Where do you tell your young children your step children are during the week?

[olibeansmummy]

Ds is 2 1/2. Dss is 11 and his mum stopped contact for over a year until October this year so ds has just 'discovered' his half brother. He's been coming more and more and now comes fri aft to mon morn every week. Ds us totally smitten with him and constantly asks for him on tue, wed and thurs, but I'm not sure where to tell him Dss is as he won't understand the complexities of step families. I've been saying he's 'at school' but ds gets cross and says, 'no not school.' It's not so bad tonight as I can say 'he's coming tomorrow'. But not sure what to say on the other days?

Just the simple truth that he's with his mummy? You don't need to explain the complexities of it I wouldn't have thought. If you can get DSS to bring a photo of his mum it might help DS get a perspective on it?

no but you can just say he lives with his mummy and sees you and his daddy at the weekends. Children are a lot more accepting of life than we are ( generally speaking). I think my ds ( same age) would accept that.

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Just tell him he's with his mummy, and ds will accept it.

i'm a bit on the other side of this, in that at weekends ds2 and dd ask where ds1 is... i always just say he's with his dad, and to be honest the dc just accept it and move on... to them it's totally normal that he has his 'own' dad and they have their dad who lives with us.

Yeah you're probably right, he sort of understands his auntie is his cousin's mummy so I guess that's the same. Dss would be mortified if I referred to his mum as his mummy though!

I always told DD from the start that the DSSs were at their mother's house. She refused to talk about this for a long, long time - she didn't want her brothers to have another family and was very possessive and constantly asked for them when they weren't around. This has changed since she has grown up, gone to school and got a life outside the home of her own and she is now completely relaxed about it.

We're the other way round as SS lives here but when he is away he is 'staying at mum's'. It sometimes upsets/unsettles our toddler. We put 'sleeps' on the wall and take one away each morning for longer trips and SS gives son a specific soft toy to look after til he gets back.

We have DD who is 3 and DSS who is 11. He sees his mum once per week and we've told her where he goes. A bit of confusion at the beginning but she accepts it now.

We always told DS (8) that his brother was at his mum's & he never had a problem with it. However DSS has a little sister (younger than DS) & DS struggled to understand that she isn't his sister as well....but we got there in the end.

My DS is also 2&1/2 and he's always saying he wants to see DSS and DSB but I just say 'they're with their mummy' or 'they're at their house but you'll see them soon'

Thanks everyone. Ds has been asking about his brother constantly, especially this week as he's coming Xmas day til tue instead of fri- mon so it's a bit longer. I just keep telling him how many sleeps til he comes. He'll be happy next week though as he'll only have to wait from tue- fri it is nice how much he loves him already.