How often do you have your step children?

[Rainydays55]

How often do you have your step children? Has it changed the older they have got?

My DH doesn’t have his 16 nearly 17 DD anymore she has other things and a job his DS comes Easter summer and Xmas due to them living in another country. All for 2 weeks. These are with his EX wife. He has another DD9 who used to come EOW but due to covid and when she does come she is on FaceTime to her mother every waking hour she doesn’t come as much 1 night a month. That’s a funny one as she is a result of a ONS away before I met DH do he has never lived with her relationship there with his DD mum has always been hostile.

My own two DC who are 17 and 12 don’t go to their dads very much due to them like being at home they are happy to go for a day or outing with him but likes to come home. When they were younger they used to go on a regular basis but as they have got older and have commitments it’s got less.

Punctuation?

It's flexible depending on what kids want and plans the adults might have (pre-covid)

But generally it's at one weekend day in the week, Friday night til Saturday evening or Sunday morning or Saturday night til Sunday evening. They also come over for dinner one or two nights in the week.

As we live 15 minutes walk away it's quite easy for them to pop over when they like and if their mum wants to go out at short notice we'll always have them unless we have plans. And vice versa, if we have a busy weekend they will spend more time with their mum.

50/50. 4 days one week 3 days next week.

@jessstan2
Punctuation?
What??

My SDs 12 & 16 officially are supposed to come EOW. SD12 still does but SD16 often doesn’t come for the whole weekend now as she has other plans. SD12 often stays the weekend in between the set contact weekends too as her friends all hang out at the park near our house.
Both girls come for dinner whenever they want, often once a week or more.

It’s hard as they get older and more independent... my DP is struggling with this a bit, bless him. He wishes they’d both still stay over more regularly but they have their own social lives now.

@jessstan2

Punctuation?

Unnecessary

DSS is 9, he comes every other weekend Friday to Monday morning and 1 night during the week. We also have him half the school holidays. It's been this way for at least the last 3 years.

Honestly @mumbo1234 I think that if parents have decided to live far away from each other the only fair thing to do is for whoever has the children that weekend to ferry them back and forth. I think it's incredibly unfair when teenagers have to choose between seeing their parent and having a normal social life.

@Mumbo1234

DSD is about to start school so we’ll lose some time as her mum is over an hour away.

It’s going to drop to every other weekend.

Not to hijack the thread but how do other people fit in time with extended family and “household” family time?

The other thing we’re worried about is how to manage dance classes, birthday parties each weekend. We want to see her but don’t want her missing out on a social life?

Any advice welcomed.

Were 45 min away from DSS so have some experience of this.

Birthday parties of friends we would take if it fell on our weekend. But being that far away we would go, drop him at party ( once they go to that age) grab a coffe and pick him up a couple hours later.
Family events in either house would lead to weekend swaps. We also had a weekend swap when he got invited to a party down in ours.
His birthday we would do something in ours for DPs family and a couple of friends. He would also have something at mums which we got an invite to some years.
The issue we now have is as hes getting older (9) he wants to see his friends more so we are considering moving a bit further north to be closer. In our case it would also mean he would be a single bus away from the secondary he will go to

In my experience reception and year one theres lots of parties as the whole class get invited. But as they get older the parties are smaller so therefore there are less of them.

My SC are here EOW (Fri-Mon), a night in the week and half the holidays too. Or that's the arrangement but my H has taken a new job and doesn't have enough annual leave to cover half the school holidays so who knows what he'll renegotiate/figure out. I'm not using my annual leave to facilitate his contact; I've got my own kids to use my leave with.

They don't do any clubs because their parents don't coordinate these things.

My DS does EOW at his dad's and two weeknights for dinner (not overnight). He does a sport with 11 hours of training a week, and we each just take him to the sessions in our days.

I don't have step children, but DS's Dad and I are separated.

He's 17. He used to go EOW and about 2 years ago it changed to once a month - to factor in starting to get ready for GCSE's and DS wanting to get a weekend job. Then about a year ago DS's dad suggesting scraping a routine totally, it's now under DS's control - so his Dad asks if he wants to go when he has his younger children (different family), and if DS wants to he goes. He goes roughly a weekend every 6-8 weeks usually.

It's difficult as DS's Dad lives a couple of hours away, so he can't just pop and see him and tbh neither of them are organised enough to sort it out..

@KylieKoKo

Honestly *@mumbo1234* I think that if parents have decided to live far away from each other the only fair thing to do is for whoever has the children that weekend to ferry them back and forth. I think it's incredibly unfair when teenagers have to choose between seeing their parent and having a normal social life.

Totally agree, it causes an awful lot of resentment in my experience

We do one eow Friday till Monday - every Wednesday overnight and then the weekend he's not here for the full weekend he comes over Sunday. He's 7, it may or may not change as he gets older depending on what dss wants. It works out 40/60 and has changed slightly from the every other night as dss dm felt like she didn't see dss enough and was as fed up as me about being tied to a drop off/pick up on both weekend days.

Mine lived with us full time, no contact with their mum. Eldest moved out at 19, younger one at 18 when he went to uni then moved in with a girlfriend. DH was a single dad from when the youngest was a baby.

Initially it was every other weekend but the oldest moved in full time at 14 because he wasn't getting on with his mother, then the other one did at 16 (oldest moved out at 18).
The mother lived only a couple miles away from us, so social stuff wasn't an issue.

50/50. They're 4 and 7.

50/50 - every other week.

Sdd (3) comes every weekend, which, although I love her to bits, it's a bit annoying as we never get a lie in (work through the week, then she comes early on a Saturday to Sunday lunch/dinnertime) and we can't do anything just us. Think I'd prefer eow.

@DontOpenDeadInside

Sdd (3) comes every weekend, which, although I love her to bits, it's a bit annoying as we never get a lie in (work through the week, then she comes early on a Saturday to Sunday lunch/dinnertime) and we can't do anything just us. Think I'd prefer eow.

She's preparing you for when you have your own.

Unfortunately by that time she will be able to entertain herself for an hour or so in the morning...

DSS is 9, he comes every other weekend Friday to Monday morning and 1 night during the week. We also have him half the school holidays. It's been this way for at least the last 3 years

Similar but ours is now Court Ordered which DP's ex doesn't like.

She keeps trying to add on more nights and weekends without the required notice in the Court Order. DP just says "No" mainly as their child hasn't yet asked for this extra time and one of the reasons he went to Court was to stop being used as ad-hoc childcare. His ex use to throw tantrums and be abusive, if he was at work so couldn't look after their child or take the child to activities his ex had lined up.

In regards to activities SC is now in different places at the weekend thanks to DP's ex, and actually does more local activities and sees more local friends when with us.

Mumbo - I can 100% see where you’re coming from but DH and I have a young DC so that would mean them missing out on time with DH when DC barely sees him in the week due to work.

I’m really concerned about it. The one thing I’m grateful for Covid for is that we seem to have got away with it this year as classes, parties, etc haven’t been allowed.

Wow - you really don't want your SDC around do you?