Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It is too late. This is a very self absorbed teenage girl. It would take a lot of work and head butting and coming to blows to get the boundaries set. The amount of testing would be intolerable. It is too late, unless the OP would like to make the next 2 weeks of her life a full blown living hell without any actual benefit.
Actually, they should send her home tomorrow before the sexual accusations start from her.
I'm going to address the bolded - you are in loco parentis. You have "custody" (for lack of a better term) of your niece for six weeks. so heck yea, you discipline her. I don't care if she is five, fifteen, or fifty - you use age-appropriate language but you talk to her.
As you will learn when you're almost five year old becomes a teen, you pick your battles. I wuoldn't bat an eye at a teen who is on the phone all day. that's what they do. but I would tell her, firmly, "in this house we pick up after ourselves. That means your floor should be clear, towels hung up, and dishes in the sink" or whatever the rules are. If she wants to keep her clothing crumpled up in a ball, that's her problem. but the floor should be clear.
She doesn't thank you for taking her to water parks? she doesn't go to any more water parks. she wats you to take her shopping? just say no. tell her your limits "honey, we can take you to the mall if you want, but you used up your spending money already. we can window shop and get some take out but that's it".
As for the inappropriate behavior arond your husband and other men? just stop it, right then. pull her aside and tell her that she needs to stop.
Tell your sister NOW. you do not want your niece going home and making up nasty stories. if you are on your way to friends' house and she makes nasty remarks (I'm so hot...) you stop the car, and tell her very firmly that she needs to stop that right now or we are going home. and follow through.
worst case scenario - she doesn't want to come back next year
Good points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Just A Guy
Actually, they should send her home tomorrow before the sexual accusations start from her.
I bet that the sexual accusations may start whether or not she is sent home.
You need telephone your sister today and tell her about her daughter's over the top sexual behavior. Or be prepared to suffer accusations. Plus your sister needs know what her daughter is doing.
The money part I get. The kid thinks you are all rich. No one explained her grandmother had to work very hard to make that money to bring her. Giving a teen girl all her spending money at once and not expecting her to blow it on clothes was naive.
Who is paying for her out of country cell use, does she have intermational plan?
A 15 year without a job or taking some kind of classes stuck at someone's house for weeks seems extremely unfun. Even if she has been taken on a theme park outings, most of the time what does she have to do? Have you done any projects with her?
Welcome to the future. It's the Post-Millennial (PM) generation. Did you think things couldn't get any worse than the way they've been the past 20 years with young people? They can and are. This girl's behavior seems to be the product of a home where no discipline has been applied. She reminds me of a character in the old movie, "Girl's Reform School". I can just imagine the kind of boyfriends she has back home. That may be one reason why she was sent off for such a long time. You'd better have a good and no-nonsense talk with your sister about her right away. Your husband is being put in danger by her presence and she isn't providing a very good example for your young son, either.
Last edited by Steve McDonald; 07-21-2016 at 10:50 PM..
Mmmmm, reminds me when my step niece, at the time, wanted to stay at my mother's house for the weekend.
The request came directly from her to me. I talked it over with a brother, not the step dad one, and there was the consensus that she had to understand that my mother's caretakers were not there to serve her. So then I approached the matter with her mother, my sister in law ..........................................
......................................... who knew nothing about the trip and that finished the affair very quickly.
The thing that surprised me slightly is that the family knows I'm an ex Spook, an intelligence officer, where it is my nature to check things from multiple sources. How could my niece present such a self inflicting damage plan when she should have realized that I would ask for confirmation from her mother?
Because she was 15 and when we are young, we often go forward with things, hoping for the best and never considering the consequences, of what it really would mean, if things fall through.
A and B.
A: Perhaps you do want to point out to her the consequences of her actions.
B: In any event, you are the area adult and you are responsible. Consider that as well.
Well, OP, looks like you have a full-blown brat on your hands. You're not going to be able to undo 15 years of poor parenting and bad attitude in 6 weeks, unfortunately, However, there's no law that says you have to put up with it, either.
All you would have had to say is, "Dear Niece, we love you, but this behavior is unacceptable, and as a visitor in our home, we realize that we need to make it clear what behavior is acceptable and what isn't." And then proceed to lovingly lay down the law (we WILL be visiting your grandmother, and you WILL make an effort to be pleasant. You will NOT invite grown men to stroke your thighs, and no, it's not Christmas, and no, we aren't Santa Claus.) Personally, I would have sent her back home after the first two weeks, especially if she was rude to her grandmother (who PAID for the trip) and was being that sexually aggressive.
The whole "wanting to be the cool aunt" is why she's in this mess to begin with -- she's also got parents who wanted to be the "cool parents" and haven't done a good job of actually parenting her.
But what is past is past. Suck it up for two weeks, and if the suggestion comes up again next year, say no. I'm sorry it wasn't the idyllic re-kindling of relationships with her that you had envisioned. But 15 year olds are tough at the best of times, never mind when they think they are on an extended holiday and are thinking of no one but themselves.
I think most any self respecting guy, especially family, would tell her to knock it off. No need for the wife to do it.
So this happened when we were in the car - I was in the back with my son and she was in the front with my husband driving. When she said that I think both of us were taken aback and I think my husband did not know what to say - he just said something along the line "I dont think I should be doing that". My mother in law seems to think she's just very 'open'.
Yesterday I had a chat with her about being rude to her step grandpa. I told her he called me very upset and mentioned that she has been disrespectful. She denied everything but I didnt believe her because my stepdad would not lie about something like this. I listened to her but afterwards just said that she should have respect for her elders especially when visiting in someone's home it is rude and unacceptable. I made it short and didnt give her a chance to talk back. She didnt seem ashamed and she didnt apologize.. I think she was a little taken aback that I called her out. Later that day after dinner she locked herself in her room so I just let her be.
OP... where does she live. what country? I actually think most of this is your fault. Have you never hosted anyone in your house, child or adult? You set ground rules, that's pretty simple. For instance, if you dont allow smoking in your house then even ordinary dinner parties, you tell your smoking guests that this isnt allowed in your house. You dont stay quiet so that "they will have a good time" That is what I'm having a tough time getting my head around.
If you have been having so much issues with her, why is she still here.. Most tickets can be changed for $200 or less and she would have gone home ages ago. And if you can afford all the outings then you can clearly afford to change her ticket. You didnt set boundaries. You were in the car and she made all those sexual innuendos to your husband and you kept quiet. You were there when she was splashing water on your friend's husband's crotch and you kept quiet. You were there when she did a "wet dress" competition and rolled around on the floor and you said nothing. I'm honestly seeing just a fail on your part here and you havent been a parent/aunt/big sister influence on her.
But there is still time, all hope isnt lost. Sit her down and have a CTJ meeting 1on1. Since it seems that you may be afraid of a little confrontation, write all these stuff down or perhaps, print your OP. Calmly talk to her, tell her that her whole behavior is unacceptable and why. She has 2 more weeks in your house. Tell her that you are given her this weekend to see a change in her behavior.. at the very least, she can be a good roommate and clean up after herself. Tell her that if you dont see any change in her behavior, you will be changing her ticket and she will be leaving a week or more earlier than planned and if there was anything that you had planned to give her, you will not be doing so. And finally tell her that she will not be invited ever again (I'm guess with a $1,200 ticket, she's coming from either Africa or Asia and I imagine holidays in the US are seen as exciting)
But ultimately, you owe her a duty to teach her proper behavior assuming that the adults in her life havent done that for her.. And if she refuses to use that teachable moment then its on her..
Just my 2 cents as an aunt to many nieces and nephews between the ages of 3 and 23 who spend a lot of time in my house.. In fact my 18 year old niece is with me after she finished her A'levels in the UK and will be here for the next month and then go back to start university. She's certainly not behaving badly in any way shape or form..and has been an amazing big sister and example to my young kids and a huge help to me. But then expectations were set from a young age
She lives in Spain. No we've never hosted anyone in our house before for longer than a weekend. I was foolish about not setting ground rules - I know. I just didnt think it through I guess which is my fault. I figured that she is 15 going on 16 and should know how to behave at this point plus I figured her parents would have schooled her on how to behave.
Sending her home would probably cause issues between my sister and I and I dont want that. Plus, before I got on this forum, I actually thought I was just being oversensitive as it seems everyone else was just laughing off her behavior... Of course, now looking back Im guessing other were laughing it off because they didnt know what else to do.
I know I totally failed by not saying something on the spot when those things were happening. I just thought its not my place to do that (im not her mom), didnt want to make her uncomfortable/unwelcome, wanted to be the cool aunt. But being the adult I now realize I have to do that.
Having done kinship foster of a female teen family member...I feel your pain. In this case, I would hold my breath for 2 weeks until she leaves. She is a guest, not family. If boundaries and expectations were going to come into play, it wouldn't be the last 2 weeks. I would tell your sister how it went, but maybe not a full vent about it.
A lot of people are coming down hard on you. She is 15, not 5 so parenting is very different. And she is a guest, not a child in the house. Dealing with teen girls is tough! Dealing with someone else's teen girl with boundary and entitlement issues is mega tough.
Just get through the 2 weeks best you can and file it as a lesson learned. Taking in someone else's teen kid is a bit like hell on earth.
Thank you for acknowledging that! It has been tough and I never expected it...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
) you stop the car, and tell her very firmly that she needs to stop that right now or we are going home. and follow through.
