I have previous Law Enforcement experience and have dealt with hundreds of kids in all sorts of households. I have a 12 year old step son under my roof at this very moment and let me tell you the common denominator in mostly all the households... boys at around 10 yrs of age begin to test the adults around them. Its a transition from a child to a young boy. Then it will be from a young boy to a young adult.
My 12 yr old is smaller than most. In our household, he always has to look up when communicating to people. He has to let the adults finish talking before he is able to talk. He dare not interrupt. He can only eat what his mother prepares (my rule), and he cannot speak until he finishes his first serving. After that, he can speak all he wants. He had been dressed by his mother up to this year. Point is, the worse thing you can possibly do to a child making a transition towards adolecence or adulthood is deny them thier individuality. Especially with boys. Boys are more prone to challenge thier parents because the size they acquire these days. One of our societies biggest mistakes has been to think that we as humans, that we are immune to the laws of nature and evolution. We teach our kids to be nice, considerate, and respectful. We have forgotten that natural selection, millions of years of human evolution, still plays a HUGE role in how are children instinctively behave. We have to override some of those instincts as parents.
Beginning around the age of 10, I have learned that boys start to test the enviroments they are in. If they have different enviroments, they learn to how to adapt and how to prosper depending on where they are placed. It sounds like your stepson is doing very well in having learned his limits are smaller in his other enviroment compared to when he is around his mother. He has learned that his mother is still deep in her nurturing stage and he will feed on that as much as he is allowed. Strong survival instincts on his part. As parents, you and your wife need to tighten up a bit. You both are being tested and parents need to send a clear message to thier children. If you do not, I promise you that you will continue to be tested and as he gets older (and bigger) he will start to test other authority figures in his life such as his extended family, his teachers, other adults, and quite possibly uniformed services. If you dont control him at 10 years of age, you both will have certainly lost the opportunity once he becomes a teenager.
We only have one chance at the childs life, and in the world we live in now... we dont have room to spare or time to waste. Make sure you both sit down and make that 10 year old understand completely that he is the child and you are the parent. This is also teaching the child parenting skills as he will need to teach his kids the same way when he has children of his own.
Sent from above...