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Discussing skids behavior with husband

Sireanita's picture

Hi everybody,
our situation is like that : my son (9) lives with us and my husband's daughter (10) and son (14) come every second weekend. Our house has been in renovation for the past 7 months, so of course it's messy, but I try to maintain some decency.

I kind of feel bad complaining about the stepkids, because they are nice, but just like any kids, including my own, they need to be corrected. Examples of what they do or don't do in our house:

-SD blows her nose and leaves dirty tissue wherever she is at the moment, I find it when she leaves, so I have to clean up; Same with papers from candy. Same with slippers, when she leaves, they could be just anywhere, except the mudroom.

-Skids play on the bed, making everything fall on the floor, not to mention that I was raised to never get on the unmade bed, unless I'm wearing clean pjs, so I can't take it and they don't listen to me. And of course, I'm the one who does the bed for them before they go to sleep. But I no longer feel that they need to have a clean bed, since nobody cares.

-SD comes to my bedroom to wake me up because she's hungry even if he dear daddy is awake and she's big enough to serve herself cereal with milk. My son does it. Ok, it happens at about 10 am, but I'm sleep deprived and weekends are my time to sleep.

-SD likes touching food, so she puts her hands in flour, the jar with my chia seeds, etc. I told her not to do it, but she says she likes it and continues unless I have to raise my voice.

-SD takes my things without asking: hair brushes (and we had lice issues), necklaces (she broke one that I loved), my tea filter, because it was soft and she enjoyed squeezing it, until it's almost broken....

-SD takes anything she wants, ex. games that I buy as future gifts for kids. Even if they are sealed, she assumes it's for her to play with and opens them.

-SD and her father assume that she HAS to go to birthdays where my son is invited even if she doesn't know the child and doesn't bring a gift. Of course, the opposite is not true, because my son doesn't stay at her place. So I'm put in an uncomfortable situation of having to explain her presence with parents I don't even know.

Now, she's a nice affectionate with everybody kid. And my son is not perfect either and I constantly control him too. But I don't know how not to feel irritated.

Today, I asked my H to talk with her to tell her not to put her hands in the chia seeds and they can spoil with humidity and grease on the hands, not to mention the dirt. He immediately lashed out at my son who supposedly is the one teaching her that it's ok, because when he eats, he sometimes touches food with this hands (for which I ALWAYS scold him). And supposedly it's my son again who teaches her to jump on the sofa or the bed (!) and that supposedly I never control him. It's not true, I'm very critical about his behavior, because I want him to be raised well.

So, looks like I can't discuss skids' behavior with my H and I feel bad constantly telling him not to do this or that, which they ignore. What's the best way to deal with this and have a positive environment?

CompletelyPuzzled's picture

Your big problem isn't the skids. It's your DH. He doesn't want to deal with his kids behavior so he is deflecting by attacking your son. If he won't back you up, then you will never be able to correct their behavior.

Stepped in what momma's picture

-SD blows her nose and leaves dirty tissue wherever she is at the moment, I find it when she leaves, so I have to clean up; Same with papers from candy. Same with slippers, when she leaves, they could be just anywhere, except the mudroom.
Collect all of these items and deposit on her bed.

-Skids play on the bed, making everything fall on the floor, not to mention that I was raised to never get on the unmade bed, unless I'm wearing clean pjs, so I can't take it and they don't listen to me. And of course, I'm the one who does the bed for them before they go to sleep. But I no longer feel that they need to have a clean bed, since nobody cares.
Stop putting them to bed, stop caring about their rooms and the condition of it

-SD comes to my bedroom to wake me up because she's hungry even if he dear daddy is awake and she's big enough to serve herself cereal with milk. My son does it. Ok, it happens at about 10 am, but I'm sleep deprived and weekends are my time to sleep.
Tell her to stop doing this in a very nice voice and send her to her father. Eventually she will get the point when you don't help her but stop it with your own kid too, you aren't helping anyone when they are fully capable of doing it themselves.

-SD likes touching food, so she puts her hands in flour, the jar with my chia seeds, etc. I told her not to do it, but she says she likes it and continues unless I have to raise my voice. Don't put anything where she can get it and if she is in the kitchen tell her she needs to leave.

-SD takes my things without asking: hair brushes (and we had lice issues), necklaces (she broke one that I loved), my tea filter, because it was soft and she enjoyed squeezing it, until it's almost broken....
I know what I would do but I'm probably not the best person for advice on this one.

-SD takes anything she wants, ex. games that I buy as future gifts for kids. Even if they are sealed, she assumes it's for her to play with and opens them.
Why are these items being left in a place SD can find them?

-SD and her father assume that she HAS to go to birthdays where my son is invited even if she doesn't know the child and doesn't bring a gift. Of course, the opposite is not true, because my son doesn't stay at her place. So I'm put in an uncomfortable situation of having to explain her presence with parents I don't even know.
Stop telling them about the parties.

CLove's picture

Sireanita - I have a similar issue in discussing anything about Skids with So. It really brings out the worst in him, I have noticed. I have tried in multiple ways, a multitude of times, to no avail, so I simply backed off, as it was damaging to us and ultimately me. I have no bios, and we have skids 50/50.

When I ask skids to do something, ie, cleanup after themselves, they have gotten better over time. it needs to be reinforced by DH, just record his voice saying "kiddo, pick up your snot rag." And play it over and over again. If kiddo doesn't listen to you, point to the offending object, and ask DH to "please take care of your child's x,y,z". Disengage to a point, and let your DH be the parent, let him step up to the plate, and he will then think it is his own idea."

I had the following situation last night: it was DAY 1 of three days. It always seems to take a while for skids to get into the groove when they first start settling into our home after being with BM and her BF. So then, we cooked dinner, I asked SD10 to please "help me set the table", which she did. It has taken me a few months of repeat askings, now it is automatic.

We did not set a place for SD17. She prefers her own company, in her own room (even though right now door is off for various reasons, mentioned in my Blog). SO has been slacking on the house rule of "no eating in bedroom', so I simply assumed tonight she would be eating in her room or the living room. Whatever. Its been a fight to get everyone to eat together at the dining table, so I had given up.

So guess what happened? SO gets irritated and promptly sets a place for SD17. She joins us. It is awkward and stilted at best, but at least it happened. SO was actually mad that I did not expect SD17 to join us, like I was trying to exclude her. I told him "this is YOUR kid, you go retrieve her yourself, its not my job, I am not the parent, YOU are. YOU be the parent. I think it finally sunk in, its just been taking a long time. People need to hear the same thing repeated over and over again.

In essence you cant win. You are right, and DH gets mad, because you are wrong when you are right.

Acratopotes's picture

oh goody - take some advice from a Evil SM

-SD blows her nose and leaves dirty tissue wherever she is at the moment, I find it when she leaves, so I have to clean up; Same with papers from candy. Same with slippers, when she leaves, they could be just anywhere, except the mudroom.

Bwhahahahah when she leaves to BM and you have to clean simply trash it all.... it's that easy.... slippers you hide in her room somewhere. Then you tell DH oh SD cleaned her tissues etc she's turning into a big girl...

-Skids play on the bed, making everything fall on the floor, not to mention that I was raised to never get on the unmade bed, unless I'm wearing clean pjs, so I can't take it and they don't listen to me. And of course, I'm the one who does the bed for them before they go to sleep. But I no longer feel that they need to have a clean bed, since nobody cares.

DO not confuse your raising with theirs, you and DH have different parenting styles... ignore their room, what happens there none of your business, if they break the bed they can sleep on the floor and DH can do the bedding laundry thing

-SD comes to my bedroom to wake me up because she's hungry even if he dear daddy is awake and she's big enough to serve herself cereal with milk. My son does it. Ok, it happens at about 10 am, but I'm sleep deprived and weekends are my time to sleep.
Simply tell SD - stay the eff out of my room, if we are sleeping you can help yourself, if you dare doing this ever again I will start locking my door - and keep your word

-SD likes touching food, so she puts her hands in flour, the jar with my chia seeds, etc. I told her not to do it, but she says she likes it and continues unless I have to raise my voice.

-SD takes my things without asking: hair brushes (and we had lice issues), necklaces (she broke one that I loved), my tea filter, because it was soft and she enjoyed squeezing it, until it's almost broken....

Same goes for this, if SD takes something from your room go ape shit on her, tell her I'm not your mother stay the eff out off my room, I do not come into your room and take your stuff, thus stay out of mine and leave my stuff alone, every time she takes something rip into DH, tell him to teach his monkey... or get your son to start taking DH's stuff and simply say - if SD can take my stuff BS can take yours..

-SD takes anything she wants, ex. games that I buy as future gifts for kids. Even if they are sealed, she assumes it's for her to play with and opens them.

SD opening your child's gifts - Hon have a go at her and force DH to go and buy your kid new gifts. I hide my kids gifts and give it to him in his room....... Aergia will only know about it when he already has it, then if she wants it, I will simply tell her to give her Ipad to BS then...

-SD and her father assume that she HAS to go to birthdays where my son is invited even if she doesn't know the child and doesn't bring a gift. Of course, the opposite is not true, because my son doesn't stay at her place. So I'm put in an uncomfortable situation of having to explain her presence with parents I don't even know.

You simply say NO - this is BS friends, he does not go to your friends house... and leave with BS... eff DH and SD

Now how to handle DH - he's actually the problem you know cause he enables his mini-wife (SD) DH telling you but your son, cut him short and say respects your stuff and behaves, this is not about my son this is about you not parenting your children.

Rags's picture

These are not young kids and no... these are not nice kids. Your DH is the problem and you need to put your foot up his ass to get him to put his foot up the asses of his spawn.

Time to establish the standards of behavior that will be enforced in your home and hold all of the kids accountable for following those rules whether they are full time residents or not.