Help! Bloody Disney parenting!! (Really long, sorry!)

[NipNaps]

Just need to vent...have had the weekend from hell. DSS (7) is generally lovely but is so dippy sometimes and is going through a phase where he alternates between not listening or downright refusing to follow instructions. DH is unfortunately convinced that DSS is an angel and thinks I'm being way too harsh on him, a bit of outside input would be good!!

Basically this was my last weekend before going back to work tomorrow after mat leave (I'm a teacher). I planned all my lessons on my day off on Friday and deliberately left my planner and resource folder in my car so it was already packed for Monday and I wouldn't forget it.

So, Friday night, DH picks up DSS, all ok. Saturday morning DSS wakes up and has pulled everything out of his weekend bag and strewn it all over the floor. He has to drink a certain amount of fluid each day as he's not dry overnight yet, but refuses to drink even 1 cup. We need to get out of the house so I give him a time limit to drink, get shoes and coat on and get out of the door. When the time limit is up, nothing is done. I remind DSS again. He does everything instead of drink. I ask him to drink again while I put dd into the car. I come back and he's playing with dd's toys. I get angry...but according to DH I'm overreacting. Fine. Let him wee in bed again then. (The drinking during the day makes a HUGE difference to DSS, literally the difference between flooding the bed and staying dry.) But it's unreasonable for me to care or try to do anything about it, apart from change the sheets when he inevitably has an accident due to not drinking enough during the day.

Then we get to where we're going. DSS asks if he can take my folders in to the sports hall as he needs to lean on something for his drawings. I say no, they need to stay safe in the car. DSS grumbles but goes in to the sports hall.

DSS gets some chocolate out of a vending machine and asks to eat it in the car. We both say no, but he eats it anyway and it goes everywhere as he's managed to drop loads and sit in it. But that's not his fault apparently.

This morning DSS comes into our room shouting that he's bored and wants to play. It's 6:15 and dd has literally just got back to sleep after a horrible night teething. I am absolutely knackered and DSS knows that he must not disrupt anyone before 7am unless it's an absolute emergency. Being bored is not an emergency but for some reason he decided that this rule was not worth thinking about today and woke dd up who is then inconsolable and will not go back to sleep. DH wakes up just long enough to tell me to take DSS downstairs, give DD breakfast and not to be angry with him. Then goes back to sleep.

DH then comes downstairs to make some pancakes and heats the plates up really really hot then dumps them on the table in front of DSS. DSS reaches out to grab one so I quickly tell DSS not to touch the plates as they are way too hot and will burn him so he immediately turns his hands over and plonks both hands palm down onto the pile of hot plates. Then moans that they have hurt his hands. And DH comes in and tells me not to get angry, it's not DSS' fault, these things just happen...

Then tonight whilst packing the car I find that DH has used it so much there's no petrol left. I won't have time to get to a petrol station that's open in the morning when I leave so I have to fill it up tonight and clear out all the mess left by DH and DSS. Then I look into the back and none of my work is there. After a few phone calls I find out it's sitting in lost property in the sports hall as DSS sneaked it in there without me seeing and managed to leave it behind.

So tomorrow I'm going back to work after 9 months with some crappy lessons I've scraped together tonight from what I can remember. I'm going to be rubbish. But I'm apparently very unreasonable to feel angry with DSS as it's not his fault, according to DH. Aargh!

Please help - I just feel that I am grumpy with DSS all the time and I hate being like that. But I feel that he is deliberately choosing to behave in a really difficult way and I am suffering from the consequences yet am being made to feel that I'm unreasonable for feeling angry and frustrated about it.

Other people on here's may think its normal, but I guess some parents have lower standards for behaviour and manners than others.

That ^ is not a 'different opinion' - that is snidey, rude and smug.

Fwiw I seldom react to posts on here like that. It takes a lot to offend or upset me...but no - that was absolutely uncalled for.

I reckon it's your Husband you need to sort out.

DSS is his son, right now by all accounts you sound like the skivvy, of course your DSS is not going to respond to your request when his dad is siding with him and making you out to be a harsh ogre.

Your H needs to parent his son, leave him to get up with DSS, leave him to change the wet bed sheets, let him rally DSS round to getting ready.

As for your things lock folders etc in the boot out of DSS's reach till he learns to be respectful of other peoples belongings, I'd really take a back seat in parenting DSS till his father starts wanting to co-parent with you.

I don't think this is "normal" 7 year old behaviour either. I have a 7 year old. If I told him no, he wasn't allowed my files from the car, and he then took them, he would get a rollocking from me, and rightly so. I would probably ban him from computer/tv for a specified time, or dock some pocket money.

Leaving his stuff around - yes. Being a bit ditzy and forgetting stuff - yes. Being a bit cheeky - yes. Wandering off in the middle of a task - yes. Being told 4 times to put your shoes on - yes. These are normal behaviours. But being told no, you can't have that folder, then deliberately asking for the car keys, deliberately going back and taking something he's been told not to take, that is pure disobedience in my view, and is deserving of a punishment. There is a big difference.

However, OP, really the fault here lies with your DH.

If he won't enforce the drinking issue, then HE should change the bed. If he won't enforce the 7 am getting up time, then HE should get up with DSS. If he won't enforce no chocolate in the car when you've both already said no, then HE should clear it up (actually, I'd make my DS clear it up himself). If he makes the plates so hot that they will burn a small child, then HE should deal with the consequences when a child burns his hands on them by DELIBERATELY putting his palms flat on them after a warning that they are hot.

It drives me mad - your DH is setting you up to be the total bad guy so that he never has to upset his DS. He can't see that in doing this, he is encouraging his DS to manipulate the situation, your DD will spot soon enough that DS is treated differently to her, and he will have a very resentful wife to boot.

Your DH needs a kick up the arse IMO.

The problem here is with your dh not your dss. Your dss is 7. Your dh is I presume an adult and is supposed to be your partner. A good partner doesn't abdicate all responsibility for his children - and that includes the mundane things like establishing boundaries (keys, drinks) and changing sodden bed linen.

And you're totally right to be pissed off and upset at starting back after ML not prepared in the way you had wanted to be - despite all your careful planning.

I hope your day today went better than you feared. You sound like an awesome and normally well organised teacher. I'm sure what you managed to cobble together last night will still have been good.

You need to sit your dh down and talk through with him what you will and won't do and what you would like him to do. He needs to state what he sees as what he should do and not do and what he would like you to do and just possibly apologise for what happened to your folders but don't hold your breath You then need to discuss the "gaps".

That's what I said UC - apart from the helping himself to the folder issue, it all sounds fairly standard. Aggravating yes, but no great shakes.

I agree with all of your post.

@ pictish.

Going to a vending machine and buying chocolate when being explicitly told no, then proceeding to eat it and mess up the car is unacceptable behaviour IMO. Showing no care for others' belongings equally so. Not showing remorse for either of the above equally so. All very different from normal 'sieve head' stuff.

Also agree with what UC wrote. Your DH needs one hell of a kick up his irresponsible - and lazy - backside that's for sure. How (deliberately) thick must he be to give a 7 year old the car keys - at all, never mind asking why he wanted them ? Makes me wonder if he was scared of letting the precious one remain disgruntled at the refusal to have the folder so played along when he asked for the keys - as in, "I didn't know that's what he wanted them for". How many parents would let their 7 year old wander off into a car park anyway ? ...... and then, when HE saw the folder had been brought in, at the very least SS should have been told off (but he wasn't was he, because his father probably knew damn well what he was going to the car for) and HE, (DH) should then have been responsible for ensuring folder was safely returned.

This was your work FFS ..... not a comic that the child had sneaked back. How dare DH treat it with such disdain (by allowing (probably) SS to get it, and then by not taking care of it). HE should be the one driving across the city tonight to fetch it - not you OP - you had nothing to do with it being left behind.

DH lying about the whole thing "one of us must have brought it in" is intelligence insulting - as if you'd believe that crap. If he truly "believed" SS hadn't brought it in then why on earth does he think a 7 year old would otherwise have any reason to go back to the car ?

Everything else - not unheard of in 7 year olds of course, but far far more common when one or more adults let them get away with it. SS may well have been told several times that such and such is wrong but if, in your household, the adult who's closest to him, i.e. his dad, never reprimands or imposes consequences for misbehaviour then of course he's going to carry on doing it .... kids that age just don't have the emotional maturity to discipline themselves if there aren't any repercussions. Agree that you'd have to be a robot not to be extremely irritated by it - and at SS because after all, he's the perpetrator - but objectively, DH is enabling and in effect encouraging the bad behaviour. What does he think this is going to achieve when SS never listens ? ..... never mind a hot plate, what will happen when SS is warned not to do something ten times more dangerous but goes ahead and does it anyway (in typical kid fashion) because he knows from past experience that dad's warnings don't mean anything really. Does he want to expose his son to harm - because that's what could potentially happen by raising a disobedient child ? And that's before you get on to the issue of your younger child and whether different rules will apply to her.

Your DH is being an idiot. And it's utterly disrespectful to lie to you.

I'm with allnew I'd be seriously unimpressed if my 6 year old DD did any of those things. She does occasionally do things such as these but then I'm seriously unimpressed obviously. And I'd be hopping mad about the folder, totally unacceptable behaviour IMO.

And of course we all have different standards of acceptable behaviour and manners in our DC. Mumsnet is proof of that.

My twopennorth:

1. DSS wets the bed? DH changes the sheets and dries the matress.
2. DSS gets up before 7am? DH gets up with him. (Up to you if he takes DD as well)
3. DSS messes up the car? DH cleans it.
4. DSS deliberately disobeys you/DH? You point it out "DSS I told you NOT to do XXX, you have gone behind my back and done it anyway. Your father can deal with you" Hopefully DH then punishes him, but if he doesn't, at least he cannot say that he didn't know about it or know how unhappy you are about it.
5. DH doesn't notice things happening? You point them out to DH at the time.

I don't think you have much choice but to step back and disengage. I've had to do the same with my DSD because a lot of what she was doing was driving me insane. Now I don't get involved at all and when DH eventually complains about her or something she has done I just make 'uh huh' sounds and don't actually comment. He has finally noticed this and it has come as a bit of a shock to him. He also realises that he is the master of his own downfall where she is concerned, and it hurts . I just wish he had listened to me before, and I wish I had acted sooner. If I had done this when DSD was 7/8/9 we wouldn't be in the muddle we are now.

It very frustrating to have you keep your belongings "safe" from DSS. Right up until DSS went to Uni, I had to hide my car keys, as DSS used to bimble absent-mindedly around the house, picking up and fiddling with random objects, and not replacing them in their original location. I once caught DSS with my hair dryer in the dining room, but DH's response was "he's not doing any harm ......" Well great, but if I get out the shower on a work morning, can't dry my hair and then can't find my car keys, that's a disastrous start to the day. DSS, who's fire proof, would have been deemed totally innocent. I started to use comments like "oh, the cat must have moved it then ......" when it became quite clear that these random objects must have moved all by themselves.

OP, you have my sympathy.

Why does he have such a regime when it comes to drinking out of interest?

Your husband isn't looking after the 7yo boy enough. I have a 7yo boy. He's knackered from school and at the weekend needs a rest and likes to be babied a bit. If he needed to drink, I'd sit him at the table and probably ave a drink with him and praise him for it, rather than turning back and expecting him to do something he doesn't want to do or cba to do. This is a job for h to do.

Pinching the planner from the car was naughty though. H needs to explain this in terms ds can understand. Why it was wrong, what the consequences were for you.

I have got a 9yo DS. If he went to his dads house and behaved like that I would expect his dad to get up with him, make sure he had a drink, not let him faff around with my work stuff, etc.

What I would not expect is for my ex-husband to make his partner responsible for getting up with my DS and changing his wet bed sheets.

What I would not want is for the partner of my ex to feel in any way resentful of my DS because his father was not parenting him properly.

What I am reading here is that the OPs husband is abdicating all responsibility for his son and leaving the OP to pick up all of the slack. No wonder she is pissed off.

Your DH needs a good old fashioned kick up the back end!
He needs to parent his son and that means teaching him right from wrong.
Presumably when your dd gets older he will parent her this way so why not DSS?
I'd be fuming about the blatant disobedience and taking the planner out of the car. He needs to be taught to respect other peoples property and to learn the meaning of the word No.
Your DH isn't doing his son any favours.

I don't think that behaviour is typical or necessarily normal, my own wouldn't have done it at that age. Having said that I think the reason he is behaving like that is because of your dh. He knows your dh wont support you or back you up on these issues so he is quite naturally pushing the boundaries. Your dh needs to grow up and step up, he is being very unfair.

your DH sounds rubbish!

And has everyone missed the bit where the OP says she's back to work tomorrow after 9 months mat leave? Well, in my book that makes today all about you and making things easier for you. DH should have stepped up and stepped in.

As for taking your folder out of the car AND THEN LEAVING IT BEHIND???? Spectacular disobedience (sorry to sound so old-fashioned), as well as being very underhand, and strip-tearing totally deserved in that case. Your DH and DSS sound have been back in the car to get it back as soon as that was spotted.

The pair of them have effectively made what was already going to be a stressful day for the OP even more so. If the one parented properly and the other behaved properly, none of it would have needed to happen.

I feel for you, OP, but this is not "Disney" parenting!

It is not "parenting" at all!

Why on earth are you focusing your anger on your DSS and not your DH?

Let's take the hot plates example. This is an example you're using to show how frustrating your DSS is. And yet it starts like this:

DH then comes downstairs to make some pancakes and heats the plates up really really hot then dumps them on the table in front of DSS.

I'm sorry but how stupid is he?
I don't want to sound patronising but one of the things you will see yourself as your DD grows up is that half the battle in parenting is being proactive and preventing catastrophe. Putting really hot plates in front of a young child is just asking for trouble.

And before anyone says he's 7 and should know better, I'll just say that when I was waitressing, and would occasionally have to warn patrons that their plate was really hot, literally half the time the person would go ahead and touch it anyway, I guess to see how hot it really was. It's some kind of weird thing that even adults do.

I think you need to bring your expectations of DSS slightly lower and your expectations of your DH massively higher.

Allnew the dss wasnt told no about the chocolate. He was just told no about eating it in the car.

I'd write off most of the stuff except the file. That is outright disobedience and sneakiness that has caused massive negative consequences for you. DSS needed to know how much hassle he had caused and be told off IMO. Also, your DH should have questioned why he wanted the car keys in the first place!

I personally find it hard sometimes to know when my DSS is being a typical 8 year old and when he is behaving badly. I have no kids of my own and not much experience of kids so no points of comparison. I learnt after a while to just let go of him causing mess or forgetting to put things away or refusing to eat dinner. Not worth the nagging, and while DP isnt Disney his standards are lower than mine so he isn't really bothered enough to pick him up on it. But any outright disrespect or important disobedience we are pretty united in dealing with.

Also I make sure to praise DSS when he does things well, or point out to DP when he is being particularly funny or sweet. Because I think a lot of parents, my DP included, can get a little defensive of their child when others criticise him/her, so making sure that he (and DSS) know I recognise and appreciate the good in DSS makes me come across less like a wicked stepmother when I occasionally tell him off or get cross with him.

OP my DH was like this, especially ignoring dd when she had a dirty nappy and I was supposed to be having a lie in from night feeds. I would hear her moaning and dh would be running around sorting drinks and breakfast for 10 yr old DSS. I would end up getting up to do it.

It wasn't until DH did 6 months paternity leave did he realise how hard it is to be a babies main carer and started to parent properly. He acknowledges that until then he wasn't the amazing parent he thought he was.

Don't put up with yourpartner's behaviour OP he is letting you all down.

Your "D"H is an arse. I'd love to know why he split up with DSS's mother. Did she get tired of his arsiness? DSS, on the other hand, although badly behaved, is not outside the bounds of normal bad behaviour for a child this age. And I realise from the experience of friends/relatives that you are in an impossible position, because it's hard to exert discipline yourself without coming over as the evil stepmum, and bloody impossible to do so if your DH is making no effort whatsoever to back you up.