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Author Topic: I think uBPDbm called CPS on us ...(yet again)  (Read 406 times)
Thunderstruck
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« on: January 07, 2016, 10:55:34 AM »

SD10 has been acting out at school and at home with us (uBPDbm claims SD10 does not act out at her house). SD10s teacher says that her behavior is getting in the way of her learning (she will be defiant when given instructions, argue with the teacher, roll her eyes, put her head on her desk, etc). She is getting written up about once a week. With us SD10 will scream and cry, yell hateful things, throw tantrums, slam doors. Math homework is usually a big trigger for her. She gets frustrated and just blaaaaaaahhhhh. After one of these episodes she will go to uBPDbm and blame us, calling us mean and abusive. uBPDbm just eats that up, of course.

We are completely frustrated. We try to give SD10 structure and discipline. When she's at uBPDbm's, she's mostly left home alone. There are no set boundaries. It makes us feel like we have to parent twice as hard. We've gotten much more strict at home until SD10s behavior improves both here and at school.

The other night DH picked SD10 up from school, and uBPDbm had woken her up at 3am to take her older sister to the airport before school. SD10 was completely exhausted, so a meltdown was an almost guarantee. We didn't even make it through dinner. SD10 had three bites of food left and was complaining that she was full (of course not too full for dessert   ). We told her to finish her dinner (that is the rule at our house), she refused. Then it turned into a big blow up. SD10 was crying that we were "forcing" her to eat when she was full, that we were a "fat farm", and that we were abusing her. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. At one point I held a fork full of food up to her mouth and she slapped it away. Her punishment was she had to pick it all up after she finished (and it was rice, so there was a lot to pick up).

After all that we couldn't even try to do homework! She was too worked up and tired to even try. We sent her to bed. Woke her up early to finish her math. She was still tired and started acting out again. I guess you could say DH grabbed her behind her ears and held her head so she looked at him while he said calm down, this behavior is unacceptable. It definitely startled her, but didn't hurt her. After that she actually calmed down and did really well learning her math. That was the most cooperative I've seen her in months!

Yesterday (not minutes after uBPDbm picked SD10 up from aftercare) we got a message that said "you do know what you did was abuse?". So I'm guessing uBPDbm is going to use this as an excuse to escalate conflict and call CPS on us. She'll probably use the grabbing of the head and the force feeding as the reasoning.

I am a wreck over this. It has me going over and over what happened and wondering if we crossed a line? I will freely admit that I am strict and stern, but abusive? With words like "forced" and "grabbed", it makes us sound like we are!

uBPDbm is downward spiraling lately. She lost her job, lost her new boyfriend, her phone was shut off, and it sounds like she might be getting evicted from her new apartment. This isn't the first time she has used one of these conflicts at our house to call CPS or the CE and claim abuse.
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« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2016, 08:35:48 PM »

My ex called CPS on me years ago. They called me and I talked to a woman on the phone. She asked a few questions and I answered them truthfully. They were nothing out of the ordinary. I then asked her to hold on. I opened my emails and read a few from ex and my responses. After about three she said she had enough information and was going to close the case. I then offered for her to come to my house. I also offered to print out some emails for her. She declined.

Your post doesn't indicate anything alarming to me. Our youngest was a handful when my ex first ran away. She took them with her and we went through the custody battle in court. During that time she used alienation tactics against me with the kids. The thing that I learned was to stay as calm as possible with the kids and also as consistent as possible. That took me thinking about how to respond to situations that already happened. Would I do the same thing or would I have done it differently. If I would have done it differently I changed that behavior. After several months I became a rock for them. They knew what to expect and slowly they responded in more positive ways.

Transitions were a nightmare in the beginning. They would act out for 45 minutes or more. I let them vent but had a limit. They eventually stopped acting out altogether. That was in 2007/2008. Sometimes when I pick them up now they need to vent but it is much calmer and shorter.

For dinner I used to tell them it was okay to not eat their dinner and I would save it for them for when they were hungry. I would put it in the frig and microwave it later. That only happened a few times and stopped.

Our youngest used to say I was evil. He was around 5 at the time. This went on for a few months. I used to tell him that I loved him and left it at that. Finally one day he said I was evil and I stood up and put my arms out like Frankenstein. I chased him around the house and he loved it. After that incident he liked to ask me to be the evil daddy monster and never once said I was evil in any other way.

I can't imagine what our boys went through when they were so stressed because of the situation their mom put them in. I realized they didn't have enough tools to handle any way but the way they knew. Finding ways to deflect/defuse/change the pattern is not always easy but it has helped me and my relationship with our two boys. I honestly think my ex helped me with that by her actions.
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« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2016, 10:26:38 PM »

What a coincidence! BPDm is broke and homeless with no one and if SD10 is hers 100% she would provide all the aforementioned resources.

I would point this out loud and often, it is my personal opinion that BPD people are very opportunistic. This seems like nothing more than that. I would not under any circumstances give BPDm any room to make this into something. Time to circle the wagons.

And seriously, call that CE

I feel so bad for you guys, this is taking forever, and jobless homeless BPDm can't be much of a adversary unless she's making up stories (like abuse).

Stay the course, I truly believe that right wins out in the end. Here's a hug and a prayer 
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« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2016, 12:49:31 AM »

Though it must cause no small amount of anxiety to think that her mom might call CPS on you, the things that stod out for me are:

She obeyed you picking up the rice, and she calmed down when her father enforced a clear boundary. To me, this sounds hopefull. Before I was a parent, I really didn't understand the one, "kids desire discipline, even if they don't seem to at the time, because it shows that you care."

Personally? I would have sent her to bed without dinner, taking her words at face value. However, this would probably be wrong. It probably wasn't about the food, but the attention (parenting).
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« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2016, 01:42:14 PM »

So first, in my experience with this (I did volunteer work for parents who struggled when it came to abuse and neglect), there is a pretty clear (and achievable) standard that parents need to reach. (i.e. in my state, corporal punishment is legal, but you can't leave a mark) It doesn't hurt to look up the standards, know what you're dealing with.

I tend to look at these situations pragmatically. Was I within the set parameters?

If the answer is "yes" then you go from there.

However, when you are dealing with a person who suffers from a personality disorder and who you are in high conflict with - there is a different set of issues. Situations will be exaggerated. Communication is poor. Responses will be scrutinized. There is no room for error.

For me, as a stepmom with a disordered mom involved, I tread so much lighter when it comes to my parenting style with the kids. For the reasons I stated before and because I know that my SDs will struggle when it comes to being invalidated. (A person with BPD struggles profoundly when it comes to their children having separate feelings) Therefore a child will struggle in finding their voice a lot of the time.

Force feeding a child who saying she is full is pretty invalidating to the child. (Not a judgment, just a statement) It also is a place where she can learn the natural consequences of her decisions if she is being defiant. Like Turkish said, being sent to her room without dinner (or desert) would bring on hunger later. I'd box up the leftovers and offer that when she comes asking for food. Letting her know that dessert is a treat after dinner is finished.

If she was calling my house a fat farm, I'd ask for different words to express her frustration because those are hurtful.

It's also important to understand that parenting isn't universal and it isn't a perfect fit for each child. A defiant child is tough. Throwing our own temper tantrums doesn't help --- and helping them learn new skills in how to calm themselves down can really help in these really highly contentious and high anxiety situations. It sounds like your SD really seems to suffer the most when she's tired (ME TOO). If she needs sleep more then she needs to do her homework, then she might benefit learning the consequence of picking one over the other.  

For me, a good course of defense is the best offense --- would you consider a parenting coach? That way you'd have help and a good defense if mom keeps wanting to push CPS intervention.

It's the best thing I ever did for myself as a mom and stepmom.  
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« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2016, 02:21:33 PM »

The rule in our house is to finish your dinner. It has been for years and she knows this. It's only when she doesn't like something we make that she ever complains she's "too full" to eat.

We might have given her more leniency (aka sent her to bed) if she wasn't having trouble being defiant in school. As I said, we've gotten more strict in our house. Maybe she's pushing boundaries now. I don't know.

Or maybe this was her way of letting out all her emotions from the emotional roller coaster of a winter break (returning back to school and being unhappy about it, plus not being in a good mindset for school - completely tired).

I can tell you, validating her when she's in the throes of a meltdown will do zilch. She shuts down and won't listen to a single word. That's why DH held her head to begin with. So she would focus her attention on him trying to calm her down. We usually save our conversation about the situation for afterwards when she is more inclined to listen. (But we didn't get to do it this time, because she went right back to her mom's).

I peeked on over at the Parenting a child with BPD board, and I'm worried that these behaviors that I thought were  PD traits are becoming ingrained in her personality. We need to get her into therapy, and I mean STAT. But of course, we're still waiting for the results of the CE to see how we can do that... .
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« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2016, 02:29:29 PM »

You seem pretty set in your parenting style.

If you are firm and believe strongly in them then defending them to CPS should they intervene shouldn't be too problematic.  Doing the right thing (click to insert in post)

Here's the thing for me... .

I can't imagine how difficult it must be for your stepdaughter right now in the throws of all this conflict. Look at your own anxiety levels dealing with mom.

I watched my 12yo stepdaughter (who is now a very successful adult) throw a full blown crying, screaming, hissy fit on my front porch during a transition day when mom and dad were openly arguing.

It's stressful for them too and they lack skills in dealing with that stress.

They needs lots of patience and lots of help in this.  
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« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2016, 03:27:19 PM »

The other night DH picked SD10 up from school, and uBPDbm had woken her up at 3am to take her older sister to the airport before school. SD10 was completely exhausted, so a meltdown was an almost guarantee. We didn't even make it through dinner. SD10 had three bites of food left and was complaining that she was full (of course not too full for dessert   ). We told her to finish her dinner (that is the rule at our house), she refused. Then it turned into a big blow up. SD10 was crying that we were "forcing" her to eat when she was full, that we were a "fat farm", and that we were abusing her. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. At one point I held a fork full of food up to her mouth and she slapped it away. Her punishment was she had to pick it all up after she finished (and it was rice, so there was a lot to pick up).

Reading this as a parent to an 8 year old I have alarm bells ringing.

This sounds like a high stress situation for all concerned, but where high stress and young children are concerned we as parents have to in my experience to be able to manage our stress levels in a way that does not exacerbate a situation.

To me this was not one of the times to enforce control on a situation that was escalating precariously.

Children of this age have not yet learnt to regulate and manage extremes of emotion. Add to this a history of dysfunctional parenting associated with BPD, your SD was already tired and emotional. She was giving you lots of indicators that she was not and is not coping.

Choosing our battles as parents can help us help our children navigate challenging behaviour.

What is important for me as a parent is to be flexible in my approach to my son especially when he is being defiant and oppositional. Traditional, rigid parenting styles IMO only serve to enflame the situation.

I am not good when I am tired, not at all. My s8 is all over the place when he is tired. I would not get him early knowing this and then expect him to focus on homework. Sometimes as parents we have to choose are battles very carefully.

What happened with your husband and his daughter the next morning reads for me as scary stuff.

I admire your openness in writing about these events, Dreamgirl makes a great suggestion with a Parenting Advocate. My suggestion would be around Family Therapy. It sounds like you are all struggling with your SD's behaviours, and that is completely understandable. I don't know if your SD has a T. If she doesn't, it sounds like her 'acting out' behaviours might be her way of expressing that she is really not coping at all.

Children of 10y do not have the emotional or intellectual ability to express themselves coherently. They need help with this, especially if they have been exposed to conflict and high expressed emotions through direct and indirect parenting.

If I was the birth mother to this child and she told me what had happened as you have recounted it I would be extremely concerned for my daughters wellbeing.

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« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2016, 05:08:32 PM »

Hi Thunderstruck,

It seems like two issues. One is the CPS thing.

The other issue is parenting SD10 and the possible development of BPD traits. One of the most important things my son's psychiatrist told me is this idea of threshold. Our kids, whether they are genetically predisposed to behavioral problems or whether they are struggling in invalidating environments, they have a threshold. Our job is to adjust the levers in a way so our kids can breathe, so avoid bobbing up close to that threshold where they begin to dysregulate.

Are you feeling open to feedback about parenting a child who is showing signs? To be honest, being open to a change in how I parented my kid was hard for me. I can be really set in my ways, and the last five years in particular I have had a lot of balls in the air, and the trains have to run on time in my house or else we hit the wall. Hard. I also had some ego in the game because I wanted S14 to get back to "normal" once N/BPDx was out of the picture, to show that all the problems were on him.

But... .

At the end of the day, I have a kid with issues. I thought they were a direct result of his dad's BPD parenting and mental illness issues. I thought they would go away when his dad was no longer in his life. I can see now that S14 probably has a bunch of stuff going on genetically, and the high stress environments of school, divorce, plus my hectic schedule really threw him for a loop. Having lived with someone who suffers from BPD, I would do just about anything to make sure my kid didn't end up like that.

So we adjusted. A lot. It's a process, and it's taking a lot of patience and practice and tweaking the levers constantly to try and get him under the threshold.

Your SD may have a sensitive genotype, too, for lack of a better label. A highly sensitive child who has an invalidating parent like her mom is going to have a much harder time with invalidation, period. She's trying to carve out pockets of control, and for some reason, she feels the need to increase the volume, not decrease it. The costs of behaving badly are worth it to her. The question is why. The answer may have to do with anything that pushes on the threshold. You can't control BPD mom, you can't control much at school (though you can seek accommodations if that seems to help). The biggest area you can focus on is what's going on in the home, and that's only going to work if you're up for trying a different approach.

SD10 probably isn't responding to validation when she's fully dysregulated because emotionally, in the heat of her distress, that ship has sailed. I can understand why you might not have faith that validation will work if it's something pulled in when SD10's emotions have already started to unravel.

A source that helped me a lot in my process is Childress (the expert on PA), as well as books on raising a highly sensitive child. Childress got involved in his work because he treated difficult kids with ODD and severe behavioral issues, often with ADD/ADHD. He writes a lot about how the "obedient child" parenting approach doesn't work with these kids, and instead recommends parenting styles that focus on "cooperative child" outcomes. It takes a major shift to do this. More patience, more vulnerability, a different way of setting boundaries, modeling ways to handle stress. Punishments that fit the crime, etc.

Excerpt
We might have given her more leniency (aka sent her to bed) if she wasn't having trouble being defiant in school. As I said, we've gotten more strict in our house. Maybe she's pushing boundaries now. I don't know.

If she's like my son, she's being defiant out of desperation -- her sense of regulation could be totally out of whack. Things come in that don't make sense, she has strong needs/wants that aren't being met, she has to fit her square peg in a round hole all day long, rules are different across different environments, it's just noise noise noise all day long, and the punishments probably aren't working to get at the root of her distress, and that's where the defiance and acting out is coming from. Meanwhile, she's trying to regulate her own nervous system and like any kid, figure out how she feels and how to manage those emotions. Her mom is not a great role model for this.  

Excerpt
Or maybe this was her way of letting out all her emotions from the emotional roller coaster of a winter break (returning back to school and being unhappy about it, plus not being in a good mindset for school - completely tired).

That certainly makes it harder, but it sounds like she is having trouble in general. Re-entry and transitions were hard for S14 in school, too. Not to the level of someone who is Asperger's or autistic, but lots of overstimulation/understimulation issues that I had to take seriously.

Excerpt
I peeked on over at the Parenting a child with BPD board, and I'm worried that these behaviors that I thought were  PD traits are becoming ingrained in her personality. We need to get her into therapy, and I mean STAT. But of course, we're still waiting for the results of the CE to see how we can do that... .

I really feel for you. You're a step mama to a child with special needs, who has a BPD bio mom. Plus, an active custody evaluation. It's a lot.

Changing my parenting approach dialed things down for my son to a point where we are humming along. We're not in the clear by any means, but we're functioning way below the threshold or watermark or whatever you want to call it. I'm trying to help him learn how to take care of himself so he can learn how to get himself there, how to tell when he's starting to feel flooded, and what to do when that happens.

You're picking up on these behaviors at an important time -- she's 10 and still relatively receptive, and there is some time before the peak of middle school hormones.

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« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2016, 08:51:47 PM »

Picking up on the sensitivity issue. Our youngest is very sensitive to his environment. More so when he was 5 to around 9. Loud noises would make him freeze and he would sometimes cover his ears. In kindergarten, if the kids in his class were getting "rowdy" ( for lack of a better word) he would often times go to the bathroom, which was in his classroom, and just chill out. His teacher noticed it and I noticed similar things at home. His mom had no clue what was going on. She actually took him to the pediatrician because she was sure he had a bladder problem and she is a nurse. I guess she was unable to pick up on it and it probably wasn't helpful for him since she had majority time back then. She also insisted he had a learning disability. He was tested and nothing conclusive was found. However, the school did give him an IEP because his mom was so insistent. It took me two years to convince the school to reconsider. He was retested and was placed in their accelerated program and is flourishing. During that time I was able to get more time with him through the courts. I think the the changes helped him in addition to him getting older. It wasn't one thing but the combination.

Back then I would purposely make a mistake for him to see and I would talk it out for him to hear. I did that to offset his mom telling him he had a learning disability (yes, she told him numerous times). Eventually he gained confidence in his abilities and he is doing much better then I had imagined back then. I had many sleepless nights. I kept in close contact with his teachers and we worked as a team. Ex was notified afterwards by the school and I was left out of that. This way it was ex's "idea". Once the school figured his mom out things got better there but I also had to be involved a lot for them to know someone was helping him at home.

I have SS's (xBPDw kids from her first marriage) and I get being a step parent. It does have it's own unique challenges. I can say that one SS is total NC with his mom. We get along great. Another is very LC and we get along great too. Another has issues and doesn't talk to me or his brothers. He is enmeshed with his mom. The two SS's have talked to me about growing up when their mom and I were together and they thanked me for a lot of things that I did back then. Some of the things that made strong impressions on them I didn't think were big deals at the time.

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« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2016, 09:38:06 AM »

Picking up on the sensitivity issue. Our youngest is very sensitive to his environment. More so when he was 5 to around 9. Loud noises would make him freeze and he would sometimes cover his ears.

SD10 still does this. I thought it stemmed from having inner ear issues when she was little.

Thank you for the insight LnL. Smiling (click to insert in post) My eventual hope is that we find a T for her that is experienced with children and BPD that can help us.

I spent some time reflecting on our parenting and why we've made the decisions the way we have. SD10s (she'll be 11 in a few weeks, btw) behavior at school is a big driving factor. We can do things to adjust at home, but it won't help set her up for success at school (and in life). We're therefore trying to keep our rules and discipline style similar to what she would expect at school. There is one set of rules and they are followed absolutely. The rules don't change from day to day. It cuts down on chaos for the teachers and school staff.

Right now SD10 is thinking that rules are fluid. At uBPDbm's house the rules really are fluid. One day something is enforced and the next day it isn't. If SD10 throws a tantrum then uBPDbm will give in and give her whatever she wanted. It's not like that at school. The rules are not fluid. Therefore we've made it so they aren't with us either. So if we had said "The rule is to finish your dinner... .except when you're tired and complain that you're full" then we're saying to her that the rules are fluid. To me, it feels like that would have made it easy on us at home, but wouldn't have helped her with the problems she's been facing at school.

Enforcement of the rule is where we're feeling a bit lost. In the past we've taken away dessert or sent SD to her room and usually that has worked, but they're not working lately. At school she's getting written up and getting bad grades, but neither of those consequences seems to motivate her to work harder. We've tried a "time out" chair for her to calm down. We've tried "I'm going into the other room, when you're calm and ready to work again we can continue". We've tried reflection sheets, where she writes about the situation, how she felt, why she acted the way she did, and what she could have done better. We've had LOTS of LONG talks about behavior and feelings and not letting anger drive (like in the movie).

It feels like SD10 is not afraid of negative consequences. When they happen, she blames other people for being "mean" to her. This is the behavior that we see in her uBPDbm (how many jobs has she lost because the boss was "mean" to her?). And it's what uBPDbm is reinforcing every time she calls us "abusive" for enforcing rules.
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« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2016, 10:46:15 AM »

Our youngest (now 12) seems to have adjusted to noise levels. Loud noises still bother him but not like when he was younger. The funny thing was he was also the loudest child growing up.

He also has a very keen sense of taste and can tell what herbs and spices are in food much better then I was ever able to do.

He used to have temper tantrums that I viewed as extreme. I never saw another child, on a regular basis,  that would act the way her did when he got upset. I spent a lot of time trying to help him. Having a conversation with him when I thought he had calmed down enough to hear me seemed to work well.

I viewed it as he was getting overwhelmed with "too much" stimulation and couldn't maintain his composure. He used to give himself time outs by going to his room. I would give him 10 or 15 minutes and then go see what he was doing. Most of the time he was calm enough for me to talk to him. We would talk for a few minutes and then I would leave the room to give him time to process.
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« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2016, 11:44:16 AM »

When I've spoken to SS11's T about his problem behaviors she hasn't had much in the way of advice. We had some very frank discussions. Her educated attitude has been that SS11's behavior probably simply will not change much until his brain does more developing. He is eleven but he functions more like a 6 year old emotionally. She also warned that although she does not think he will develop BPD it is very likely that he will always be a very black and white thinker and is not likely to ever be particularly in tune with his own emotions. In short, she is shooting for helping him work through things in such a way that he will have the tools to be a functional adult if he decides to use them.  But she warned me that he simply will not grow up to be the kind of person I want him to be. I guess being a step mom, even a full time one, makes me as secondary an influence as a well liked teacher in his life.

I've read an article that said that abused children are nearly immune to any kind of punishment handed out in a healthy home because it's so much less terrifying than what they've already experienced. I see that in SS11. He does whatever suits him that he thinks he can get away with regardless of whatever consequences come after. More importantly, he seems to be struggling with feelings of helplessness and lack of control in his own life and I think he acts worse in hopes of getting us to back off a little bit and let him be himself. This has taught us to carefully pick our battles. Well, it's taught me that. DH is having a harder time. I agree that being consistent is key. But if it were me, I'd pick my battles about food before she ups the anti on you in retaliation. We live in a world where girls not much older than your SD feel so out of control that they end up using food battles to take control in any way they can.
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Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner’s ex
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Do. Or do not. There is no try.


« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2016, 02:24:51 PM »

So, a couple things I see trending in this... .

1.) Kid's behavior, is it BPD or is it normal?

2.) How can our side of the street help?

I think we all worry about our kiddos and their hindrances when it comes to having a parent who is mentally ill. Dr. Aquirre is my absolute favorite when it comes to distinguishing what makes adolescents BPD and what is otherwise "normal" [defiant] behavior for an adolescent.  

If  anyone wants a really good insight into this, this is the video to watch: BPD In Adolescence: Early Detection and Intervention - Blaise Aguirre, MD

It's long, but I promise you that it's worth your time.

The key point for me is talking about certain [risky] behavior --- like say a teen driving fast --- being a normal defiant/rebellious behavior for a kiddo. But the component that's different for a child suffering from BPD is that it's a coping skill to regulate their emotions.  

Having a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder, statistically speaking, will cause a child to have issues especially when it comes to their own emotional regulation and their own coping abilities.  

From this article: https://bpdfamily.com/content/have-your-parents-put-you-risk-psychopathology

Excerpt
Attachment Status of Children

Children of mothers with BPD show a significantly higher prevalence of ‘disorganized’ attachment than children of mothers without BPD (Hobson et al., 2005). Mothers with BPD’s intrusive insensitivity, affective deregulation, confusion over role expectations, and unresolved traumatic experiences have been identified as possible precursors for this disorganization (see Van IJzendoorn et al., 1999; Hobson et al., 2005). Disorganization in children typically arises in response to recurrent stress. In the case of children of mothers with BPD, children’s disorganized responses develop out of what Main (1995) refers to as an approach-avoidant dilemma. The stress associated with borderline symptomatology (e.g., erratic or volatile behavior) causes children to simultaneously cling to and push away from their caregiver. In other words, in times of danger or stress, the child searches for the mother as a “secure base” to cling to, but in the case of a mother with BPD, it is often the mother herself who is posing the threat.

Behavioral disorganization in children is inherently maladaptive and therefore of concern to mental health professionals working with children of mothers with BPD. Research shows that disorganization in childhood attains modest levels of long term stability and is linked to a host of pathological sequelae (Holmes, 2005; Van IJzendoorn et al., 1999). Disorganized children face stress management problems, frequently engage in externalizing behaviors, and may even face dissociative behaviors later in life (Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 1999; Van IJzendoorn et al., 1999).  

I think it was Matt who always suggested that we don't get too tied up in the who did what to who and who is doing what to what and who now. Sometimes it's simply about getting the kids needs met.

What does Thunderstruck's kiddo need in this? What's lacking that needs to be filled?

Discipline.

Consistency.

Resilience.

Protective Factors.

Thunderstruck, you're doing the best you can with the situation. It is so, so frustrating to be a stepparent in this and constantly feel like everything you're doing is being scrutinized. You can't seem to win (even for losing). You do something right and have forward motion, mom sabotages it. You actually make a mistake, mom blows it up.

We become so emotionally drained that we, too, start to lose hope. These are the moments where we embrace that it is what it is and we do the best we can. And we can do that by slowly trying to help the situation with what we actually have control over... .even it be covertly. Accept that the kiddo is going to not handle stressful situations well, but maybe we teach them mindfulness techniques to help lower stress levels so that it remains manageable.

 

From the article From Risk to Resiliency:

Factsheet: When a Parent Has a Mental Illness:

From Risk to Resiliency--Protective Factors for Children


by Mental Health America (Alexandria, VA)


Funded through an unrestricted educational grant from The Education, Health, and the Arts Foundation.

The effect of parental mental illness on children is varied and unpredictable.[1] Although parental mental illness presents biological, psychosocial and environmental risks for children, not all children will be negatively affected, or in the same way. The parental diagnosis of mental illness alone is not sufficient to cause problems for the child and family. Rather, it is how the diagnosis affects the parent's behavior as well as familial relationships that may cause risk to a child. The age of onset, severity and duration of the parents' mental illness, the degree of stress in the family resulting from the parents' illness, and most importantly, the extent to which parents' symptoms interfere with positive parenting, such as their ability to show interest in their children, will determine the level of risk to a child.

 

The Prevention Perspective

Whether or not children of parents with mental illness will develop social, emotional, or behavioral problems depends on a number of factors. These include the child's genetic vulnerability, the parent's behavior, the child's understanding of the parent's illness, and the degree of family stability (e.g., number of parent-child separations). Preventive interventions aimed at addressing these risk factors and increasing children's protective factors increase the likelihood that they will be resilient, and grow and develop in positive ways. Effective prevention strategies help increase family stability, strengthen parents' ability to meet their children's needs, and minimize children's exposure to negative manifestations of their parent's illness.[2]Risk Factors

Children whose parents have a mental illness are at risk for developing social, emotional and/or behavioral problems. An inconsistent and unpredictable family environment, often found in families in which a parent has mental illness, contributes to a child's risk. Other factors that place all children at risk, but particularly increase the vulnerability of children whose parents have a mental illness, include:

  • Poverty


  • Occupational or marital difficulties


  • Poor parent-child communication


  • Parent's co-occurring substance abuse disorder


  • Openly aggressive or hostile behavior by a parent


  • Single-parent families


Families at greatest risk are those in which mental illness, a child with a difficult temperament, and chronically stressful family environments are all present. Many of these factors, however, can be reduced through preventive interventions. For example, poor parent-child communication can be improved through skills training, and marital conflict can be reduced through couples therapy.

 

Protective Factors

Increasing a child's protective factors helps develop his or her resiliency. Resilient children understand that they are not responsible for their parent's difficulties, and are able to move forward in the face of life's challenges.



Protective factors for children include:


  • A sense of being loved by their parent


  • Positive self-esteem


  • Good coping skills


  • Positive peer relationships


  • Interest in and success at school


  • Healthy engagement with adults outside the home


  • An ability to articulate their feelings


  • Parents who are functioning well at home, at work, and in their social relationships


  • Parental employment


  • A parent's warm and supportive relationship with his or her children


  • Help and support from immediate and extended family members




You can just start to fill your stepdaughter's bank with these protective factors, rather then focusing solely on trying to rectify/change her behavior.

In the situation with the food ---- does she understand why it's so important to finish what's on her plate? My one son really needs to understand rules so they make sense because he's very literal and compliance is based on understanding. My other son just does what he's told because he's such a person pleaser. He likes to comply.  

It's OK to parent a child differently based on their needs. I have five kids who I handle differently. Rules are the same, sure, but the way we interact is different.    

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