Heck No!!! I go through the same crap with SD14. She will say thank you once in a while but when I do something for her she gives me this crappy attitude like I am her paid servant. I was taking her shopping for her Bday one year she had 100.00 budget she looked at me like I was crazy. She actually said she is used to get 300-400 dollars spent on her Bday :jawdrop:

Needless to say I didn't take her shopping I let SO deal with her bratty ass!!! SO told me she was crazy as he never spent more than 100.00 on her for her bday.

If she hasn't been taught to say thank you, she is not going to do it. I have always prompted by son to say thank you. I have set by example. I make sure that my BS8 sees me say thank you for everything. FDH took us out to dinner "thank you", FDH washed the dishes "thank you", my mom bought me a coffee "thank you". I also encourage my BS8 to say thank you when he doesn't.

So had I been your DH, I would have said "Now DD dont forget to tell Christinen thank you".

My skids rarely say thank you for ANYTHING. It's almost like whatever they are given, it's expected. My BS8 says thank you 90% of the time without my prompting and that comes from ME as a parent.

Just a thought.....

I don't think my SD5 even realizes when we buy her new clothes. They're just there in her closet when she comes over. They also don't really get a choice in what DH buys either. We take them out on occasion and let them pick out an outfit or a new pair of shoes .. but we limit it.

My point is .. at 5yo this seems like learned behavior.

I guess my question is .. if she never says thank you or expresses gratitude without being told to, why do you even bother?

Start a sticker chart, every time she says 'thank you' she gets a sticker! I use sticker charts for SD3, every time she gets 5 stickers she gets to pick something from the prize bag (a bag fill of very cheap toys) this has worked wonders for all sorts of issues!

I get that you are irritated however I buy 95% of SS's clothes we normally get him to say thank you but honestly clothes seem to just be forgotten as it is more as a necessity. My DH will say thank you but rarely does SS, nor do I think to tell him to say thank you.

Your SD is young and especially if she normally wears leggings with BM will probably ask, I don't think it was right how your DH brought up her wanting leggings but I have dealt with SS wanting additional stuff which is when I turn to DH and say I have done more than my part I'm done....which brings me to your DH saying she needs leggings I don't see where she said she needed them just that your DH said it which doesn't completely mean she brought it up...did he see the clothes before SD did? I know DH will sometimes talk about us needing to get SS something but its more his idea.

I will say I do a lot for SS that is gone unnoticed besides just clothes but I understand it is my choice and you should too - if DH wanted to get SD new clothes that is your thing not yours and from the sound of your SD I would get her to say thank you but would be less hard on her and more on your DH.

Well, SD likely needs some legging and comfy types too besides just jeans, but that doesn't mean you didn't do very well. It was very kind of you and appreciation should have been shown. DH should have fell over himself saying 'thank-you' considering he himself could not afford the shopping trip and that you were thoughtful and kind enough to think of Sd and what she might need.

But SD should have thanked you too when you gave them to her. If she didn't right off, DH should have said 'SD what do you tell SM' before the little girl went off to her room. If you didn't hear SD herself state she wanted 'more' it could have been Dad. Dad may have been discussing the clothing with her and talking about what else she will need. But that doesn't mean you have to buy anything else. You been very generous and thoughtful. If it is a case of 'more, I want more', well then your SD shopping trips are finished. Let Dad worry about the whats and whens and money for it.

I think one of the best ways to tell if the kid is an unappreciative demanding child would be in watching to see if and how she reacts when DH does something for her. If she doesn't say thank-you to him either or he does remind her to thank even himself, then it's a case of kid needs to be taught.

Even with the giving of the gift is over, it wouldn't hurt to put a bug in Dad's ear that he should remind Sd first time she comes out of her room wearing one of the new outfits to come over to you and say thank-you and how much she likes the outfit. Manners are never too late to learn and it's Dad's job to teach her (even if you have to keep at Dad to remember his job as a teaching parent). If he doesn't teach her at five, she's be an entitled brat by ten.

Even on holidays when we are at our family's house, she will sit there and open all her gifts and not say thank you once
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She is 5 years old! She needs to be told to say "thank you". Your DH should have been telling her every time she opened a gift to say thank you. Shame on him.

Sometimes I think that us Step Parents expect skids to pop out of the womb fully grown and mature. And then we get pissed when they aren't. Again...this is a 5 year old that you are mad at because she did not say thank you!! You should be mad at your DH for not telling her to thank you. GAH!

Rule of thumb? If I will be angry if I don't get thanked for doing something, I don't do it. I only do for the skids things that *I* want to do for them...that way I am never dissapointed. It goes for just about everything from gifts and clothes to dicipline and assistance with chores.

My SO has sometimes thrown out the "we" card. "we" need to get SD this. My response used to be either to say SD didn't need it or fume in silence. Now I've learned to say...

"YOU go right ahead."

This might have to change if we got married, but it works for now.

And the "thank you" is big to me too. SD12 used to not thank me for things without her dad telling her to thank me. And he would feel that it didn't mean as much if he told her, so he wouldn't. Until he said the stupidest thing to me. "Well I can't make her thank you." Ummm....aren't you her PARENT?! After that he started reminding her. She still didn't "remember" too much, so when she would complain about SO and I doing something she wanted to do, but I paid for it, I would tell her..."I don't do things for people that don't appreciate it or thank me." Now she doesn't "forget" very often.

I've learned with skids that no good deed ever goes unpunished and to never do ANYTHING for them if you expect any type of appreciation. then, you'll never have to worry about over-reacting again due to non-appreciation. lesson learned.

As a SM I totally understand...yes so many of us have been dealt this card and react with surprise, hurt, anger, when out of the kindness of our big hearts we do something really nice for our H's children only to have them show zero appreciation. And then the double-whammy of H defending their behaviour when we understandably are upset

However, as a SD myself, it actually took me remembering a similar situation with my SF before I started to see some of this behaviour in another light, so hopefully you will hear me out on this one and consider this too

When my YSD was graduating middle-school I had gone out and like you, thought it would be so thoughtful to buy her a beautiful card, stash a wad of money in it for her, and make a big deal about her important day. And once again, like every other occasion with H's daughter's, would receive little to no thank you's after all that, and H wouldn't seem to notice or make any big deal about it at all.

So here I was one day thinking about that and what an entitled little brat YSD was behaving like, when I suddenly remembered my own middle-school graduation with my mom and SF.

Now my mother was the queen of PASing and she did some awful stuff. She'd make sure my dad didn't know when the day was. So, here is my big day and I'm a little disappointed my dad isn't there to share it with me. Instead, my mom had brought my SF, and she would indicate too bad that my dad just couldn't care less but hey, SF was there wasn't that nice }:)

Now, she would do things like this all the time, not tell my dad about parent-teacher nights for example but bring her BF and would even try to pass him off as my father if she could.

As a skid, the first embarrassment (and resentment) was feeling somehow less than my friends who were all from intact families - my parents divorced in the 80's it wasn't so common then as now - and thinking my friends and teachers were going okay so you don't have a normal loving father, you have one who doesn't care, so here is your fake father to pretend to be one for this event. Maybe I was more sensitive than others in this situation but to me it spelled humiliation as a kid

Then, my SF, just like many of us step-parents not having a clue how our skids really feel, went out of his way to insure he and my mother bought me a beautiful card with a lot of nice things said, and a beautiful ring.

This made me feel that not only did my friends and teachers feel I had to depend on my 'pretend dad' stepping in for me, but I also felt my SF felt the same. It felt to me as if he were saying that because I had such a crappy father that wasn't even at this big event for me, that he would extend some 'charity love' and act like a father to me since I was some poor unloved abnormal kid. I know this sounds soooo over the top but remember, I was just a kid at the time. Those feelings can be really strong

I remember my mother acting as if I should fall on the ground and kiss my sf's feet for his thoughtfulness. I'm sure I said thank you - because my mother would have absolutely killed me had I not - but I bet no matter how hard I tried to muster it up my SF could see I just wasn't happy or over the top about it. Thinking back now I bet the felt just as we often do in this situation - that ungrateful, entitled little brat, see if I ever do anything for her again

Fortunately for my SF, he didn't do things like that often and he never appeared to have his feelings hurt...it was his second time round as a SF and I think he really had it down in the end LOL

What I eventually learned by example from him is that he didn't get involved in my life in matters where my father should. He never, ever put my father down despite all the times my mother did. If he chose to do something nice for us it was never in the light of needing to be a parent because our parent hadn't done something...it was more after the fact, more like you lucky kid your mom and dad already love and do this for you but hey, guess you're super-lucky because your SF participated too type thing

Not saying you in any way made your SD feel this way and at 5 who knows if she even thinks about that....in my tween/teen years I probably didn't put it into words (still haven't done a great job now I'm sure) but I certainly did feel that way even if not consciously thinking it through

Not sure what the answer is to this dilemma either. If we as step-parents back off will our skids grow up and one day say that we didn't give a crap about them and did nothing for them? After all I did for my H's eldest she grew up and said it right out loud - as I was cooking her adult ass dinner at the time believe me I wanted to throw it at her! On the other hand, my YSD shows soooooo much appreciation for everything now that she is an adult. She remembers and talks about the many times I was there for her and how much it means....so I wish I knew the answer

The only advice I can give, is before we get our feelings all hurt about the ungratefulness of our skids, at least when they are young, try to consider their situation and how our well-meaning actions could have made them feel. This doesn't mean for one minute we should accept disrespect - most especially if your skid is now an adult there is no excuse I can think of for them not saying thank you for something nice you have done for them, but for the young ones they just may be struggling with feeling bad about some things that step life sometimes brings.....