Question:  I have been involved with my now fiancé and her 8 year old daughter for the past two years. I love them both like crazy and would do anything for them. We have all been living together for about the past year and a half and have had many wonderful times together. Her daughter has even taken to calling me dad which makes me the happiest person ever.  Here’s my problem: daughter rarely respects anything I say. Whether it is a simple request like asking her to put dishes in the dishwasher or picking up her mess in the house. She does some days listen to her mom, but not always.  I am trying to be the best I can, but I need some advice to help keep our house a happy one. The rewards/consequences thing doesn’t seem to work for us. What else can I do?

Nanny Peace's Advice: First off realize that the situation you have described is very common. I am here to tell you that it probably will not last.  Try to take a step back and instead of trying to get her to do chores by offering a reward for completion, let it be known very clearly to her what is expected of her.  Of course rewards are good but make the rewards lots and lots of praises when she does something good.  Have consequences set in place for misbehavior. For an 8 year old I have found that instead of time-out you can use a technique I call " Bed time minutes": Whenever she has a misbehavior that you have explained to her before, tell her that she has "gained 8 [her age] minutes of earlier bedtime". And then try to fix the behavior by gently asking her to complete the task or asking her to not continue a certain behavior. Remember to keep track of the extra bedtime minutes. The way you enforce the minutes is she has to go to bed x amount of minutes earlier. For example lets say she did not clean her room,  backed talked an adult, and failed to load the dishwasher. That's 3 so her bed time minutes would be 24 minutes and if per-say she has a bed time of 8:00 pm she would have to go to bed 24 minutes earlier so that would mean that she is in the bed at 7:36 sharp! Even if that means putting her to bed in her day clothes.  Tuck her in and tell her gently " ((name) you are going to bed x minutes earlier tonight because you (explain her misbehaviors and how she can improve them)". Then say goodnight to her and turn the light out and walk away.  For example: " Susy, you are going to bed 24 minutes earlier tonight because you did not clean your room today when you were told, because you did not load the dishwasher, and the way you chose to speak with me earlier.  Goodnight Susy"