So you guys know all about my skateboarding SS12. He is so obsessed with it that he gets up an hour early every morning so that he and a buddy can skate before school starts. Don't you know his teachers are delighted when he shows up reeking and sweaty during the hot months? DH does not find this ridiculous, so I keep my mouth shut. Even though the kid has been late to first period three times this semester.
DH works nights, so mornings find him still asleep while we all get ready. Personally, I think (and have told him several times)that he should drag himself out of bed while the skids are getting ready for school and at least have that time to be a visible parent. Sometimes he doesn't interact with them at all (except for driving SD to school) for the whole week, because he's asleep in the morning, and they're asleep by the time he gets home at night.
The morning comedy act plays out each day. SS gets himself ready to go, then comes in to tell Pops that he's leaving. Inevitably, every morning, DH groggily asks him why he's leaving so early. SS inevitably replies, I'm going to Friend's to skate. Then DH tells him he can't leave with wet hair. SS always claims it's dry. DH makes him go dry it more, and then the morning ritual is done and SS leaves.
Today, SS kept arguing about how dry his hair is (it wasn't), and DH kept telling him to go dry it anyway. SS keeps arguing. If he'd been arguing with me, I'd have told him that he'd just earned himself a skate-free morning and sent him to his room to wait. But no, DH thinks it's reasonable to be drawn into an argument with a 12-year-old. One that he ended up losing, because finally DH snaps, "Fine, just leave then. But if you get sick and end up at the doctor's, you're paying for it!"
Yeah, right.
It's just so typical of his interaction with SS, who would argue with a stop sign if there was no one else to argue with. There are never any consequences for it, and DH gets drawn in every time. It just makes me exhausted listening to them.
Does anyone else have argumentative skids and a DH who can't resist the debate? What (if anything) do you say/do about it?
I ignore it
and let DH handle it. Him and SS12 get into mondo jurassic arguments (mostly because ss is just like his bm). They cant stand each other most of the time because they argue so badly.
SS is great for me...he does what I ask him to, never mouths off, does everything just to be nice. Like I say, DH and bm think I have a better relationship with their kids than they do. That's why I let them parent however they want to parent, and I have my own 'separate' relationship with the skids. They treat me differently because I treat them differently than their parents do and we interract way better than they all do.
I would say, just let them duke it out and keep being a good sm so your relationship with the skid isn't messed up by the bioparents. Handle the skid the way you feel you should and stay out of the fights with the parents...that's one you don't want to get dragged into.
Hugs.
boy do I
My SD9 loves to argue, she always needs to get the last word in. Its a very bad habit. Luckily, DH has eralized that this is going on and has helped to nip it in the bud. At first, she would argue with me about something- say what year she was when she did such and such (I wasnt there till she was 5, so I don't know the age unless I was told). And I would sometimes know different. I would correct her, and she would argue with me about it. DH would say IN FRONT of SD that she was right and I was wrong. Well this happened a few times before I finaly had to tell him that regardless if she is right or not, she does NOT argue with me about it. Now, he will stop her himself if she starts arguing with either of us and tell her to hush it up, and not to argue cause it will just get her in trouble.
It has done a lot of good with him and I on the same page with it, and between the 2 of us have curbed a bad lying habit she had.
I know parents don't always agree on topics like this, even if it were bio kids, but you need to show a united front to the kids. have you tried to discuss this with him?
Can you talk to DH?
I've talked to my DH about it, and he acknowledges the ridiculousness of many "conversations" (arguments) he has with SD11.
Now, when they are in the middle of it, I'll just say something like, "This is a ridiculous conversation." Its my cue to him that its happening again (because in the heat of it, he's so caught up with arguing with her that he doesn't even think about it).
Sometimes it works and he stops having the argument. Sometimes it doesn't. But I just kind of say that, and then head off into another room of the house so I don't have to listen anymore.
Its definitely frustrating.
This is probably because
This is probably because mentally they are on the same level as their kids half the time!!
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. - George Carlin
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