What do you think its important to establish with new dp

[Stepmumm]

Ie, when blending 2 houses/families together, what ground rules have you established when both of you are used to running your own house and making decisions

Acceptable behaviour. You can't have his kids being allowed to do something that yours are forbidden to (or vice versa) when you all live together. (Age appropriate of course).

Discipline- To ensure it's consistant both with the children from the two families being blended and also for the individual children when their other parent isn't there. So when DSC are in my sole charge they know they have the same rules as when my DO is looking after them, same for my DD in theory. (Although she gets away with much more when with him than she would with me and it's something we are working on).

You and your DP need to reach agreement on common standards of behaviour in your home, and everyone (adults and children) need to adhere to them. Don't be too dogmatic to begin with - be prepared to discuss little details as well as bigger principles.

Communication and a united front.

We don't expect to agree on everything - but we never disagree in front of the DCs, and always back each other up rather than undermine. We will then support each other to reverse a decision if we agree together it was the wrong one.

We, on the other hand, often disagree in front of the DCs but they (and we) all know that this is part of the process of sharing information and opinions that will enable us to reach consensus.

Bonsoir Do the kids play one of you off against the other?

If one of you says no, do they try it on by asking the other?

No, not at all. But we do invite them to share and defend their opinions, whether they are all their own or they share them with one of us, or another child.

I think our children are very secure in the knowledge that our couple is very solid and strong and that differences of opinion are part of the journey towards consensus and compromise.

We've been formalising this today and have made a list of house rules that is now printed out and pinned to the fridge door!

We have rules about

• which hours the kids may play on computers (a major source of tension previously, which is unlikley to go away but is not set out clearly for all to see)

• rules about helping selves to food, drinks, etc

• rules about bedtimes

• rules about respecting each other's possessions and personal space - these were the main rules that were important to the kids to have

• rules about telling an adult if you want to have a friend over (aimed mainly and DSD1(15)

We have 6 DC between us aged 9-15 and the seem to be OK about it all. They've all been making their own bedroom rules too :)

The hardest thing I'm finding thoug, is as you say, is to get used to not just being able to make unilateral decisions on things.

Purpleroses - out of interest what is your rule for helping themselves to food. I can see this will be a major thing for me as my ds will always ask if he can have food - and generally its a yes unless he's already had choc/crisps or its close to mealtimes, whereas my dss' have always helped themselves to food. This will drive me crazy shopping and budget wise!

We have a fruit bowl where we put fruit that is OK for them to help themselves to. For anything else they are supposed to ask an adult. I think this will work OK for my DCs and DSC2-4 but fear the difficulty will come in implimentation of the rule with DSD1 who will likely help herself to food when noone is looking as she has always done - despite a notional rule that DP has always has that she's not supposed to do so. It is hard to get rules that work for different ages of kids though - DSD1 and my DS are not uncommonly at home on their own, so can't reasonably be expected to ask an adult for food. I've always allowed DS to make himself a sandwich when he gets in from school.

One thing we did do was write a detailed draft of the house rules well before we moved in together (before we'd even told the kids we were going to) and then start to change things towards the intended joint house rules before we made the move. It's meant that the list we made today was more or less how things now are, rather than imposing major changes on anyone.

Appologies for lousy typing in earlier post - should read "now set out clearly for all to see"

I was trying to type whilst DSS2 kept trying to look over my shoulder and complain that I was on my computer during the hours when I shouldn't be...