Dr. Richard Hogan

Exactly.

The first mistake is to discipline them.

What you said there is the crux of it.

Honestly, working with it and boundaries are so important and setting that out very clearly at the start because a lot of this stuff just like, you know, gets unspoken and it just takes off.

The dynamic just takes off and then there's this competition base and then there's this bit of resentment base.

You're so bloody, so easy going with that kid.

The fundamentals here for that is like, as you said there, you're not their parent, right?

And so you're not meant to be parenting them.

Particularly in the early moments of this anyway.

Because you don't know how the relationship will develop, hopefully.

And if you're a decent person, children will respond to that over time.

They'll see you're decent.

Well, you know what, if they are giving you flack at the start, I would say have the ability to see what that truly is.

That's pushing you to see, are you going to stay?

Because they've been let down.

I mean, they've come out of a situation that broke down.

And so they're used to things breaking down or they've developed a paradigm about things breaking down.

and about romantic relationships breaking down.

And so they're a bit anxious about that and they're heightened to that.

And so they might, you know, this is a really important point, they might push you and say terrible things.