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When StepKids Get Out Of School For Summer

Lillywy00's picture

The moment when you realize that it's now summer, those step kids are out of school, they have nothing to do (even though theyre old enough to have *something* going on besides sitting around the house all day like bumps on a log), and their bio parents had latchkey kids but erroneously expect their respective new partners to endure grueling hours of last notice, on-demand, free babysitting/free summer school camp.....

Nope!

"Get somebody else to do it"

Is the new motto for step parenting in the summer...

And unilateral summer camp and job application signups may make for skids to misinterpret a step parent with reasonable rules and boundaries to be the step parent villain  

Oh well. 

Comments

JRI's picture

For real, I used to go into depression at this time of the year with the prospect of summer vacation ahead of me.  The rest of the year, we had the 3 SKs every weekend and whenever they were out of school.  But summer meant endless days.

And yes, the year we signed everyone up for a week at camp, SD managed to get out of it with her medical emergency, the start of her periods.

Shockingly, when they all moved in full time, it wasn't so bad.  It was the back and forth that caused most of the trouble.

I'm going to drink a glass of wine for all the SMs staring down 3 months of summer vacay.

NotYourAverageStepMama's picture

of summer, Monday - Friday. The first two weeks she will be home with me while I work from home because SD's school gets out earlier than schools here get out. SD is a well behaved kid, BUT no way she could be home with me 24/7 while I work from home and DH just switched to a closer job so he doesn't have the time to take off either. DH will take her to camp before he goes to work and I will pick her up when I am done work or could have 1.5 to myself on days I want before going to get her. 

Originally this summer we were debating about getting a Nitendo Switch for SD and everyone to play when she is here because she likes video games, BUT since it sounds like she has unlimited access to video games/electronics at BM's, we changed our mind. Luckily we never said a word to SD about it. Instead she is excited about a sand box coming.

CastleJJ's picture

SS11 arrives on Saturday for a two week visit to kick off summer. We are taking SS11 and DD15mos to Florida for 10 days. Then DH will spend every other Saturday in June driving 8 hours roundtrip to pick SS up for two one week visits. I hate that all of June will be transporting SS. It's a lot of work to see SS for 4 weeks non-consecutively, especially when there is such a long distance roundtrip. But such is life when BM won't allow DH to see his kid for more than 2 weeks at a time. 

Usually, SS plays Nintendo Switch or Xbox for a few hours each day until DH yanks it out of his hands and forces him to go outside, where he kicks a ball around and complains about how bored he is. The preteen years are fun; the kids lack all creativity, motivation, or sense of fun. 

But, after the first week of July, we will be skid free until Christmas... unless we drive down to BM's state for a weekend visit this Fall (which is always an awkward situation).

JRI's picture

That's why having the SKs living here was easier than visitation.  We could have pets to distract them, they had time to make friends, the rules were consistent.  I never ever dreamed that having them live here full time, with my two kids already here making a total of five kids with six years from the oldest to the youngest, would be easier, but it was.  I feel for everyone dealing with the back and forth.

CastleJJ's picture

SS has one friend in our town who he hangs out with at least once every visit. He also has our dog and DD15mos who he loves. We try to keep consistency and rules in our house, but they are sometimes overthrown because SS argues about how they don't match BM's rules. We have had the whole conversation about different households, different rules, but occasionally, SS defaults to BM's rules and needs to be corrected. 

I'm split on whether or not I would want SS11 full time. I know it would make our life easier and would make our issues with BM so much less, since she loves to hold the sole custody situation over our heads and abuse us with it. At the same time, BM has brainwashed SS and messed him up enough that I'm not sure I want that trouble in my life full time. Don't get me wrong, SS is a good kid who is mostly respectful, but BM has pushed her screwed up ideas and agendas on him. 

Shieldmaiden's picture

Finally! There is only one skid left and she is 17. Her dad is encouraging her to get a job this summer. I guess she can't have a job during the schoolyear because she does AP classes and they take up more time. So if she does get a job, it will be her first. 

SD17 is the only SD out of the 3 that is reasonable and seems to be growing up instead of staying an infant, mentally.

I don't think she will want to come over more than once a week, for dinner. Hopefully, her older sister who is almost 20 will not decide to accompany her. If she does, I will want her to stop acting paranoid and secretive, long enough to have a nice dinner where she can answer questions like "So, what have you been doing for fun lately?" without snapping and growling "THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" 

So yeah, I am looking forward to a fairly peaceful summer. 

PetSpoiler's picture

I remember the summer breaks.  Fun times.  Not.  I worked at the time and made it a point to NOT take any days off while SS was out of school.  The only exception was if he was with BM.  I would take a day off then. He behaved well around me and DH, but could be annoying.  If he was around and school was out, he'd stay with MIL.  We didn't have anyone else who could watch him and he wanted to stay with her anyway.  He would play with SIL's kids, who were pretty much raised by MIL.  MIL let them run wild so of course he wanted to stay with her.  

 

SteppedOut's picture

It was my last straw. 

One week after skid got out for summer, I made hasty plans to gtfo the following week. 

He was horrible in ALL ways possible.