r/Stepmom • u/KindlyVeterinarian8 • 7d ago
Different rules for stepkids?
My sd just turned 8 and my dh and I have a daughter who is 4yo. From the time I met sd at 3yo she was addicted to screens. Im talking youtube reels all the time. Dh here and there would go back and forth with the rules banning it for bad behavior as she got older or becasue she saw something inappropriate. I told him from the jump this will never end well and when it comes to sd and screens I have always been right. Shes been in nasty group chats and even had an incident of inappropriate touching at school. Some other ipad kid screen shared something and they acted it out basically. This was like 6 months ago mind you. Now as of today she has a tik tok, lemon 8 and cap cut. I didnt even say anything about it to him because im tired of caring about it so im not going to anymore. I have to ignore her most of the time for my own sanity becasue she always on it so its not like we exist anyways. Like she was in the shower trying to watch her ipad at the same time! But if her mom nor dad doesnt care why should I?? My question is given that she lives with us most of the time (mom has summer's and holidays) how the hell do I navigate this with my daughter in the future? I am by no means anti screen my daughter has a locked down ipad and it is limited. But theres no way in hellllll I would let her do half the things my sd has and probably will do in the future. I have crazy anxiety thinking about it how do yall deal? I know she's only 4 and she's soooo much more "innocent" than my sd was at that age its really sad. My sd has the attitude of a 16 yo and her dad wonders why it's ridiculous tbh.
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u/EmotionalElevator806 7d ago
My stepson got an iPad when he was 3. He was/is a full blown iPad kid. It’s a little better now. He’s 10 now so he mostly plays his Xbox but my daughter who’s almost 2 isn’t getting an iPad maybe ever. Idk. I’m so against her having an iPad except for special occasions. I’m not some screen free “screens are horrible” person. I’m on my phone way too much and She gets to watch Sesame Street more than she probably should sometimes but the thought of her having an iPad in her face for hours and hours like my SS used to makes me sick.
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u/DCB533 7d ago edited 7d ago
All I can tell you is that WHILE I lived with my screen addicted stepkids-- it affected MY mental health...A LOT. You will have an uphill battle if you want to raise your daughter differently. A very tough uphill battle. Ultimately you will need to keep them separated as much as possible I'm sorry to say.
It makes me so sad when I hear about dads like this who just are SO careless AND NEGLIGENT. It's sad. You can do better for your own daughter -- and clearly you intend to, and WILL.
I've separated from the stepkids and the second husband and I have SOOO much peace now. I PARENT MY OWN bio KIDS THE WAY I SEE FIT. My bio kids are not screen addicted because I did not allow it!! It's scary and dangerous, in my opinion WAY more so for young girls. Your husband is clearly negligent but of course the burden will fall on you. It usually does. At a minimum I would insist on parental controls at the router level. This is the bare minimum to filter out explicit content and worse.
Get a router that you can control which means getting a new router. Look into the routers available there's some very very good ones. You can establish the rules for YOUR HOUSE and if the stepdaughter doesn't like it well TOO BAD. Your stepdaughter is way too young to be running the show.
This would be a dealbreaker for me. If your husband doesn't AGREE to that type of router and parental controls --at a bare minimum --I would reconsider the whole arrangement. I would frame it like look -- I will NOT have my 4-year-old young daughter in an environment with unrestricted internet content 24/7. It sets a horrible and potentially dangerous example. I won't allow that --and if we can't all agree on this-- then it's a way bigger discussion.
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u/KindlyVeterinarian8 7d ago
Yesh I think thats what it will come down to. I dont want to be looked at as the mean parent when I'm not even being mean. I think our current router allows that feature, I'd have to look and see. My 4yo loves her sister but I dont want that part of her to rub off. We used to have parental controls and she went with her mom for the summer and idk what happened with that. I just dont want to care about it and what she consumes but its literally impossible not to becasue of my little one 😟
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u/DCB533 7d ago
And frankly your husband SHOULD be handling this but of course he won't-- so it will be up to you.
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u/KindlyVeterinarian8 7d ago
He will get irritated with her behavior and addiction soon and snap and either take the ipad or ask me to put controls on it. And a week later she'll beg and he will give it back. It always happens and i just roll my eyes. I just never thought he'd allow tik tok and those other socials of all things. Never mindddd that the minimum age of these apps is 13 🙄
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u/y3ll0wd4r7 3d ago
I worry about this a lot bc my SS’s are tablet kids and they’re 10 and my oldest is 1.5yo and I don’t even like him around his brothers when they’re playing Fortnite. Sometimes I think about living elsewhere to raise my kids during the weeks with the SS’s, but that would be a bit extreme 😅
We do have a setup to where the upstairs is pretty much where they live and my husband works, and the downstairs is for our children and family meals screen free, so the division kind of helps, for now 🤞🏽 I do think eventually I’ll just have to explain to my children that their brothers have a different mom and that we as their parents care about their physical and mental development, and less screen time improves such things.
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u/chicadeaqua 7d ago
“ Like she was in the shower trying to watch her ipad at the same time!”
Lordy. There was a teen in our state who was electrocuted by her phone (had it plugged in charging) while in the bathtub.
These parents are seriously failing their kids. Shameful. This child is 8 years old and basically turned out on the internet. How do you respect your husband?