To be so fed up of this

[ginandjuice]

This will probably make me sound like an unreasonable but I've had enough. So has dh.
Dh has a ds and a dd. And they are always ill. Always. Never a day goes by that they don't phone and tell us they were off school with x y z.
His dd (14) has missed almost a whole year of school with these sick days combined. Most of the time it is a common cold they have and would be fine to go into school but their mum (dh exw) exaggerates the cold so that it becomes a virus or a chest infection.
Dh left ex w because she pretended to be very sick, but he caught her out one day. She has form for
being dramatic, if I had a friend like that I would get so bored of
All the drama very quickly.
Everybody is fed up hearing about their illnesses, even their grandparents. Ex w is always telling people about how they had to rush to a and e because "ds had a migraine". This has happened several times.
Dh and I are the type people that unless your arm falls off, you go into work. It frustrates him that his two children are missing so much school for what is essentially a cold.
I must also point out that they are both absolutely 100% fine when they stay with us. They stay EOW
sometimes more and I have NEVER seen either of them ill.
Dh exw will post pictures of them
At the weekend all having loads
Of fun, at theme parks, water fights outside in the summer etc, then on the Monday they are "very ill" and won't make it into school..
Dh and I no longer pander to it and Dh phoned then and told them they need to get their acts together. They both want to go to uni (ds applies next year) but we both Doubt that they will have been in school enough to pass their exams never mind do well Enough to get accepted by a university.
Sorry this is more of a wwyd.. Dh and I are both worried that the kids will not achieve what they want due to all of this drama.

ouryve,

I've no idea what goes on in the house. She bakes him cakes, that much I know. On the feeling unwell, she did not respond. She left it up to her partner. He's his dad.

When your stepson talks about wanting to go to university have you used that as a change to say he really needs to stop missing school unnecessarily or he won't get the grades he needs to go? Does he really want to go or is he just saying what he thinks people want to hear? Though that doesn't square with his strops, failing illness.

I find it quite odd posters having the attitude of THIS is how ASD, Autism, Aspergers etc works, or this is how it is.

I also find it quite odd the venom that seems to always pop up in regard to step parents! Whatever everyone here may think, the OP clearly has a good relationship with her DSC and in turn has good relations with their mother, whether she has concerns or not about the absences and the fact they claim to be "ill" all the time.

OP, there have been some really good suggestions across the board here, and I would mirror what others have said regarding your DH approaching the school first off, and asking THEM what their concerns are and what can be done to help. You may well find that the absences aren't infact quite as bad as you think, or that the children don't claim to the school they are ill constantly. It may well be a cry for help if there are other factors in their life that are unsettling them.

You're doing a good job, in my opinion. Step parents get a raw deal at times. Yes there are blended families that try and DO work well together, and for a person to care deeply about another couples child and to welcome them like their own is something to be admired.

Elendon you sound really nasty and horrible towards OP

Get over yourself and concentrate on your own family and not someone's else's children. They are not yours.

I think the OP knows they arent her children but since she is married to their Dad that makes her their Step Mum and they are her step children - so they are part of her family. Do you suggest she ignores them?

you are not as close to them as their mum is and never can be.

Projection or what! Where has the OP said she is as close to them as their Mum? She hasn't - that's coming from you.

Learnt hypochondria - that's what I'd call it, although this isn't really a "diagnosis". Children brought up to think of themselves as susceptible to all sorts, cosseted when ill, every little symptom magnified into something much worse than it probably is. "I'm delicate, you know" or "I live on my nerves, always have done". (Sounds very like something out of a Georgette Heyer novel but never mind - they did it then too).

I think having a good talk with both of them about the reasonable chances of them making the grades they need to go to University if they carry on giving in to the slightest sniffle might make a difference; and depending on what career they want to go into, they may need to toughen up hugely. I don't know if it's still the same nowadays, but friends of mine who went into law firms as trainees were only allowed a maximum of 10 days off sick in 3 years (which is really nothing) or they were out. I am talking some 25 years ago though so it may have changed; or it may not. Some professions take a really dim view of lots of sick leave.

OP - for support, get some information together about sick leave allowances etc., especially if you know what sort of career they're both after - but probably leave it to your DH to give them the hard chat about toughening up? You seem to be a very involved parent to these children, which is lovely to read but maybe this bit should come mostly from your DH.

Think you need to calm down Elendon you are being ridiculously aggressive and nasty to OP. A little bit of projecting going on.

Has DH spoke to the school directly? They may be willing to take more action if you guys can vouch for her over exaggerating illness.

Excellent post from GreenPotato @ Mon 07-Dec-15 11:07:36.

Sounds like the root problem here is that the kids' mum is struggling in one respect or another. Either health anxiety (persistent headache = migraine = might have a brain tumour!!! = hours in A&E for no good reason) or perhaps something more mood-related, eg that she feels better if the kids are around her for her own reasons rather than anxiety about them, or generalised anxiety-related, eg she keeps them at home because she's convinced they're going to get run over by a bus if they go out, etc etc. Not enough information here to say anything with certainty except that obviously it's very bad for the kids. As someone mentioned upthread, they're not little and could go to school unassisted if they chose to, so either they're internalising her anxieties or feeling responsble for her, and whichever it is they're missing out on their education and peer relationships etc.

So something needs to be done and it's good that the OP is acting on concerns not washing her hands of it all imo. Sounds like relations between OP and DH and the kids' mother are not too bad, so is it beyond the bounds of possibility that DH could talk to her and find out what's going on, how she's feeling? Maybe she's at the end of her tether and could do with the support. School are clearly going to be concerned and would undoubtedly get further with any action plan put in place if both parents are on board. It may be that a spell of time living with OP and DH would give the kids some stability from which to develop a better approach to school work and onward plans, and to their own perception of their health. Would you be up for them living with you ft if necessary, OP? That said, if their mum is anxious about having them out of her sight - or about her being out of theirs - a change of residency, albeit temporary, might be catastrophic for her. I think she needs support as much as they do, especially if everyone is to thrive in the long term.

I think open communication between you all as an extended family is what's needed. Sounds like everyone genuinely has the kids' best interests at heart.

Are they at school in England?
5 weeks a year of 36 weeks would bring school attention to it.
There's clear correlation between days of absence and lower grades.

If your dsc's are in England then dss would have sat his GCSE's last year? How did he cope with it|?

I can tell you this from an employer's viewpoint. Children who learn that any slight case of the sniffles is a good reason to miss school, tend to carry that attitude into the workplace, where it will quickly come to the attention of their manager and may well result in them not remaining employed.

So it's not just a case here of pulling up their school results in order to get into Uni or training - the whole attitude will probably need to be recalibrated.

I never had a prob sending my DCs to school with sniffles or whatever - obviously missing work is important but what I didn't want to happen was them to miss out on friendships, or to be dropped by their peer group.

If you are off your best pal is at a loss - so will hang out with someone else. If you are off enough that will become permanent. You miss out on the class joke/ fall out/ new relationships/ gossip.

Those relationships were imv more important to the DCs than the 'fun' of a day off lounging in front of the tele.

Keeping DCs off unnecessarily is beyond my understanding.

Obviously they are not off every single day but it feels like they are ill at least once a fortnight(not always off school but complaining of a sore this or a sore that) it's draining
When I was in labour with ds, dsd started phoning Dh at the hospital telling him she was really sick and he had to come see her.. That really made me suspicious. The fact that she was fine, texting away happy until Dh told them that I had finally gone into labour and then she was like "I'm really ill actually mum says I might need to go to hospital to get checked". That was definately a cry for attention.

So, this is about them attention seeking as their absences aren't that bad?

Talk about a thread about nothing...

Once a fortnight your DHs children dare to call and tell him they haven't been feeling well and may have missed the odd day of school (hardly the shock horror exaggeration of being off sick everyday that you implied in your OP).

Nothing worse than people who think that just because they battle through, refuse to take a paracetamol and troop into work spreading a veritable germ-soup all around them, nobody else should ever feel under the weather or complain about it!

Ha ha TheWild there is m difference between complaining about being a bit unwell once in a while and being hypochondriacs. The 3 of them are all the same. Their mum had a cold back in June and I kid you not last week she told me "oh I still haven't quite recovered since" it was a fucking cold, get a grip.
And yes I do suck it up most of the time because I don't get paid for sick days, the joys of a zero hour contract, so I quite literally can't afford to be sick.. Toughens you up a bit, you could maybe do with some of that...

Some people are really projecting their ishoos onto the OP. It makes for very uncomfortable reading.

To be fair OP you have contradicted yourself a lot during this thread. You blamed the ex, then you started laying into the kids:

When I was in labour with ds, dsd started phoning Dh at the hospital telling him she was really sick and he had to come see her.. That really made me suspicious. The fact that she was fine, texting away happy until Dh told them that I had finally gone into labour and then she was like "I'm really ill actually mum says I might need to go to hospital to get checked". That was definately a cry for attention. Obviously Dh explained he wasn't leaving me and was very firm about it and she made a miraculous recovery.
The first day we all went out for a meal when ds was about a week old, dsd complained the entire time she felt sick and started crying. It was awful.
As soon as we got home and there was nobody fussing over newborn
Ds she was fine.

Your above post made me think this is a child who is desperate for her dad's reassurance so uses illness to get some attention from him. Reading your post made me feel very sad for her

I think you may need to look closer to home for the reasons as to why she might be like this. Do they get one to one time with their dad?

Yes they do Learning. We just don't reply to any tales of aches and pains now and just change the subject.