11 & 9 year olds both failing school
Hello. Nice to meet you. Please forgive the long post.
I have been a stepmom for 4 years. It has been fairly easy as far as the kids go, definitely not when it comes to their mom. In my opinion she's a hands off, neglectful mom who is a liar and more Interested in her social life than the well being of the kids. The kids have often told me that when they ask for something she tells them that's what your stepmom is for. The hard part is they live fulltime with her and we see them every other weekend.
Now to topic at hand. Usually on our weekends the kids either forget their homework or say they don't have any. I recently picked them up from school and we saw the nasty state of their moldy backpacks and waterbottle. We went through and checked their agendas (which their mom hadn't looked at since Christmas) and there were several notes from the teachers about how my stepson is disruptive in class or not doing homework or lost library books or needing notes signed. There were notes from my step daughters teacher about her lack of reading and progress. The kids have been lead to believe that their 0's on exams is fine and there have been no consequences for incomplete homework (even though the mom tells us she took away video games we can clearly see they are online and the kids say she never even talked to them about it). My husband immediately went and set up parent teacher interviews and asked for report cards which he had to prove he was legally allowed to have because the mom has told the school he isn't allowed contact. So now school is out and we know both kids failed grade 3 & 5 but the mom is choosing to not hold them back. We have no say in the decisions with the kids and no money for a lawyer to get 50/50.
My question is what can we do in the few days we have them to change their ways? Do we punish them for the bad grades and lack of effort? Hard to do anything with 4 days of the month. I hate the thought of "not my problem" when I know their life is going to be so hard if they don't learn better habits and responsibilities. Last summer I had the kids fulltime and taught them how to read and do math. Do I do the same thing this summer when I really need to be getting a job now that covid is squashed? I hate being the only one who gives a crap and feel taken advantage of by the "that's what your stepmom is for". The whole thing bugs me so much because I know if they lived with us things would be so different. Ps their mom is a paralegal so fighting in court would be a huge money pit. Also the school contacted child services about the kids in September but as far as we know, child services hasn't shown up yet.
DO NOT give up getting a job
DO NOT give up getting a job to spend your summer teaching kids whose parents haven't bothered to do so. Your work will be undone through the BM's neglect in the upcoming school year.
The only thing I would do is talk up the importance of school, figure out what the skids are interested in and talk about potential paths and the necessity of doing well in school. Read to them or get them interesting books they'll enjoy when they're with you. When the new school year starts, your DH should introduce himself to the teachers, ask to be kept informed, and log into the portal regularly to make sure the kids are doing their work. Maybe offer rewards for completed assignments and good grades. He needs to completely turn around their attitudes about school. Him paying attention and providing attention will let them know it's important. Even though he only has them 4 days a month, he can still call them, go to school functions and be involved in school, right? Knowing at least one parent is concerned about their education should help, especially at their young ages.
But it's DAD who needs to do these things, not you.
My husband had set up
My husband had set up mediation but the BM refused to go. Then covid hit and everything stopped because I lost my job. My husband didn't have a lawyer when they divorced and didn't k ow he signed away his guardianship and only found out by her accident in emailing the wrong person a few years ago that she set it up so if she dies the kids go to her sister and he won't see them. He was trying to get that back and cement visitation rights, as he only is technically allowed supervised visits for 1 hour a month which means she can take away the kids if he doesn't play along. She wanted him to pay for a $20,000 psych assessment (s. 211) to determine if he is fit for guardianship (s. 211 technically is for custody and is a psych assessment of both families) before she would agree to consider letting him have guardianship back. That was all up until covid.
Now we consider 50/50,but I said "be the only one who gives a crap" because sometimes it takes him a long time to put the puzzle together and see and decide. He was raised in a addict family so he's still learning the parenting ways. He cares and wants something done for the kids but we are a bit tied in what we can do. He has called child services a few times even though she threatened to stop visits due to her belief that I'm a psychological danger to the kids (kids told us she tied them up and a bunch of other things so yes the call was warranted). Nothing came of it. Not even check up's. Same with the phone call from last September by the school and family members. Child services hasn't shown and they won't talk to him because he's not a guardian.
He has tried phone calls but most of the time she won't answer her phone and will call back after the kids have gone to bed and try to get a friendly convo out of it. She even told my SS not to tell daddy that she had gotten him a cellphone but he let it slip. And magically his phone broke shortly after and hasn't been replaced.
I kind of agree that any summer schooling will end up being pointless throughout the year because last summer after spending everyday teaching them to read it wasn't long before they forgot alot. They are ok now. But the grade 5 SS should be way better than he is. This is why I am teetter tawtering. They need the help but they need full time help all year. And if I get a job, I can help pay for the lawyer if that's the decision my husband makes. At the same time, it's not my job to keep rescuing and its not my decision to fight for 50/50. I just don't like the way their lives will turn out if something doesn't happen but it's not on me to always be the something.
I am stunned that your
I am stunned that your husband signed away rights to his kids and agreed to one hour a month of supervised visitation without realizing it. Unless there was a lot more going on there, I find it horrifying that a judge would allow a pro se party to agree to that without making sure he thoroughly understood what he was agreeing to. I've read my DH's divorce papers and the forms are written in plain English and can be easily understood by a person with reasonable reading comprehension (me!). On top of that, DH said the judge talked to him and BM (they didn't have a lawyer) and made sure they understood what they were agreeing to - and they didn't have anything egregious like a father settling for one hour a month of visitation. I would be very disappointed in the courts in your area - that is just wrong. I hope your DH fares better when he goes back to court. That said, I don't think YOU should be paying for his lawyer. Especially after being out of work, I'm sure you have obligations and emergency and retirement funds to catch up on.
The pressure of public humiliation for failure will grow.
It will reach a critical mass when they are a bit older and when their peers start to chew them up and spit them out they will either make an effort or go in the complete opposite direction and embrace abject failure.
As for what you can do in 4 days per month. Other than highlight the issue and ask them how it feels to be failures, not much. But you can notify CPS that BM is an abject failure as a parent and see if you can get the system to intervene.
Make the call. I would.