Grounded!! Muahahahahaha!!

I'm downsizing my living room.  We have a small living room and HUGE entertainment center that holds our flat screen.  I need to look at tv mounts so I can move my entertainment center into the family room and put our television up off the floor to open up space.

Not that my kids will benefit from it just yet.  My two oldest are grounded from the television until further notice. I actually ground my kids. I think it's good for them when they deserve it. I'm an ogre that way.

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Stepson Got a Wimpy Punishment for Obscenities Online IMO

I contacted my stepson's mother about what was all over Facebook (stepson's obscene song and language) and her response was he is grounded from the computer for a week and she talked to him about what is/isn't appropriate. Big whoop. The kid sang a song about kids on the bus having oral sex and uploaded it to the world and called his sister a w*hore online for all friends and family to see.  A week from the computer? I bet he learned his lesson with that harsh punishment!  What a joke.

Side note:  If she monitored her kids' online useage, she wouldn't have had to been notified by the evil stepmother telling her about it.  Betcha that burns a bit.

If my kid had recorded an obscene song, uploaded it online, and put links all over Facebook to it for a couple hundred other kids to hear, as well as called their sibling bad words on facebook, as well as left other cuss words all over facebook, I would've grounded them from more than just the computer for a week.  A week from his computer?  Big deal.  How about a week from going anywhere?  A week from friends?  A week from his cell phone?  A week from his beloved guitar that he used for the song?  How about a couple weeks?  How about a month?  This was obscene material published online by a teenager.  I'd punish my kid until the new year for that one.

Oh yeah, she hasn't taken the song off the internet or the links to it off his facebook either (and that of his friends' pages that he posted it too).  I hope she gets 100 calls from ticked off parents.  Betcha it ticks her off that I was the first parent to notify her.  She should've taken his facebook page down right away!

I told her I didn't want to have to block him from my kids' pages because they want contact with their brother but that they couldn't be exposed to that.

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Treating Kids Differently

Does the ex show favoritism for one of your stepchildren over another?  I sometimes wonder about mine but I've never outright asked the kids because I sure wouldn't want to point it out or accuse without knowing for sure.  Here's why I wonder...

For Christmas, it seems like my stepson gets hugely expensive gifts and my stepdaughter doesn't.  This past Christmas, my stepson got a laptop and my stepdaughter got CD's and DVD's she said.  We were wanting to look at netbooks or laptops for my stepdaughter for graduation but now I wish we'd had the money to do it this year instead of waiting for next year.  Last year, he got an expensive guitar and she got...CD's and DVD's she said. 

In terms of discipline, my stepson has always skated with no discipline over some pretty bad behavior over the years while my stepdaughter gets grounded for a month at a time.  He also cusses like a sailor (while she doesn't).  She's the honors student and he's the one who almost failed every year of junior high. 

I really hope that my stepdaughter doesn't feel singled out or slighted at all. 

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Rules and Discipline in a Stepfamily

How do you keep the peace in your house? How do you set rules and enforce rules if the other household doesn't do the same thing? Or worse yet, if they openly sabotage your efforts to maintain some type of consistency and peace in your house?

We dealt with that last question for so many years! It was chaos in our house every other weekend, alternating holidays and part of the summer. So stressful! What was REALLY frustrating was knowing it didn't have to be that way.

I wish we'd had a family guide book that each household HAD to follow or face the judge's wrath. Yeah right, judge's wrath. That's funny. Maybe in a world where the courts aren't biased would that happen. It was very difficult when we had rules and consequences and the other house criticized, ignored, or openly antagonized the situation.

That has been one advantage to a long-distance type schedule. Those times are now fewer with much more "calm" within our own family home now. It's been great not having to worry about the cussing and my own kids getting hurt on a weekly basis anymore (and not having to deal with the ex on a weekly basis either). I do miss them, but I don't miss the constant chaos.

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Chaos in our Blended Family

In the early years (OK, for almost a decade), our house was pure chaos on the weekends my stepkids were here. My stepson was acting out BIG time and despite anything we did, we could not get support from his mother to help him. We were left on our own and, of course, met with criticism from the ex because we were too strict (giving consequences like sending him to his room or taking away video games was too strict). We never hit him. He was angry, aggressive and became violent many times.

We had basic rules (bedtime, no hitting, clearing plate from the table, cleaning bedroom, using manners at the table) and gave consequences when the rules weren't followed. He never felt he had to abide by our rules. We eventually posted rules and consequences so they were clear (hoping it'd help). There could be no confusion for him (or any of our children who we were trying to teach basic manners and respect for themselves and other people). Again, we were criticized. We were at our wit's end with his behavior and with his mother's behavior. His mother had it in his head that we were singling him out (like we let the rest of our crew run wild but we made him tow the line). It made it worse because he misbehaved and his mother excused it away for him.

When he hit, we gave him consequences. His mother would get upset because he was being grounded but the other kids weren't. The other kids weren't hitting, bloodying noses, etc. Why would we ground them for something he did? It made no sense to us! My stepson tried to stomp on his infant sister's head. Were we supposed to ground the baby too?

I still have posted rules so the kids know what is expected of them - ALL of the kids. Since my kids are here 99% of the time by themselves now that we are on a long distance schedule with my teenage stepkids, they are mostly for our own children now. I guess we weren't just posting them to single my stepson out eh? They are quite basic though after reading a sample of Scott Gale's family constitution, I am wondering if something like this would help organize our busy lives a little better. Lately it feels like with all the different extra-curricular activities and other responsibilities, we are a "Type A" family at the moment and I'm not liking that at all. I've never been a Type A anything! I feel like I have all these balls in the air and it's only a matter of time before one of them drops.

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Disciplining Stepchildren

I read this fantastic post today on another blog about what some see as a controversial issue regarding stepmothers disciplining their stepchildren. It's a hot topic in a lot of homes trying to blend and especially between two warring homes when the other bio-parent doesn't think a step-parent should be disciplining at all. I think step-parents and their spouses should definitely read it. Please read Discipline and the Stepmom.

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Discipline

What is the discipline policy in your blended family household? Do you and your spouse present a united front to the children or is discipline a source of tension in your household? As a bonus parent, do you discipline your step-child? How does your step-child react to being disciplined by you? Does the child's biological parent (your partner) support you? Does the child's other biological parent support your involvement in discipline?

Let me state that when I say "discipline", this only includes appropriate (legal) forms of discipline and does not include any type of abuse.

When you first meet your step-child, the biological parent should handle discipline (unless the misbehavior occurs when the stepchild is in the step-parent's care and the biological parent is not home).

After the "step" relationship has been in existence and established firmly, I believe that it is appropriate for a step-parent to discipline a step-child. However, there should be certain guidelines:

1. The biological parent and the step-parent should discuss inappropriate behaviors and decide on proper discipline routines to use beforehand so everybody (parent, step-parent, and child) knows what is expected of them.


2. The biological parent should support the step-parent's decision to discipline and the action they take ("united front").


3. If the biological parent disagrees with an action the step-parent has taken, the bio-parent should never indicate this in front of the child (again, "united front").
   

If you can keep the discipline policy between the two homes consistent and similar, it would make the child's life a little easier. Sometimes, you have one household who doesn't discipline at all or finds some behaviors acceptable while you would find them inappropriate. If that is the case, stay consistent within your own home. Children can adjust to different routines. I believe it is more effective if both homes back each other up on discipline, but we know this type of cooperation is hard to obtain.

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