I must be feeling very brave this morning? a step parenting thread in AIBU. Either brave or stupid but I could really do with the wise words of MNetters.
A bit of background? DP and I have been together for around 18 months. He has four children from his previous marriage and we all had a good relationship (or so I thought). I love them all and have invested a huge amount of effort in my relationship with them.
They have now announced they don?t want to come here anymore as they get told off all the time.
A slight exaggeration, but with 4 of them in a small house we do have to have some kind of discipline. We don?t expect them to spend the weekend in silence, but the basic rules are
- You make a mess, you clear it up before tea/Xbox/TV etc.
- Good manners- standing up and eating at the dinner table for example is not acceptable. Neither is ignoring people who are talking to you if you don?t like what they are saying to you.
- Any fights over Xbox etc. means they go off and stay off for the rest of the day.
I don?t think that is excessive and DP and I were both really pleased about how much their behaviour has improved in the last year. I have a DD of my own, so it?s not like I don?t know what it?s like living with children. Her relationship with DPs children is excellent.
There is a massive gulf in the way they are treated at the mum?s place and the way they are here (just to be clear, I am not in any way slagging her off) and I understand the difference between what is acceptable in each house can be confusing, particularly for the younger ones.
With this latest announcement, he is understandably devastated. I don?t hold with letting your kids blackmail you, but a compromise is needed to ensure he still gets contact, and by compromise I don?t mean let them come and trash the house every weekend as we used to!
I have suggested that we all sit down and try to get to the bottom of why it is they feel their treatment has been unfair. Both DP and I have demanding jobs and by the weekends are pretty knackered and on a short fuse and I get we do overreact sometimes. If they want to be treated in a more adult fashion (this won?t work for all of them as the youngest is 5) they need to be able to discuss this with us. They also need to understand why things like good manners are so important (God, I have turned into my mother?.) and also that that certain privileges have to be earned and equally they will be withdrawn in response to bad behaviour.
I was awake most of the night thinking about this. There are small practical things we can do like get a cleaner in on Monday to muck the house out and move the Xbox to another room so if they insist on fighting over it, they can do it in their own space.
Will stop rambling now? I just feel awful for DP who is an excellent dad and always has been, often not under the easiest of circumstances and I will do anything I can to make sure they want to come here and spend time with us.
If any of you wise women have any suggestions as to what we can do to compromise I would really appreciate it. I guess I am probably a bit more of a hardliner than DP and am of the view that as a parent ultimately they do what the are told but we don't want to be in the position where they won't want to come here at all.
I guess what I am asking is am I being unreasonable to not want DP to be held to ransom by his DCs and am I being unreasonable to expect a certain standard of behaviour?