This comment was left in response to my blog about How to regain control of an out-of-control household.

Now here's a question(s) I have on the control issue. When our youngest came as part of a sib group of four, she began by trying to control and manipulate Mom and Dad. Mom saw through her "tricks" early on, and had the upper hand nearly from the get-go. Dad was more of a softy, and although firm, was still "played" once in awhile. Now Dad has learned the "tricks" too, and stands firmly beside Mom. So she has shifted her control tactics to her three older and emotionally unhealthy, somewhat fragile siblings. They fall into her trap EVERY TIME! She seems to consider it her full time job to create chaos and misery in the family, and she uses them to achieve it. How do you rein in control when it is her own damaged siblings she is using to achieve it? And what effect can we expect on them over the long haul? Will she undermine any chance they have at emotional health? And what effect will this have on the emotionally healthy bio children in the family? I seem to see resentment and bitterness piling up in all the corners.

Here is my response:


As difficult as it can be to keep one child in line-of-sight supervision, especially when there are lots of kids in the family, that would be my first suggestion for this child. She needs to not have any opportunity to be alone with her siblings. Every time she is allowed to hone her skills, she gets sicker. And they get duped, which only undermines the parents’ efforts to build the kids’ self-esteem, trust and independence.


There are several ways to keep this child supervised. First, she needs her own room or she needs to sleep in the parent’s room. Alarms, cameras or motion detectors are an easy way to separate her from the others without isolating her. (Lots of kids with control and attachment issues hate motion detectors, because they can't control the sound. They hate to "get caught" and relinquish the control.) She can do extra chores and pay the healthy bio kids to be her personal magilla-gorilla. She pays them to stay next to her at all times. Until she can behave appropriately, she is not allowed to accompany the family on fun activities … no one will want to or should have to give up fun time to closely monitor her. Or she can go and sit out of the center of activity.


The comment about resentment rings familiar to me. It is very hard to have a child like this in the midst of an otherwise happy and healthy family. The key to keeping resentment to a minimum, and her manipulations to a minimum as well, is to make her negative behaviors far more of a problem for her than for the rest of the family. Her world needs to be simplified. She doesn’t acquire material goods, watch television, play at a neighbor’s home, or do any of the normal kid activities until she can be real and reciprocal at home, at least to some degree. Games, manipulations and chaos result in loss of opportunities to continue those behaviors. Her problem, not yours. She can do chores or sell possessions to pay the babysitters necessary to deal with her. If she refuses to do chores, she sits until she complies. Life really gets simple if she is just sitting—not too many opportunities to be a con when one is sitting on a chair.


When she is willing to work on appropriate behaviors, she can hang out with the family and she should get lots of positive feedback. You might even throw in some coaching comments as suggested in Katherine Leslies’s book When a Stranger Calls You Mom. Tell her the words to say in place of her manipulative and deceitful words.


I know this is not an easy approach but it is critical for her health and the family’s health that she not be allowed to continue to bring you all down to her level. She needs to rise up to your level.


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