I have a nine year old, who does the same things occasionally. Her Dad is in Afghanistan, so I am not sure if it is stress or the age. Have you talked to your wife about it?

Hey, the ten year old sounds like my SS13. He can be so wrong and argue with me an hour. He was also shooting his Daddy dirty looks the other day and his dear daddy did nothing about it. If he did that to me, I would put him in his place in a hurry.

My birthson is 10. He does not yell at me or roll his eyes. If he ever feels froggy enough, he is free to jump but he will also be put in his place very quickly. My XH that used to have such big anger problems just lets him hollar and scream at him like its no big deal. I think a lot of it is kids will treat us how we allow them. Not saying my kids or skids treat me wonderfully all the time but they know if they are good to me, I will be good to them. And if they want to treat me like crap, well then they better not ask me for anything:P Im sorry you are going through this. Wish I could help more.

10 year old girls - YIKES ! I am living your hell. And she is my bio. I honestly think it's the age but it is truely testing my patience.

Eye rolling, stomping, yelling, all-out attitude. No one likes her, no one understands her, everyone is mean to her - never mind how she provokes her brother.

Happy as pie one minute - mean and hissing the next.

I sound like a broken record saying over and over - "You will not talk to me or anyone else in that tone, if you can't speak nicely to everyone GO TO YOUR ROOM."

I've tried mocking her - replaying back to her in my imitation of her tone of voice so that she can hear how she sounds. sometimes this works.

MOstly I walk away and tell her I'll come back and help her do whatever it is she thinks she needs me for when she can be nicer.

When I see her start to build up to a hissy fit (if there is warning) I calmly ask her to take a deep breath and start again in a nice voice.

I know these outbursts are not her prevailing personality so I trust that when the hormones level out or she learns to control herself better she will once again become my sweet child. I have to believe that otherwise I am looking at a very long few years ahead as she become a teen.

In any case, I sympathize with you. And welcome !

I don't have any advice for you but just my perspective. My DH got on my son quite a bit because he felt I was too lenient on him. I was lenient on him because he was a pretty good kid and I was guilty that he didn't have his own father around. My son ended up disliking his stepdad immensely.

I guess I would try to get mom to see that she needs to step up to the plate with discipline or you will always be the "bad guy."

I relate to you totally because I have a similar situation and I too have been taking extra hours at work in order to get out of the house! Wish I could help more but I can say that I do understand, especially with the 'motherbear' but here it's 'fatherbear'.
I like to think that in 5 years she'll be out of the house and we'll be in peace and quiet but 5 years often seems like a long time from now, especially when PMS is in the house with her!

And if all those suggestions fail then this is what I did:

I wrote this a long time ago and I hope this helps with your problem. It may not reflect your exact situation but you'll get the idea:

The situation with my step-kids finally got to the point where I decided that my efforts to raise them was futile.

First I told my wife in private what I was going to do and why.

Then I stopped investing myself, time and money in their upbringing. I realized that by conscious choice I could cease being responsible for them or their actions. Neither would I take credit for how they turned out, good or bad. I simply stopped interfering in their lives. This is not to say if they would start a fire on the living room floor I would not intervene. But if they did not do the laundry as scheduled I ignored it. Nor did I do any of their chores. If the trash overflowed in the kitchen - well tough. Mom dealt with it when she got home.

They could no longer blame me for the consequences of misbehaving just because I saw the misbehavoir. I never told. If they were caught in a infraction it was not my fault. They began to realize that they were responsible for their actions because of what they did not because I caught them.

I would talk to my wife in private if I had issues, but once she made the decision I backed her up 100%.

You will be absolutely amazed at the look on a kids face when s/he realizes you don't care enough to even tell their bio-parent they did something wrong. And you'll be pleased at their future behavoir and attitude towards you.

I stayed friendly enough and taught one how to drive when she was old enough. I took my spouse and SKs camping on occasion when my kids weren't around. I offered the s-kids advise on living in our world and made the obvious comments when it came to safety and such. But I never made it a judgement. May favorite comment was "Do what you think is in your best interest". It sums it all up. What you sow is what you reap.

Once the kids realized I was no longer the ogre they thought I was their attitude changed. I was not their friend, but neither was I the enemy. They came to realize that I had not done those things to irritate them. They in fact missed the things that they had come to depend on me doing. Permission to go to the mall when their Mom was not home? "Sorry, can't do that".

Their mother came to realize that I wasn't over-reacting to their actions. In fact I wasn't reacting at all. She came to understand that she would have to control the situation and she did.

With that things got much easier around the house.

Billions of kids grew up in the world without help from me and turned out just fine.