Step kids driving me crazy - mostly just want to rant
OK, mostly a rant here - my stepdaughter has the biggest bitch personality, bitch responses and bitch facial expressions. Her mom supports my parenting positions (generally) but there are certain cases when we disagree that drive me nuts. Today's disagreement was use of the kitchen - the 15YO SD thinks it's perfectly acceptable to make whatever she wants in the kitchen at whatever time of day - whether it be a cake, cookies, pie, you name it. She has ADD so the kitchen is rarely left as clean as it was when she started. Also, her mom seems unable to accept that making several items a week (often giving items away to friends) isn't free - our food bill constantly includes baking ingredients which are sometimes expensive.
I walk in the kitchen and ask her what she's making and she gives a look like I just insulted her - I could tell her that I'd like her to ASK PERMISSION to make stuff/dirty the kitchen but my wife doesn't understand the problem with her daughter just using the kitchen whenever she'd like. The reasoning? "Because she's good at it and bored." Well, shit - let me me buy a race car because I'm good at driving and need something to do on Sunday afternoons!
There are some items in our home that are worth the fight/effort - I admit this is not one. But it makes me feel like I can't freaking wait until this particular kid is out of the house!
Stop buying sugar, flour,
Stop buying sugar, flour, butter, chocolate chips. Problem solved.
Ha! Good idea but my wife
Ha! Good idea but my wife also loves to cook/bake (and she actually is really good at it). Plus they go to the grocery together and as mentioned, my wife sees NO PROBLEM with her daughter using the kitchen almost every day at whim.
I can relate, even though it
I can relate, even though it's not the end of the world some things are just that irritating. SO came up to me with a bucket of slime, I looked him dead in the eye and said absolutely not. I have seen his kid play with slime, it is everywhere, stuck on everything. I'm not cleaning that! If I could trust SD would use it in one area like a covered table, no big deal. But that's never the case. Her room would be covered by the end of the day like a glue factory explosion.
She makes the mess, she
She makes the mess, she cleans. She not only cleans her cooking mess, she cleans the kitchen as directed any time she is directed to do so. If she fails to clean, she loses kitchen privileges.
Beyond that, why is her using the kitchen a big deal?
Set the standards of behavior and performance in your home, enforce those standards, and apply appropriate consequences. DW needs to enforce the standards and apply the consequences as much as you do. Don't let her ignore the standards or side step application of the consequences.
Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. If baking is that much of a passion for the Skid, she will do what is necessary to maintain her kitchen privileges.
Good luck.