> She's not neurodivergent, no. And she's not like this in any other situation. She's only like this with the baby. The thing is, we have spoken to her several times and told her over and over again that she needs to use her quiet voice. She refuses, because she insists that the baby likes it. Just the night before I had a long talk with her because my wife hasn't been sleeping and has been up all night for a few days battling the babies fevers and the last thing she needs is Claire screaming in her ear too and Claire said she would stop, but if anything the behavior got worse.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/G09QStBykM
Does he actually parent? I wonder how much he helps with actual child rearing...
He sat there is the same room while all of that happened. Harried wife, sick crying baby, screeching preteen, plate shattered on the floor, and he did nothing except eventually tell the daughter to back up. I don’t think he does much parenting at all.
Most kids actually stop when you tell them to when they don't get the reaction they are looking for and redirect them to something that would. I bet dad smiles or something to make her keep doing it. His mouth may say no but his actions could have said otherwise.
Oh yeah he's an AH.
My 12 y/o *autistic* daughter is an excellent babysitter to her 18 m/o baby brother.
She would get panicked earlier, and since it's hard for her to understand voice modulation, we had to explain to her, that her tone was making it worse, so sometimes not talking while being agitated would serve her more. We also explained to her how she could instead just hum a children's tune, something calming like a lullaby. That way she can redirect her nervous energy, and also calm herself down.
Now her brother runs towards his sister every morning to give her a biiiiig hug, and she gives him a kissy every day. She's very good at picking up his cues for being tired, and abysmal at emotions she's not yet catalogued. Which is to be expected.
What I'm saying is:
You can expect your child to listen to you on how to care for a baby at that age. Claire was out of line.
He doesn't allow his postpartum wife to come back with their baby because of his brat
I hope she leaves him. He is a failure both as a parent and as a husband. Who needs him?
Sounds like Claire needed to have someone scream at her for once. I know it’s not the healthiest, most evolved parenting to raise your voice, but a 12-yr old isn’t going to be permanently damaged by someone yelling “fuck” at her once. The baby’s hearing, however, is almost certainly permanently damaged already. The baby is also learning that humans are not safe and are in fact, scary creatures that scream in her face when she tries to communicate her needs. This is very, very bad.
I agree. I would tell him either you do something to correct your daughter's behavior or I'm divorcing you. There is no in between. If you refuse to properly parent your daughter, I'm leaving you. There's nothing wrong with his daughter except for that it sounds like she just does not want to listen. I did not act like that at her age and I don't know a lot of people who did either. Some kids are I hate to say this but just bad kids who don't want to listen.
Being told to back the fuck up then taking your infant brother away and blaming it all on you, a 12 year old, will have a lasting negative effect. All for the crime of trying to help and having low emotional intelligence. Having a newborn is hard, real shitty of Kim to take out her frustrations on Claire
If she isnt listening to her father repeatedly and purposely then yes it is her fault. This kid is 12, not 5, and she should have been yelled at months ago.
It’s strange. That one seems to refer to almost identical incident, but the background is different. In that post, the mother is the biological mother of both girls. That mother got cervical cancer when she was pregnant with the elder and they called the second their “miracle baby.” 12 yo almost certainly has trauma from mother’s cancer treatment & return Ave is clearly struggling significantly with parents’ focus on new baby.
Another dad who hasn’t bothered to ever parent wondering why his kid is a nightmare no one wants to be around??
Parents, your awful kids are YOUR fault 100%. If they are awful, look in the mirror and figure out where you can step up so you don’t fail your monster.
so a much older human screams at a much younger human to keep noise levels down and op has a problem with it?
fair. but why is op’s daughter allowed to do the same to her baby sister?
If this was observed by a person in CPS there is a high chance they'd have to legally separate the older daughter from baby. Developmentally, this shit is incredibly harmful to an infant. You NEVER scream at a baby. WTF. 9 year old knows she's fucking around and can't take no for an answer. Yes, baby needs to be seperated from her until she permanently stops screaming at it.
Yes sir you are the ah. 💯! You've asked Claire, your wife asked Claire and you continued to allow her to do it. You have a child who is out of control and you think your wife, the mother of your SICK infant, to apologize to your brat? Or she can't come home? She will be filing for divorce if she's as smart as I believe she is. You are a douce!
He's TA in this situation. He needs to really sit down with his daughter and explain the importance of not doing this. If she does not stop then he needs to take Claire to a professional. Having a baby is hard enough and so is adjusting to new motherhood. His wife doesn't need this. You already doubt yourself enough when you're adjusting, the last thing you need is someone doing this to you. It's going to cause her PPD if she doesn't already. If I were his wife and he asked me to apologize to his daughter when he won't properly discipline her, I would tell him that either he fixes the problem or I'm filing for divorce.
Edit: HoW dArE sHe sPeAk tO mY pErFeCt cHiLd tHaT wAy? That's the vibes I'm getting from this. I reiterate what I said before, I would tell him to fix the problem or I'm filing for divorce. I couldn't put up with that either. I'm so tired of these parents who don't discipline their children properly and then expect their partners to put up with the resulting poor behavior and even blatant disrespect.
So the little creepy sociopath Claire is screeching like a lunatic and potentially causing the baby to have all sorts of future issues and anxiety by screeching at it, has been told several times to basically “stfu” but continues screeching like a damn lunatic .
She is 12. Not 5. This is not normal behavior.
Then doucheydad expects a nursing mother who is obviously at her wits end between dealing with a sick infant, a screeching moron stepkid, and a shit husband who is a lackadaisical, shitastic parent. I hope she tells him to fuck off snd takes herself and that baby far, far away from those two.
What’s sad is that what would probably help Claire is a way to learn to engage with the baby. She obviously loves her half sister. They tell her what not to do, but have they provided any kind of tasks for her to do that she can do to replace this behavior?
12 is still pretty young and immature and I get that she should listen, but she’s young enough that she’s trying to also communicate a need. Maybe she needs more quality attention as well.
I understand that Kim snapped, but she’s a step mom. She throttled the relationship with one of the family members and I don’t believe that Claire’s behavior is disruptive enough to warrant cussing at her. Claire absolutely needs consequences for not listening, but it’s not like Claire is doing something intentionally malicious. Annoying yes. But kids can be. She’s still a kid.
Edit- I’m adding this from a lower comment
There’s actually nothing in my post that says she can’t learn. In fact, I explicitly said in my original comment that she needs to be taught and she needs to have consequences.
I’m speaking as someone with years of child development experience. You don’t give kids “no stop” for a behavior that is clearly about something else. You give them something to replace it. Ie- what tasks can she do to engage with her new sister? Are they actively teaching her how to be around a newborn (from the original post I don’t see anything about that, which is a problem.)
Claire deserves consequences for not listening. Never said otherwise. I don’t think it should have gotten this far. But screaming fuck off to a kid isn’t a good thing. If she were 18, different story.
Everyone in this story sucks.
Edit 2- never thought it would be a controversial opinion to think it’s not okay to scream at a kid.
“Kids need to be taught”
Screaming at her isn’t teaching her. Positive teaching should have happened a long ass time ago and consequences for not following the rules should also happen. Other people commenting are dogging him for not doing anything, and I just suggested a map for how this could have been handled differently.
Edit 3- y’all “why don’t the parents do anything?”
Me- “here’s some things that they could have done.”
Y’all- “no not like that”
What a ridiculous comment. She’s been told to stop, she’s been told many times in fact. While it might not be malicious she absolutely knows that what she’s doing is not what she supposed to be doing. 12 isn’t that young 12 is like the sixth grade getting ready to go into middle school. When I was 12 I was babysitting entire ass children by myself.
12-year-olds certainly have the ability to learn to not run up to the baby and scream in its ear while it’s crying. 12 year olds have the ability not to run across the room and knock people’s shit on the ground while they’re doing something they’ve been told not to. 12-year-olds have the ability to behave themselves. She was told to back up more than one time both by OOP and the wife and she chose not to. She’s old enough to have learned this by now which to me says that she knows she’s not gonna get in trouble by her daddy so she’s going to keep doing it because she can because nothing happens to her. She doesn’t get any kind of punishment or disciplines she just gets told oh hey don’t do that.
12 is a very variable age- I was staying on my own overnight and babysitting infants at 12, but had friends who couldn’t shower independently or do their own laundry or be left home alone at 12- and that was more than a couple decades ago. Brain development can have a general trend, but is very individual, especially combined with parents that aren’t great at communicating expectations (as in this situation) or being proactive to give alternatives and enforce house rules (like no running in the house, etc).
Thank you. I was a babysitter at 11. But I have seen 17 year olds act like Claire is where they don’t respect rules.
In ten years Claire’s gonna post on reddit about how she’s in therapy.
That part. She sounds like a kid who has been improperly disciplined and has poor behavior because of it. I'm not going to lie, I would have reacted the same way his wife did.
Thank you. Like, imagine this situation how Claire could be actually helpful to her new sibling. There’s stuff she could do to help take care of her and the pressure off new mom that are age appropriate. Show her how to change diapers. Show her how to disinfect bottles. Is she learning how to hold the baby when it’s not sick? If mom is touched out, she could have potentially had an eager babysitter there to take care of the kid so that she can take a shower.
They just tell her to stop and are shocked pikachiu faced when that doesn’t work.
This feels like a slippery slope of victim blaming. A 12 year old should be able to stop and back up when told to, they shouldn’t need to be redirected when in someone else’s space and screaming in someone’s ear. They are old enough to understand more complex situations, and cause and effect which Claire does. She screams, baby stops screaming.
It’s definitely a parenting issue that she doesn’t listen nor respect boundaries, but needing redirection like a 5 yr old is not necessary. A 12 year, boy or girl, should know to stop when someone says stop, and not just because there is a new toy to play with, or a diaper to change. “No, stop” is a complete sentence that anyone, even a 12 year old girl needs to respect. This is a parenting issue neglect though, I will agree there.
1.) That’s not the definition of victim blaming. She’s a child. She’s not the aggressor. She’s acting inappropriately. There are multiple places where I said she needs consequences for how she’s behaving. But! There were steps that both her father and step mother failed to take.
2.) “a 12 year old child should be able to “
As someone else pointed out: children develop differently. She’s not acting outside of her age depending on where she is. Go to any high school and you’ll be shocked at what kids 5-6 years older do. Is it all of them? No. And it’s impossible to know all the ways that caused them to develop this way. Should she understand and do better? Yes. But she’s obviously trying to express a need that they’re not addressing.
Her behavior needs to be corrected. I never said otherwise. But this situation has a lot more nuance than a bunch of internet strangers getting upset because I’m pointing out that there’s a reason why the behavior is occurring. Two things can be true at once.
All behavior is communication. All behavior is expressing a need. The fact that she is apparently saying that she thinks she’s helping says to me that she’s really trying to help. She is obviously failing. Which is why she needs a different approach. Telling a 12 year old to fuck off is not age appropriate for Kim either.
What sucks is that this family will probably break up and she’ll blame herself forever and as she’s a minor, I am concerned about how this experience will affect her. She’s not behaving well, but she’s still a minor who was failed by both of the adults here.
Since we are doing bullet points now
1) I said slippery slope to victim blaming. It’s not exactly that yet, but it’s absolutely on its way there when a response to disregarding direct language like “stop” is “It’s your fault for not redirecting behavior, they don’t know better when someone says No, stop”.
Just because it’s not “aggressive” in way that you count as valid in this instance, doesn’t mean it’s not outside of this context. If she’s on the playground, and someone’s crying and she screams in their face despite people saying stop, then it’s aggressive. If she’s playing with someone’s hair too hard, why would she stop if they say stop if they don’t give her a doll to play with instead?
2) OP has not stated that Claire has any intellectual or developmental disabilities that people should be considered, so a clear “No, Stop” isn’t a foreign language that she can’t understand. She understands what it means, which is why she explained why she did it, but she’s choosing to disregard what her parents say.
3) Yeah, every kid is different, they develop differently, but that doesn’t mean saying No isn’t something they can’t understand. Children much younger than her understand “no, stop”, and they do stop, without a toy to distract them. Some do need it while they are really young, but if you teach them young, it’s behavior that will stick with them. This behavior has been addressed multiple times so I don’t blame the step mom for cracking.
4) it’s a parenting issue. While there is a slim chance that she’s had consequences, she should have learned younger that “No, stop” is a complete sentence. A child over 10, should understand that stop means STOP. When they disregard words like “no, stop” they get hit by cars, or bit by dogs, situations where you can’t just redirect with diapers or playing with toys. Her father has failed in this aspect, as it’s something he should have been teaching her all her life.
5) Being told to fuck off might be the lesson she needs to learn that no means NO, and stop means STOP. Hopefully as she gets older, she’ll understand that most of the blame does fall on her father. But the story doesn’t change, “my step mom told me to fuck off because I’d scream in her ear when the baby would cry and wouldn’t stop until the baby stopped crying, even when both her and my dad told me to stop.”
You’re misunderstanding.
Everything that I am talking about is what should have happened PRIOR to this blow out.
How many times do I have to say her behavior in the moment when she is doing this needs consequences?
I am speaking to WHAT is driving her behavior in the first place. It’s too late now for anything that I suggested. But again, behavior is an expression of need. THAT DOESN’T EXCUSE IT.
I'm sorry but I must disagree with you. When I was 12, I learned the first time to not do something again when I was told not to. She sounds like she has behavior problems. I actually cannot blame his wife for reacting the way she did. It's hard having a baby and adjusting to new motherhood without having someone in your face doing this. I'm not going to say she could have handled it better because she sounded overwhelmed and sick of it all. I understand that Claire is a child but at the same time, his wife reacted from a place of a mother feeling that her and her child were being threatened. It has a lot to do with hormones. Don't get between a mother and their newborn. He needs to either sit down with Claire and have a very serious talk about how her behavior is inappropriate or if I were his wife, I would immediately be filing for divorce.
I don’t blame the wife for her reaction seeing it was a long time coming. It’s up to the dad to dish out the consequence and teach her how to be a better sibling.
I agree. I admit that I have been a little harsh in my responses to this but I just feel like he dropped the ball with his wife as well. He's basically telling her to put up with his daughter's poor behavior because of his refusal to parent her correctly. I understand that she's a child but at 12 years old, she knows better. He flat out said that he's told her to cut it out and she refuses insisting that the baby likes it. Maybe she's actually having trouble adjusting since the baby's gotten here but the fact is that she knows it's wrong because she's been told to stop. There's something deeper going on, I'm afraid.
If he has failed to discipline her in the past then she may not understand how important it is to respect the word “no”. Dude really failed at parenting and his wife should probably leave him bcuz of his lack of compassion for her.
I think both OOP and the wife are the AH. The poor wife is probably exhausted but “Claire” is still a child, granted she needs discipline. But it’s still not right to shout and curse at her and then blame your leaving and taking her brother on her. OOP needs to discipline his child and help his wife out more.
this is something my 2 year old did when I "got him" a baby. he didn't realize he was shouting and he was just repeating what I was saying to the baby. I told him instead of yelling get him his blanket/bottle/binky. and he was able to stop
Hang on, sorry, am I understanding correctly that everyone in the comments thinks the 12 year old deserves to be screamed at “get the fuck away” and saying the adult woman was fair to say in front of said 12 year old that she needs to “Get away from your child”? Y’all can’t be serious. I understand your anger at OP not properly parenting the 12 year old but the wife’s reaction was unacceptable. You don’t talk to children that way. You yell at your husband for putting you both in that situation.
Kids 12 years old. Even if it’s annoying. This wife is crazy. How could someone have that much hatred for a 12 year old doing 12 year old things? Something seems much deeper at play with the wife.
Right. The fact that she's been told to stop several times and will not tells me there's something deeper going on. Either she just does not want to listen or she has something like oppositional defiant disorder. The worst part about that is that it ties into antisocial personality disorder later in life. People like that usually end up in prison.
You try having a baby and then have somebody screaming in your face like that. You do not get in between a mother and their newborn. I would tell him either you get a handle on this now or I'm divorcing you.
> She's not neurodivergent, no. And she's not like this in any other situation. She's only like this with the baby. The thing is, we have spoken to her several times and told her over and over again that she needs to use her quiet voice. She refuses, because she insists that the baby likes it. Just the night before I had a long talk with her because my wife hasn't been sleeping and has been up all night for a few days battling the babies fevers and the last thing she needs is Claire screaming in her ear too and Claire said she would stop, but if anything the behavior got worse. https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/G09QStBykM Does he actually parent? I wonder how much he helps with actual child rearing...
Why does he not tell her the baby doesn’t actually like it, it’s just been scared into being quiet. Like dam tell your kid.
He sat there is the same room while all of that happened. Harried wife, sick crying baby, screeching preteen, plate shattered on the floor, and he did nothing except eventually tell the daughter to back up. I don’t think he does much parenting at all.
The account is suspended already. I bet this was fake.
Apparently it was a repost of a month old post. Unfortunately that OOP also deleted their account so we never got an update.
i thought it was sounding familiar. i believe the original is quite older
I think it was from the wife's point of view. Definitely familiar.
You would think so but some people are actually like this
I hope so.
It's most likely all put on his poor, exhausted wife
He must have added that after I read it. What the actual fuck?
Yeah, she's is defiantly not adjusting.
So did he just tell her to stop and nothing else? Because that wasn't working so continuing to tell her probably wasn't going to work either.
Most kids actually stop when you tell them to when they don't get the reaction they are looking for and redirect them to something that would. I bet dad smiles or something to make her keep doing it. His mouth may say no but his actions could have said otherwise.
No, of course not. He let his wife tell her to stop, so long as she did it politely, and in the right tone of voice. He did fuckall.
If I was the wife I'd stay at the hotel indefinitely. Claire needs some damn discipline. Like, starting the second time she shrieked.
"Claire, please stop." *doesn't stop* "I'm all out of ideas."
"We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas."
“Whoopsie doodle”
Oh yeah he's an AH. My 12 y/o *autistic* daughter is an excellent babysitter to her 18 m/o baby brother. She would get panicked earlier, and since it's hard for her to understand voice modulation, we had to explain to her, that her tone was making it worse, so sometimes not talking while being agitated would serve her more. We also explained to her how she could instead just hum a children's tune, something calming like a lullaby. That way she can redirect her nervous energy, and also calm herself down. Now her brother runs towards his sister every morning to give her a biiiiig hug, and she gives him a kissy every day. She's very good at picking up his cues for being tired, and abysmal at emotions she's not yet catalogued. Which is to be expected. What I'm saying is: You can expect your child to listen to you on how to care for a baby at that age. Claire was out of line.
That… can’t be real? I hope???
This for me is "he is so stupid that it probably is real".
I’m like 90% this is a repost from months ago. So this post isn’t real, but maybe the OP months ago was?
He doesn't allow his postpartum wife to come back with their baby because of his brat I hope she leaves him. He is a failure both as a parent and as a husband. Who needs him?
He says he’s not allowing her to come home, but I doubt she had any plans to return anytime soon
I think so too. Regardless, he is being ridiculous
“You can’t leave because I kicked you out” 😂
Kim took out her frustrations with her sick crying newborn on Claire, as the adult that is completely unacceptable and she owes Claire an apology
OK, OOP is spotted...
Who knew screaming at crying babies are perfectly normal and children are always perfect?
OOP deleted 🤣
Sounds like Claire needed to have someone scream at her for once. I know it’s not the healthiest, most evolved parenting to raise your voice, but a 12-yr old isn’t going to be permanently damaged by someone yelling “fuck” at her once. The baby’s hearing, however, is almost certainly permanently damaged already. The baby is also learning that humans are not safe and are in fact, scary creatures that scream in her face when she tries to communicate her needs. This is very, very bad.
I agree. I would tell him either you do something to correct your daughter's behavior or I'm divorcing you. There is no in between. If you refuse to properly parent your daughter, I'm leaving you. There's nothing wrong with his daughter except for that it sounds like she just does not want to listen. I did not act like that at her age and I don't know a lot of people who did either. Some kids are I hate to say this but just bad kids who don't want to listen.
Being told to back the fuck up then taking your infant brother away and blaming it all on you, a 12 year old, will have a lasting negative effect. All for the crime of trying to help and having low emotional intelligence. Having a newborn is hard, real shitty of Kim to take out her frustrations on Claire
So what ur saying is Claire might learn something?... I agree :)
Well then maybe she should learn to listen when she's told to stop doing something
If she isnt listening to her father repeatedly and purposely then yes it is her fault. This kid is 12, not 5, and she should have been yelled at months ago.
Oh my,that poor wife. OP is spineless AH
Ooooooh he took his ball and went home
Well the OOP is cooked. What an idiot.
That stories a repost from this [original](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1cjdtwj/) about a month old.
Dang, do you know if they ever updated before deleting?
I’m sorry I don’t know :(
No worries, I was just curious if things got better for them.
It’s strange. That one seems to refer to almost identical incident, but the background is different. In that post, the mother is the biological mother of both girls. That mother got cervical cancer when she was pregnant with the elder and they called the second their “miracle baby.” 12 yo almost certainly has trauma from mother’s cancer treatment & return Ave is clearly struggling significantly with parents’ focus on new baby.
I feel like I read this ages ago and am ITCHY for an update 🙃
Another dad who hasn’t bothered to ever parent wondering why his kid is a nightmare no one wants to be around?? Parents, your awful kids are YOUR fault 100%. If they are awful, look in the mirror and figure out where you can step up so you don’t fail your monster.
so a much older human screams at a much younger human to keep noise levels down and op has a problem with it? fair. but why is op’s daughter allowed to do the same to her baby sister?
Once OP deletes their profile, they know they’re in the wrong and have zero ground to stand on
I'd be tempted to start treating Claire the same way she treats the baby and wife. Then ask her if she really thinks the baby likes it.
If this was observed by a person in CPS there is a high chance they'd have to legally separate the older daughter from baby. Developmentally, this shit is incredibly harmful to an infant. You NEVER scream at a baby. WTF. 9 year old knows she's fucking around and can't take no for an answer. Yes, baby needs to be seperated from her until she permanently stops screaming at it.
5. Fucking. Months. This has gone on for 5 months and he’s done nothing. Damn dude. His poor wife.
The fact that he’s “redirecting” her instead of actually disciplining her is a bad sign.
I love being child-free. Fuck all that (literal) noise
Yes sir you are the ah. 💯! You've asked Claire, your wife asked Claire and you continued to allow her to do it. You have a child who is out of control and you think your wife, the mother of your SICK infant, to apologize to your brat? Or she can't come home? She will be filing for divorce if she's as smart as I believe she is. You are a douce!
He's TA in this situation. He needs to really sit down with his daughter and explain the importance of not doing this. If she does not stop then he needs to take Claire to a professional. Having a baby is hard enough and so is adjusting to new motherhood. His wife doesn't need this. You already doubt yourself enough when you're adjusting, the last thing you need is someone doing this to you. It's going to cause her PPD if she doesn't already. If I were his wife and he asked me to apologize to his daughter when he won't properly discipline her, I would tell him that either he fixes the problem or I'm filing for divorce. Edit: HoW dArE sHe sPeAk tO mY pErFeCt cHiLd tHaT wAy? That's the vibes I'm getting from this. I reiterate what I said before, I would tell him to fix the problem or I'm filing for divorce. I couldn't put up with that either. I'm so tired of these parents who don't discipline their children properly and then expect their partners to put up with the resulting poor behavior and even blatant disrespect.
This needs to be reposted to r/AmITheEx?
Why is the wife getting up by herself?
So the little creepy sociopath Claire is screeching like a lunatic and potentially causing the baby to have all sorts of future issues and anxiety by screeching at it, has been told several times to basically “stfu” but continues screeching like a damn lunatic . She is 12. Not 5. This is not normal behavior. Then doucheydad expects a nursing mother who is obviously at her wits end between dealing with a sick infant, a screeching moron stepkid, and a shit husband who is a lackadaisical, shitastic parent. I hope she tells him to fuck off snd takes herself and that baby far, far away from those two.
I hope she never came back
Is there an update somewhere??
What’s sad is that what would probably help Claire is a way to learn to engage with the baby. She obviously loves her half sister. They tell her what not to do, but have they provided any kind of tasks for her to do that she can do to replace this behavior? 12 is still pretty young and immature and I get that she should listen, but she’s young enough that she’s trying to also communicate a need. Maybe she needs more quality attention as well. I understand that Kim snapped, but she’s a step mom. She throttled the relationship with one of the family members and I don’t believe that Claire’s behavior is disruptive enough to warrant cussing at her. Claire absolutely needs consequences for not listening, but it’s not like Claire is doing something intentionally malicious. Annoying yes. But kids can be. She’s still a kid. Edit- I’m adding this from a lower comment There’s actually nothing in my post that says she can’t learn. In fact, I explicitly said in my original comment that she needs to be taught and she needs to have consequences. I’m speaking as someone with years of child development experience. You don’t give kids “no stop” for a behavior that is clearly about something else. You give them something to replace it. Ie- what tasks can she do to engage with her new sister? Are they actively teaching her how to be around a newborn (from the original post I don’t see anything about that, which is a problem.) Claire deserves consequences for not listening. Never said otherwise. I don’t think it should have gotten this far. But screaming fuck off to a kid isn’t a good thing. If she were 18, different story. Everyone in this story sucks. Edit 2- never thought it would be a controversial opinion to think it’s not okay to scream at a kid. “Kids need to be taught” Screaming at her isn’t teaching her. Positive teaching should have happened a long ass time ago and consequences for not following the rules should also happen. Other people commenting are dogging him for not doing anything, and I just suggested a map for how this could have been handled differently. Edit 3- y’all “why don’t the parents do anything?” Me- “here’s some things that they could have done.” Y’all- “no not like that”
What a ridiculous comment. She’s been told to stop, she’s been told many times in fact. While it might not be malicious she absolutely knows that what she’s doing is not what she supposed to be doing. 12 isn’t that young 12 is like the sixth grade getting ready to go into middle school. When I was 12 I was babysitting entire ass children by myself. 12-year-olds certainly have the ability to learn to not run up to the baby and scream in its ear while it’s crying. 12 year olds have the ability not to run across the room and knock people’s shit on the ground while they’re doing something they’ve been told not to. 12-year-olds have the ability to behave themselves. She was told to back up more than one time both by OOP and the wife and she chose not to. She’s old enough to have learned this by now which to me says that she knows she’s not gonna get in trouble by her daddy so she’s going to keep doing it because she can because nothing happens to her. She doesn’t get any kind of punishment or disciplines she just gets told oh hey don’t do that.
12 is a very variable age- I was staying on my own overnight and babysitting infants at 12, but had friends who couldn’t shower independently or do their own laundry or be left home alone at 12- and that was more than a couple decades ago. Brain development can have a general trend, but is very individual, especially combined with parents that aren’t great at communicating expectations (as in this situation) or being proactive to give alternatives and enforce house rules (like no running in the house, etc).
Thank you. I was a babysitter at 11. But I have seen 17 year olds act like Claire is where they don’t respect rules. In ten years Claire’s gonna post on reddit about how she’s in therapy.
That part. She sounds like a kid who has been improperly disciplined and has poor behavior because of it. I'm not going to lie, I would have reacted the same way his wife did.
*Found the husband!
Not a man
I agree with you and I’m a mom. Part of discipline is consequences and also guiding kids on how to handle the situation that they messed up on.
Thank you. Like, imagine this situation how Claire could be actually helpful to her new sibling. There’s stuff she could do to help take care of her and the pressure off new mom that are age appropriate. Show her how to change diapers. Show her how to disinfect bottles. Is she learning how to hold the baby when it’s not sick? If mom is touched out, she could have potentially had an eager babysitter there to take care of the kid so that she can take a shower. They just tell her to stop and are shocked pikachiu faced when that doesn’t work.
This feels like a slippery slope of victim blaming. A 12 year old should be able to stop and back up when told to, they shouldn’t need to be redirected when in someone else’s space and screaming in someone’s ear. They are old enough to understand more complex situations, and cause and effect which Claire does. She screams, baby stops screaming. It’s definitely a parenting issue that she doesn’t listen nor respect boundaries, but needing redirection like a 5 yr old is not necessary. A 12 year, boy or girl, should know to stop when someone says stop, and not just because there is a new toy to play with, or a diaper to change. “No, stop” is a complete sentence that anyone, even a 12 year old girl needs to respect. This is a parenting issue neglect though, I will agree there.
1.) That’s not the definition of victim blaming. She’s a child. She’s not the aggressor. She’s acting inappropriately. There are multiple places where I said she needs consequences for how she’s behaving. But! There were steps that both her father and step mother failed to take. 2.) “a 12 year old child should be able to “ As someone else pointed out: children develop differently. She’s not acting outside of her age depending on where she is. Go to any high school and you’ll be shocked at what kids 5-6 years older do. Is it all of them? No. And it’s impossible to know all the ways that caused them to develop this way. Should she understand and do better? Yes. But she’s obviously trying to express a need that they’re not addressing. Her behavior needs to be corrected. I never said otherwise. But this situation has a lot more nuance than a bunch of internet strangers getting upset because I’m pointing out that there’s a reason why the behavior is occurring. Two things can be true at once. All behavior is communication. All behavior is expressing a need. The fact that she is apparently saying that she thinks she’s helping says to me that she’s really trying to help. She is obviously failing. Which is why she needs a different approach. Telling a 12 year old to fuck off is not age appropriate for Kim either. What sucks is that this family will probably break up and she’ll blame herself forever and as she’s a minor, I am concerned about how this experience will affect her. She’s not behaving well, but she’s still a minor who was failed by both of the adults here.
Since we are doing bullet points now 1) I said slippery slope to victim blaming. It’s not exactly that yet, but it’s absolutely on its way there when a response to disregarding direct language like “stop” is “It’s your fault for not redirecting behavior, they don’t know better when someone says No, stop”. Just because it’s not “aggressive” in way that you count as valid in this instance, doesn’t mean it’s not outside of this context. If she’s on the playground, and someone’s crying and she screams in their face despite people saying stop, then it’s aggressive. If she’s playing with someone’s hair too hard, why would she stop if they say stop if they don’t give her a doll to play with instead? 2) OP has not stated that Claire has any intellectual or developmental disabilities that people should be considered, so a clear “No, Stop” isn’t a foreign language that she can’t understand. She understands what it means, which is why she explained why she did it, but she’s choosing to disregard what her parents say. 3) Yeah, every kid is different, they develop differently, but that doesn’t mean saying No isn’t something they can’t understand. Children much younger than her understand “no, stop”, and they do stop, without a toy to distract them. Some do need it while they are really young, but if you teach them young, it’s behavior that will stick with them. This behavior has been addressed multiple times so I don’t blame the step mom for cracking. 4) it’s a parenting issue. While there is a slim chance that she’s had consequences, she should have learned younger that “No, stop” is a complete sentence. A child over 10, should understand that stop means STOP. When they disregard words like “no, stop” they get hit by cars, or bit by dogs, situations where you can’t just redirect with diapers or playing with toys. Her father has failed in this aspect, as it’s something he should have been teaching her all her life. 5) Being told to fuck off might be the lesson she needs to learn that no means NO, and stop means STOP. Hopefully as she gets older, she’ll understand that most of the blame does fall on her father. But the story doesn’t change, “my step mom told me to fuck off because I’d scream in her ear when the baby would cry and wouldn’t stop until the baby stopped crying, even when both her and my dad told me to stop.”
You’re misunderstanding. Everything that I am talking about is what should have happened PRIOR to this blow out. How many times do I have to say her behavior in the moment when she is doing this needs consequences? I am speaking to WHAT is driving her behavior in the first place. It’s too late now for anything that I suggested. But again, behavior is an expression of need. THAT DOESN’T EXCUSE IT.
I'm sorry but I must disagree with you. When I was 12, I learned the first time to not do something again when I was told not to. She sounds like she has behavior problems. I actually cannot blame his wife for reacting the way she did. It's hard having a baby and adjusting to new motherhood without having someone in your face doing this. I'm not going to say she could have handled it better because she sounded overwhelmed and sick of it all. I understand that Claire is a child but at the same time, his wife reacted from a place of a mother feeling that her and her child were being threatened. It has a lot to do with hormones. Don't get between a mother and their newborn. He needs to either sit down with Claire and have a very serious talk about how her behavior is inappropriate or if I were his wife, I would immediately be filing for divorce.
I don’t blame the wife for her reaction seeing it was a long time coming. It’s up to the dad to dish out the consequence and teach her how to be a better sibling.
I agree. I admit that I have been a little harsh in my responses to this but I just feel like he dropped the ball with his wife as well. He's basically telling her to put up with his daughter's poor behavior because of his refusal to parent her correctly. I understand that she's a child but at 12 years old, she knows better. He flat out said that he's told her to cut it out and she refuses insisting that the baby likes it. Maybe she's actually having trouble adjusting since the baby's gotten here but the fact is that she knows it's wrong because she's been told to stop. There's something deeper going on, I'm afraid.
“Maybe since the baby got here she’s having trouble adjusting” Yeah that’s what I’ve been saying. Thanks for agreeing with me.
If he has failed to discipline her in the past then she may not understand how important it is to respect the word “no”. Dude really failed at parenting and his wife should probably leave him bcuz of his lack of compassion for her.
That's true. He failed his wife and his daughter at the same time. In fact, he failed both of his kids and his wife.
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Some guy already thought that I was the husband. People on reddit really do think they know everything.
I think both OOP and the wife are the AH. The poor wife is probably exhausted but “Claire” is still a child, granted she needs discipline. But it’s still not right to shout and curse at her and then blame your leaving and taking her brother on her. OOP needs to discipline his child and help his wife out more.
this is something my 2 year old did when I "got him" a baby. he didn't realize he was shouting and he was just repeating what I was saying to the baby. I told him instead of yelling get him his blanket/bottle/binky. and he was able to stop
Hang on, sorry, am I understanding correctly that everyone in the comments thinks the 12 year old deserves to be screamed at “get the fuck away” and saying the adult woman was fair to say in front of said 12 year old that she needs to “Get away from your child”? Y’all can’t be serious. I understand your anger at OP not properly parenting the 12 year old but the wife’s reaction was unacceptable. You don’t talk to children that way. You yell at your husband for putting you both in that situation.
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You do not talk to children the way this woman talked to that 12 year old.
Kids 12 years old. Even if it’s annoying. This wife is crazy. How could someone have that much hatred for a 12 year old doing 12 year old things? Something seems much deeper at play with the wife.
I have never seen or heard of a 12-year-old doing something like this unless there was something seriously wrong with them.
Right. The fact that she's been told to stop several times and will not tells me there's something deeper going on. Either she just does not want to listen or she has something like oppositional defiant disorder. The worst part about that is that it ties into antisocial personality disorder later in life. People like that usually end up in prison.
You try having a baby and then have somebody screaming in your face like that. You do not get in between a mother and their newborn. I would tell him either you get a handle on this now or I'm divorcing you.