Messages By: isannah81

I feel for you and your husband and also for Shannon's parents.

My daughter would make Shannon appear like she is standing still.

My daughter  was raised by a very financially comfortable, loving and caring family of people but as the only child and the only grandchild on BOTH sides, she was incredibly pampered and spoiled (and still is).

Her father and I divorced when she was 4 years old and a very loving and caring step-mother was introduced into the family when my daughter was 8 years old.  The stepmother demonized me (based on what my ex-husband told her) and the woman tried to do everything in her power to rectify the problems my ex-husband and daughter presented to her.  Therapists, counsellors and all manner of professionals were introduced by my ex-husband's wife.  My very brilliant daughter learned at a very young age how to manipulate "the system". 

My daughter has come to the point where she is almost incapable of relating facts, let alone telling the honest truth and my ex-husband and his wife supported her endlessly.  At first I was the cause of all the "trouble" and we went to countless therapists and other professionals to make me agree with my daughters lies (and my ex-husband's support of her lies - we had a bitter divorce and he would have done anything to hurt me).  All the therapists took the same stance as Dr. Phil did and I did my very best to cooperate (knowing the whole time that my daughter was lying and charming and the child in the situation).  Therapist after therapist told me that I was the adult and had to do whatever the child needed because she was, after all, the child who was "wounded" (and every other term that whatever therapist put into her head).

When my daughter was 12 she went to live with my ex-husband and his wife and their life has been in complete turmoil ever since.  It was at the same time that a therapist recommended that my ex-husband and his wife have nothing to do with me and to only have communication through my daughter.  That same therapist recommended that only my ex-husband's wife have any essential communication with me because it was too stressful for my daughter and my ex-husband.  All other therapists' recommendations were ignored but this recommendation was embraced - it lasted about a week and then all communication stopped.

Everywhere my daughter goes, she causes complete disruption.  So much so that she has managed to get four completely pampering households to fear her visits.

My daughter lacked for nothing.  She got more love, attention and stuff than any child could ever dream of.  The root cause of her behaviour is pampering and now we have a young lady who refuses to get an education (the teachers are all stupid and mean and the other students are even worse), who refuses to get a job (grandmas gave her an incredible amount of money each month and will eventually die leaving her all of their accumulated weath), and whose friends change daily because no normal person can stand her.   

The once loving, all caring step-mother who was going to right all wrongs can't stand my daughter and refuses to spend any time at all in her presence.  My ex-husband feels the same way.  One grandmother is in the early stages of senile dementia and almost died from starvation because my daughter took all of her money.  The other is still pampering but has been asked by my ex-husand  to stop.  All aunts and uncles have completely stopped pampering yet my daughter continues to be able to go from household to household just because it would be too embarassing to have her live anywhere but with family.

When my daughter visits me, she is allowed to stay until she starts her dispicable behaviour and then she is asked to leave (I make sure that she has a safe place to go to another family member's and I also make sure she gets there).    

In the past if my daughter decided that she didn't want to leave, she would involve the police, therapists and even the medical profession to get her way.  In the end it was always determined that my daughter was just manipulating the system but because she was underage, nothing could be done about it except to protect the child from nasty adults who should know better than to pick on a pampered child.   I cannot tell you how embarassing it was for all of us when she did this. 

My daughter is now almost a legal  "adult" and because the system knows about her manipulative behaviour I worry that one day she will really need help and they will refuse to take her seriously simply because whe has wasted so much of their time over the last 5 years.  We live in a city and there isn't a therapist in town who will go near my daughter.  She has made fools of the whole lot of them -not because the therapists are fools but because they seriously believed that they were helping a "wounded" child instead of a "pampered" child.  It usually took each therapist about 3 sessions to determine that they weren't equipped to deal with my daughter and to refer her to some other professional.

My daughter is the prime example of how parents and extended family can ruin a perfectly good child by over-indulging and pampering.  We have created an adult that will have a great deal of difficlulty funcioning in the "normal" world.  We have also created a person that even those who love and cherish the child cannot stand.

She has all of the resources in the world at her disposal and is getting old enough to understand that her choice to be the "poor little rich kid" and "victim" of all friends and relations is going to leave her uneducated, unemployed and disliked. 

She knows my love is solid, but my acceptance of her manipulating, controlling behaviour is not endless.  

In the early years when I still had influence, I did everything I could to teach my daughter to care deeply, share generously and help willingly. 

There were many people in my daughter's "village" who also had influence and there are times when I think I didn't fight hard enough against the "village" to stop the pampering.  The parent (or person) who insists that pampering be stopped or limited, is always the parent who appears to be the big green meanie.  I got tired to being the "monster" who kept yelling "the empress has no clothes!!!". 

There is a time when a parent has to recognize his or her mistakes and just hope that the lessons their kid has to learn in life aren't too hard. 

I still have enormous hope that despite the fact that life's lessons are going to come hard and fast to my daughter, that in the end she will end up being the caring, generous, helpful person  I tried to raise.  

This in not to say in any way that Shannon was pampered, or that your step-daughter was pampered.  I am just relating my experience and my hope. 

Take care and good luck.