to ask the dynamics of your stepfamily

[greenergrass2moro]

how often do you have dsc?

how often do they have alone time with parent?

do they get special treatment?

what is sp relationship like with dsc?

im in a new stepfamily situation and just curious as finding the dynamics an adjustment?

My two stepchildren came after school once or twice a week, every other weekend - and for the Saturday of the other weekend. They also came here for half of all school holidays.

Their Dad would do things with just them now and then - i.e. take one of them to activities, parties etc, while I stayed home with other. Or go to the park/swimming with them both - especially if I had stuff I wanted to go on with. But quite a lot of the time I'd come along. We got on well and also it meant that one of them could get more individual attention from him, if I was about.

I don't think they got 'special treatment' though we'd work hard to make their time enjoyable - not cook food they disliked.

It was fine for me to reinforce boundaries if they were behaving in ways that weren't acceptable.

Opposite perspective but I was the stepchild in my family. Lived with my dad and his new wife full time.

I definitely got special treatment from my dad e.g bought gifts, taken out for meals, just generally got away with more.

Relationship with SM was good, still is now, even though I’m grown up.

My stepmum and dad kind of stuck to their own kids when it came to telling us off etc - she never really told me off but sometimes if he told me off I could tell it came from her IYSWIM.

But I think if all the kids are living under what is 50% your roof you do have certain rights to tell them how to behave in your house e.g tidying up after themselves, chores etc.

I have a 14-year-old DSD. She lives with us half time.

She listens to me just as she does her dad. The only difference is that I've never spanked her nor would I. (She doesn't get spanked anymore and has only ever had maybe a handful of spankings since her dad and I have been together.)

Sometimes she and Hubby go off and do something together and once a week she and I go off and do something together. She likes to have that time with us.

Unfortunately her relationship with her mum and stepdad is not good. There's evidence that her stepdad is verbally abusive and her mum is aware but won't do anything. She also has a younger brother and sister at her mum's (Mum and stepdad's kids; twins) and her stepdad basically thinks the world of them which doesn't help.

She calls me Mum and says she has two mums but only one Daddy. (I never asked her to do that. It was a decision she made.) She has told me at times that she wishes I were her real mum and she knows that if anything ever happened to her dad she would still always be welcome in my home.

She's a lovely, lovely girl and I'm very blessed to have her. I know I've been extremely fortunate. I think it does help that I've been in her life since she was 5 and married her dad when she was 6, so she really hasn't known much different for most of her life. (Her parents split when she was almost 4; I was not involved at the time and Hubby wasn't the cause of the split.)