Sounds like you hurt his feelings and didnt realize it. Maybe apologize for 'upsetting him' and see what happens. He might spill his guts. Kids that age are ultra sensitive anyway - middle school is tough.

I suggest dont "try" anymore. Be completely your natural self at least then you are comfortable and not exhausting yourself by keeping up appearances. I find kids appreciate you treating them no different to others, they can see through facades.

You have nothing to lose and things cant get much worse so be true to who you are and he will come round eventually he is only 10 and kids of divorced parents know how to manipulate and play the game, he is comparing/dividing and conquering. Dont play it with him. You will find if you are not seeking out his attention he could very well start seeking yours. Just let him know you are there for him and love him but thats it

This sounds mean, and please don't take it the wrong way, but is it possible that the kid is a little bit of a ninny? It's not your job to make him happy. If he's like this all the time, he's going to have a hard time in life. He might need to toughen up a little bit.

I don't mean to be harsh...my Bio son is like that a little bit, or was, but I had to stop coddling him because he was really whiny, and it was making him not fit in.

I agree with normajean it is not our job as step parents or even parents to make our kids happy. It is our job to raise them to be the best adults they can be. We are raising adults not kids.

Just be yourself I mean life goes on just b/c a kid is not happy the world doesn't stop.

Yep normajean I feel ya we have 4 boys here and not one of them wants to take a darn shower!!! :sick:

I had to get real crappy with them even bm had to get real crappy with them too. It really was funny as she told them that if they smell like crap one more time she would threw their xbox360 away too. LOL

I told them that if they didn't take a shower I would make them clean my bathroom from top to bottom. My way of thinking is that if they don't want to clean themselves they will clean the nastiest place in the house.

Throw Xbox away? Oh boy. I'd be dead if I did that.

I agree with others - you're the Ninny for thinking you have to react to this. I think I would laugh out loud if my step complained that I did not laugh at their jokes or didn't make them happy. "Tough kid life is hard".

Here's 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.

WOW orange My dh says a very similar thing to all the kids. He says this though "do whatever you feel is the right thing to do". That is a very powerful statement! I recommend everyone use it on their kids. YOu are so right and I like you did, in fact that is what I did. It was so bad that dh's sister said something to him one day about how trashed the house was after his boys got here.

Please all that is is an excuse to make your life hell! Give me a brake (I really need an eye rolling smiley) I would just disengage and have nothing to do with him and let your dh handle everything!