Blended families can be one of the most wholesome things in the world.

They can also be a little clunky and awkward at times.

But don’t be fooled – this is the case for families who are completely bonded by blood too!

However, blended families can come with some extra baggage, and this needs to be handled carefully – as the father in this story is doing spectacularly.

So when his daughter and her friends overstep, he reacted to protect his stepson in just the same way as he would his own biological child.

Read on to find out what happened next.

AITA for enforcing basic boundaries on my daughter’s sleepover?

I am a 42 year old man, and have two kids living with me: my daughter Anya (17) and my stepson Noah (14).

Noah’s mom passed a few years ago, and I’ve had full custody since.

He’s had a rough go of it, but he’s a good kid, with his quirks.

Anya is much more outgoing and has a lot of friends.

Noah isn’t antisocial or shy, but he does not appreciate having his space invaded and when very upset, he can kinda ‘shut down’.

Let’s see what happened to shake this family.

Anya asked to have a sleepover this weekend with four of her friends.

I said yes, of course, but given that the friends who were coming were pretty loud and have a tendency to crowd Noah, I told her to make sure they don’t go into her brother’s room.

Also to keep things down after 11, so that the house can sleep.

In my opinion, these are not strict rules.

Read on to find out how the sleepover went down.

To my surprise, I came upstairs to check on them at about 10 – they are 17, I didn’t think I needed to check on them every hour or something – and they were in Noah’s room.

They looked like they’d been there a while: two were literally sitting on his bed, with him there.

One of them was flipping through his sketchbook, another was messing with his other stuff, and they were all kind of giggling in this weird way.

Noah was clearly upset, he didn’t say anything or move, but there were tears in his eyes and he didn’t respond when I tried to talk to him.

And the way this dad responded startled his daughter.

I told the girls to get out right then, and that I was calling every single one of their parents.

Anya was pretty upset with me, but I told her that I gave them two rules, and they failed spectacularly.

I did actually call all of their parents, and sent them home as soon as possible.

Anya blew up, saying I embarrassed her.

I told her to go to her room, and that we would speak on this in the morning.

Let’s see how the family were int he aftermath.

I spent about 20 minutes with Noah, before he decided he wanted to cool down on his own.

Then I went back to my daughter – who chose not to speak to me.

Its late, both of my kids are (hopefully) asleep, and I’m left not knowing if I handled things right.

AITA?

Though the way this dad reacted might be shocking to some, he is doing his best by his stepson.

The boy was obviously distressed, and his stepsister needs to learn about boundaries – as well as the importance of ground rules.

Let’s see what Reddit had to say about this.

This person agreed that the father did exactly the right thing.

And others pointed out it was important learning for the daughter.

While this Redditor pointed out a potential solution.

This dad set his ground rules, and his daughter and her friends ignored them.

So he took his stepson’s wellbeing into account, prioritizing that over his daughter’s pride – and teaching her an important lesson along the way.

Excellent parenting award.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.