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stepmom22boys's picture

Hi All,

I am fairly new here. I have been reading your post for a few months and decided it was time to post for advice.... My question is how do you deal with step kids that lie and act in a deceitful manner all the time?

A few examples: Steps were given cell phones for the primary purpose of communicating with their Dad. They were told not to go onto the net or buy downloads because it cost money. They were doing both. When asked by their mom and step dad about the charges, the boys told them their Dad knew there were doing it and didn't mind. Then when they talked to their Dad, they told him they didn't know it cost money. Of course, Dad says they are sorry and didn't know better....

Second time--they were told they could not take their Christmas video games home or let a friend borrow them. (They were not told to be mean, they were told because their mom is going through a divorce and sells everything she can get her hands on.) At the end of their last visit, I ask them if they had the new video games and was told no. They also showed me that they only had the old games......The new games were in the old game cases. Like I told me husband, not only did they lie to me, but they also deceived me.

How do you deal with this?

My daughter knows they did both of these things. She also knows the punishment for not being honest. Should I hold them to the same standard?

Comments

Last-Wife's picture

Depending on your cell phone provider, there are parental locks you can have put on the phone. No texts or calls during certain hours; no texts or calls to certain numbers, etc.

My skids phones are "locked" from 9pm- 8am. Their BM always used to call at bedtime and create chaos, or call in the morning before they got on bus when my DH and I weren't around to monitor calls.

"I HAD to pick the road less traveled..."

stepmom22boys's picture

I turned off the phones until I get the bill. I told DH that if the cell bill was more than $200 over the norm, they would not get the phones back. I also told him that I expect them to pay for the overage with their allowance. He said that he would just pay it for them. I guess you can say that I freaked out about that. How are these kids every going to learn right from wrong if he keeps making excuses and/or bailing them out.

These kids have NEVER seen an ounce of discipline and it kills me.

TxStepMom's picture

I have Sprint and I know other cellphone companies also have the ability to block internet access at all times. My BD ran up a cellphone bill one time ($500) because she had responded to this text and it took her onto the internet and would send her texts daily and each one cost $1.99. I called and told them to block her internet acccess and haven't had any problems with it since.

soy_girl's picture

I had a similar problem a few years ago...Not sure what carrier you are using, but I called AT&T when the SS had charged several downloads to the phone, and since he was a minor & not the owner of the plan, they reversed several of the charges -- and blocked any future charges. Recently had a prob with SS & SD accessing internet (even though they knew we didn't have a plan for it) and they ran up a $500 bill! So, called AT&T again, they backdated a data plan for me so it cost $60 instead of $500. At the end of that billing cycle, I canceled the data plan and blocked all internet access from the phone. (since then we've dropped the SS19 from our plan, hopefully we can drop SD21 soon, too!)

anyway, if they are old enough to be responsible for a cell phone, they should be able to use it responsibly. Instead of waiting for the bill, you might consider calling your carrier now, or seeing if you can look at the bill online.

You are right that the kids need to learn consequences -- I don't have biokids, but it must be hard for your daughter to see different standards of behavior for her & skids.

Good luck!

stepmom22boys's picture

The bill was posted last night. It's well over $500. I am telling the boys today that they will not ever get the phones back and that they will pay the portion of the bill that they ran up. My DH got really mad about this. I told him if he wanted his boys to have phones, he can go out and get his own plan. I tried to tell him they will never learn a lesson about anything if he continues to do things such as this.

About the video games, I am driving the boys to Goodwill today to donate them. I am going to explain to them that a child will get them that deserves them.

It's really not the bill or the cost of the games that pissed me off....it's the fact that these kids can't tell the truth about anything.

I am being too harsh???