Wow. What a mess. The way I see it, your girlfriend is dealing with:
- Behavior that is somewhat normal for the age, only is going unchecked.
- Her own guilt.
- A kid’s sense of upheaval (perhaps her daughter feels that she has to compete with you for her mom’s affections).
- Very inconsistent discipline (or lack thereof) in the home.
As a parent, my recommendation would be that first off, there must be consequences for the daughter’s actions and those consequences absolutely must be consistent regardless of who’s watching her - her grandparents or her mom. And those consequences have to happen every single time she misbehaves. So your girlfriend should probably decide on a strategy, then talk with her parents and get their buy-in to enforce it. It will be very difficult at first, especially if this girl has had no discipline in her past and she’s dealing with some changes; however, kids really do need rules. Rules help them learn to control themselves and can help make them more secure, especially when things are changing.
As a personal anecdote, every time something changes in our house - when we had a new baby, when relatives come to visit for more than a few days - our son really begins pushing boundaries. And it’s specifically during those times that rule enforcement becomes extremely important so he knows that, regardless of where he is, what’s happening and who’s around, there is absolutely no excuse that will get him out of consequences for bad behavior.
Our son was around your girlfriend’s daughter’s age when he had his first really bad tantrum (he’s had four major ones I can think of). It lasted three hours. Three miserable hours of him screaming, crying and trying to hit us while we gritted our teeth and calmly informed him, “No hitting or screaming in this house. You need to use your words,” then picked him up, put him back on his timeout chair. Picked him up, put him back on his timeout chair. Picked him up, put him back on his timeout chair. When he finally wound down, we put the timer on for three minutes (I believe the recommendation is one minute for every year of life, though timeouts don’t really start until age two or so) and he finally stayed. When we were done, we reminded him of why he’d been in timeout, made sure he understood, then moved on. There were no lectures, no grudges held - we just moved on with our lives.
Discipline is absolutely the worst part of parenting (for me anyway). It takes a lot of time, involves a monumental amount of patience and I often wish I had earplugs. But you have to do it if you want a kid you and others can live with later. Also, discipline, as mentioned above, doesn’t necessarily mean punishment. In fact, discipline comes from the word “disciple,” or student. When you discipline a kid (or fail to do so), you’re teaching them. If you freak out on them, start screaming at them or hitting them, that shows them that you’re out of control and that losing it is an appropriate response. If you fail to discipline, you’re condoning their behavior.
Oh, and I third the thought that being a parent doesn’t mean that your girlfriend’s needs for adult companionship (romantic or otherwise) should always play second fiddle to her daughter. The way I see it, enjoying parenting also means retaining your own identity. Yeah, you can’t always go out whenever you want and you do have to be more responsible, but at the same time, to avoid resenting your kids, it’s important to have your own interests and spend time with other people doing what you want. She should definitely spend extra one-on-one time with her daughter (negative behavior is often an indicator that your kid needs your attention), but her daughter also needs to understand that her mom is a person with wants or needs of her own, too.
