she has it full time. If your BM is on the same page with discipline and what constitutes bad behavior, it may work for you.

I'm with Jsmom (unfortunately). I have had TONS of talks with SDstb14 over the last 10 years and she just doesn't seem to take anything to heart. She believes she is the boss in the house and unless DH proves her wrong...SD will never change. Don't get me wrong, DH has spoken to her many times, too, but until he puts his money where his mouth is, it just won't ever change. That is my personal experience and I hope it can be different for you!!!

Dear Raggedy,

Your story is mine. When I married my DH.... I inherited SD12. My DH had been single for 10 years. All those years he devoted his life to SD. He had visitation EOW and was the good time dad. They were always cuddling on the couch, he pampered her, took her every where and she could do NO WRONG. Then I came along. He would not kiss me in front of her, he wouldn't talk long on the phone because he was having his visitation and she got jealous. Apparently, this was worse than I knew. I came to visit his home once, and he had pictures EVERYWHERE of her. LIKE WALLPAPER!

We would go places...she would push us apart and walk with her daddy and then look at me like hahaha. She would try to separate us from sitting together on the couch... she would take my spot next to him at the table and do the hahaha look. Me? Being the mature one... said... Ok... I get what is happening. No problem... I let it go on for quite awhile. Then she began to get rude about it, so I mentioned it to DH. He would not accept she was doing it. So I dropped it. Sure enough, he was paying attention, and he began to notice her doing it EVERY TIME! He finally told her to stop it. He is holding my hand, he is looking at something right now with me, she can sit on the other side of him, he is sitting next to me this time at dinner. It was rough... but DH put a stop to it. Not me.

SD would try to rule the house also. My 3 daughters did chores, did what they were told, never talked back, were respectful, laughed and had fun, and they loved their little SS. But... she was bratty, rude, demanding, talked back and nasty to her father, refused to do her chores. For 4 years DH tried to say... cut her some slack, she is learning.... I said.. OMG.... it does not take 4 years to learn to the clean the kitchen!!!! She would deliberately leave dishes unwashed, not wipe the counters, sweep crumbs on the floor.... she did NOT want to do it and thought if she did a crappy job, I would not make her do it anymore. Instead I said... I will check your chores when you are done. hahahaha! She quickly figured out, I will make her do it until it is done right.

As for her mouth... my lord, she would scream and yell at her father. And he would yell back. My girls and I would sit there with our mouths dropped open. Finally I stepped in, I went to her and said...pointing my finger... "you stop this immediately. Do not EVER speak to your father like that again, do you understand?" And DH! "Do not allow her to talk to you like that. It is not acceptable!" So.... if it happened ever again, I was on it in a second, and eventually, it stopped in my presence. He started getting on her immediately when she started her screaming act and I no longer had to get involved.

Best of Luck. It is a really rough road, but DH has to be the one to change it.

Unfortunately for us, DH got it, but it was too late. By then the damage had been done. She was turning into a brat and BM felt that DH was micromanaging her when he would ground her or take away her phone. Now we find out that my SS12 is being beaten up by her when her mom is not around. We still have 50/50 custody of him. He is a good kid and doesn't deserve the drama that is going on in that house. We keep hoping every other week that he will wake up and tell us that he doesn't want to live there full time.

I strongly encourage you to get BM on board now with the discipline. Otherwise, the child sounds like she will manipulate everyone. I watched a perfectly harmless little girl in a year's time, become an absolute tyrant who was going to do what she wanted. She lied about boyfriends, manipulated her own friends, joked about being a bully. She gets away with it, because she is absolutely stunning and everyone thinks she is so charming. She is truly one of the "Mean Girls" and BM thinks it is great because she is so "popular". We had rules and enforced them, but it was too late, she was already to far entrenched in this personality. We would take away a cell phone and BM would get her a new one. We would limit her time on it and she would sneak it in the middle of the night. I could go on and on. No matter what DH did, she would give it right back. Finally he gave up and after she served him with CO modification papers, he dropped her off and said he couldn't be a father this way. She lied to her mom and said that he told her we would have to kill her dog, if she left. It was crazy and of course that notification came from the lawyers that we were not to kill her dog.

The lies are just begining for this kid. I see a bad path and now there is nothing we can do about it. I wish I had disengaged early on rather than try and be a good SM. Maybe if I had, she would still live here. I just think the personality would be even stronger than it is now and our marriage would not have survived.

Good luck, I recommend two things - you need to disengage from this kid or you will get burned. You also need to have DH meet with BM and get on the same page with everything. If she lies like ours did, it won't work. But, maybe maybe it will. Good luck and keep us informed.