Contact Between Half-Siblings
One of the major issues while SD15 was living with us was the conflict over allowing her to call and text her older half-siblings (They share the same BM and all have different fathers. BM had her parental rights terminated).
SD (then 14)'s cell phone was frequently taken away as a punishment for bad grades, being disrespectful or disobeying me and her father, so she was not able to call or text her half-siblings. SD15 and her maternal relative are holding this against us.
I was wondering what other stepparents’s experiences have been.
When she first moved in with us, her half-brother was 17 and her half-sister was 20 so they aren’t little kids and they’re old enough to understand why their sister had her phone taken away.
They have to constantly text each other. At least a 100 texts would go back and forth at all times between them each day. It’s completely ridiculous. If you’ve seen that video of the bride that’s texting while walking down the aisle- that will be them in a few years.
We made it clear what steps she needed to take to get her cell phone back so she could get her phone privileges back (and she was free to write them letters all she wanted), but instead of motivating her to behave, she retaliated against us and her behavior got even worse. She was also constantly going through our bedroom trying to find where we had put her phone.
It bothered my DH to do it, but taking away her cell phone was the only punishment that got any reaction out of her. He had stripped her of every other privilege, grounded her, and she didn’t care. She was content to be constantly miserable and on making everyone around her just as miserable.
We learned later that her half-brother sent her a new cell phone that he was paying for, which we had no idea about.
Her half-sister told us not allowing SD to contact family as a punishment was “unforgiveable", which makes me want to laugh. They don’t want to accept what a self-centered, entitled brat SD15 is and I’m having to constantly defend that this was the right thing to do.
DH is her father, and he still gets to say what goes with who she can or can’t contact - especially people like her half-siblings.
If a BM was involved, then DH withholding contact would be a violation of the custody order. Grandparents can sue for visitation with their grandkids. But would half-siblings fit in this same category? I can’t believe they are.
I feel like this shouldn’t even be an argument. There’s no right to text your siblings hundreds of times a day if you’re being a hateful brat and your father takes away your phone.
This entitled generation of kids truly believes that everything they want should be handed to them and if it's not, they can find some way to whine or guilt their parent into giving it to them.
Do you all have a land
Do you all have a land line?
If they HAVE to talk to her, allow her 20 minutes (or so) a day to talk to them on the land line...Then they have no grounds for anything...and you wouldn't be "withholding" anything...
I don't know about rights of siblings...
No, we actually don't have a
No, we actually don't have a landline. We switched to cell phones only after the recession hit us very hard (our house was foreclosed on) and haven't bothered to ever go back to having one.
We told her that she could write as many letter as she wanted, but none of them wanted any part in that.
And if there was an emergency, her half-sister and half-brother were free to call DH or I. But they never have. They aren't willing to speak to us.
She’s currently living with
She’s currently living with her aunt and uncle in another state (with her half-brother) because I would no longer tolerate her behavior in my home. Her father was given the chose of either getting her to behave like a decent human being or finding somewhere else to live. He chose the later.
She’s using this as a tit-for-tat thing as to why she won’t speak to her dad: he cut off contact with her siblings, so she won’t speak to him.
I have a similiar issue here
I have a similiar issue here and I can tell you how I handled it. Ss13 and DS12 each have cell phones. Ss13s mom has no custody and doesnt exercise visitation. Long story short, SS had his cell taken away as a result of breaking rules. He is unlikely to get it back soon. So I told his BM and sibs that they can call the house phone if they want to chat. They don't, of course. It takes 10% more effort than texting.
There's absolutely no way we
There's absolutely no way we would have sent that phone back to her half-brother. He was completely undermining DH's parental authority and made it impossible to assert any control over SD15.
Her behavior had become impossible to deal with. She wouldn't do any of the things required of her to get her phone back and failed all of her final exams.
Had she not had that phone? Maybe things might have been different. But her general attitude was f**k you to both me and her dad. Her half-siblings, mainly her brother, were part of that.
Her half-brother was also the one who gave her the instructions on how to hack my computer so she could get around the Net Nanny software and use Facebook. There was good reason to not want him in contact with her.
But we didn't learn about the cell phone until last summer and her half-sister admitted she had it.
I agree with most of the
I agree with most of the posters here. I couldn't imagine telling my children (who are half siblings) they couldn't speak to each other. We don't ground from family. If my DD is grounded, she still gets visitation with her father. I think that is a right, not a privilege. I don't think she should get the phone back but they aren't her friends, they are her family so maybe there is another compromise somewhere that can be made.
I dont think you did a darn
I dont think you did a darn thing wrong-of course my kids all have 1/2 sibs that they dont even have contact with. My two oldest kids 14 and 12 have a 1/2 sister who is about 32. She has no contact with them. They have even tried to initiate contact with her, but what I learned from another family member is that she doesnt feel as if she wants to go thru ME. She told this other family member if she could just come get my kids from school and spend time with them she would, but she does not wish to arrange anything with me or go thru me for anything. Cool. You dont get to see them then. They are my minor children and I set the rules on who sees them, who talks to them, and thru what means. She is not interested enough in a relationship with them to do anything that she doesnt feel like doing. Sounds like your sd's 1/2 sibs. No one is interested in sending letters? They arent interested in calling your all's cell phone # to check on her or even ask if they could talk to her on your line for a bit? OMG-what did people do before texting? How on earth did they ever have relationships with one another? You are NOT required to provide a cell phone for her to text her 1/2 sibs.
I think it is ridiculous that they are even trying to dictate what occurs at your household. It's none of their business. If they cared so much for their sister then they would act maturely and encourage her, thru a nice letter, to follow the household rules and respect her caregivers so that she can get her phone back and be a good, respectful person. However, they are only sabotaging her relationship with you guys by encouraging defiance. There is no way that I would even waste my time sending the brother's phone back to him. I'd probably throw it in the trash or if I liked it I might use it myself
He has no right to send something that you have banned sd from having into your home. IMO, once it enters your home it is your property to do what you wish with. In fact, YOU could send him a nice thank you note thanking him for the new phone. Told him you found it and assumed that it was for YOU as you know he would never undermine you and dh's parental authority by sending sd a phone.
Thank you. It is so much
Thank you. It is so much more difficult to parent a child as willful and defiant as this when she's supported by her maternal relatives who tell her that her dad is wrong, she's right and she doesn't need to do anything her dad says.
They're the ones that helped make SD15 the self-centered, entitled brat she is today. No wonder.
It was our home, our rules. THey didn't have a say in it. It doesn't matter if they were biologically related (although, I can't say that's a plus, being related to SD15's BM), they were a negative impact on her and they were causing stress in our home.
One of the worse things about being a stepmom is having to associate with people you never dreamed you would need to - the BM's relatives.
My thoughts about punishment
My thoughts about punishment is that in order to make an impact you gotta make it sting. I understand family is not a "privledge" but i also feel if you have family trying to sabatoge your lessons then yes that contact becomes a privledge. We had a similar incident ss8 would get in trouble and grounded, gp tried to come in and "save" him by wanting him to come stay overnite. Or ss would want to see gp when he got in trouble and was grounded. We all knew running to gp, that ss would have a great, over indulged time. WRONG!!!! DH and i said no he cant go. And once even used it as punishment when ss was suppose to go there for the upcoming weekend. Ss screwed up during the week and lost his weekend "privledge" of staying at gp house.
So if talking to half siblings is the "currency" to open your sd eyes then use it. You said they could still communicate, via mail. So you are not cutting her off from her "rights" but you are cutting off her communication via phone, which is a privledge.
Exactly. The only thing we
Exactly. The only thing we could find that SD14/15 wanted was to call/text her half-siblings and friends back in her home town.
It was the currency she cared about and it was the only thing we had.
There was absolutely nothing else that had an impact. It was a punishment that made her go throwing tantrums and whining/crying for hours. She was furious over it. If we took away playing with the Wii or Xbox, it didn't bother her. She'd spend hours on end in bed refusing to get up or do anything.
But she never actually worked to get it back by behaving like a decent human being or doing homework. She spent all of her time trying to get around it by stealing back her phone, complaining, whining and getting her half-siblings to help her get around it.
This all would be a non-issue if she had simply apologized when her cell phone was first taken away, turned in her homework and stopped being such a brat. But she made things worse for everyone by being so defiant and hateful towards everyone.
I’m sick of having to defend actually punishing a teenager who refuses to follow any and all rules.
I would also do this. I would
I would also do this. I would sit down and tell sd HER actions lost her, her phone. And HER actions can get it back.
What does she need to do to earn her phone back? Write them down. List them, time limits also if need be. (Like turning in homework for a week, no back talk for a week, etc..) but also put on there that each infraction adds another x amount of days without phone.
Then sd has written "goals" to work toward and can track her "progress"
Her father has tried this
Her father has tried this over and over again, and gotten her standard response to everything, “F**k off”. She completely rejected the Home Rules contract I put together. SD15 doesn’t believe any rules apply to her or that she should be required to do anything, so this has never worked.
She was told in May that to be able to go visit her family in Washington that summer, she needed to at least pass her classes. To retaliate, she intentionally failed all of her finals. She just doodled on her tests and didn’t fill in any answers.
Ha ha im postin again,
Ha ha im postin again, obviously this irritates me. Let me say a couple things about the "older" siblings. I am the oldest and technically half sibling to them. I love them little brats (said endearly) and if they were actin up (and have) i would say to them "dude, you need to get it together so we can hang out." Or i would say, "i sure wish you would act right so you can get your phone back so we can talk."
THAT would be the mature older sibling thing to do. NOT disrespect their parents and sneak around talking.
BUT since its obvious those older sibs arent mature or even respectful of their little sister's parents, then they need to butt out!!!
To them, SD15 is a saint who
To them, SD15 is a saint who can do no wrong. There’s been no reasoning with them that SD15 is the problem and her behavior is out of control. They believe it’s all DH and my fault their perfect angel was acting the way she is.
(The BM and DH barely knew each other, so he isn’t their former stepdad. SD15 was a stupid, stupid mistake DH made while as a teenager and drunk.).
They all hate him for something that happened years ago and the BM had told her kids lies about how DH didn’t want to pay child support and what a terrible person he was.
SD and her half-siblings all believed that at age 14, she should have been able to decide where she lived and should not be forced to live with her dad. When DH said she was going to live with him and that was it, they all went psycho crazy.
I found this searching Bing
I found this searching Bing and I can’t believe anyone can be this big of an ass. WTF is wrong with you? Seriously you need mental help and kids taken away from you. Why the hell would you keep someone from their halfsibs? Their still FAMILY YOU ASS!
I agree with those who say
I agree with those who say you don't cut off contact with family. Her 1/2 sibs are not your family, but they are hers. I can see grounding her from her phone & allowing her to call them from yours or her dads, but not taking away the opportunity altogether.
I can absolutely understand her & the family you cut her contact with being pissed.
I also agree that the phone 1/2 brother gave her should be returned either to him or her. If she isn't living with you now, her having her phone back shouldn't be an issue for you anymore.
Being a result of a blended
Being a result of a blended family with multiple parents I can say that it might not have been the best idea to have the phone taken away. Very luckily for me, my parents stayed together but there is a sense of security that comes from children who go through multiple divorces and split ups.
The motto for us is: Siblings are forever, parents are temporary.
This comes as a result of the adults saying how much they care, telling them they will never leave (as we are taught parents wont) and then it not just happening once. It's like the constant promise of a family that constantly is taken away from them. If a house is a revolving door, the teen feels helpless without their siblings.
Put yourself in their shoes. You really don't know what is happening in their mind. You may not mean badly and just want to correct behavior but if that cell phone is their only connection to people they truly believe love them, I wouldn't keep it for very long.