Sunday, December 19
Step children
I've been married almost 3½ years now. Raising step-children the best way that I can think of, which hasn't been a total success. It hasn't been a total failure either, although at times it's felt like it has been.
Let's (or should I say, Let me…) face it, after 43 years of not having kids, and not really looking at dealing with kids except on an "Uncle" basis, I have been totally unprepared. I know that I was raised in a good way. Certain behaviors were impressed into me before I even started school. Behaviors that seem to be foreign to my 19 yos, let alone the 14 yos. And I've been wondering why.
Some of this I've just passed off as differences to their being raised with siblings versus me being raised as an only child. Yes, my half sister was still home with our mother when I was born, but she was already married and moved out by the time I have my first memories. So my parents weren't complete noobs when it came to raising me. Was I a spoiled child? Probably. Was I spoiled as much as I could have been? No way in hell. But being an only child also has the downfall that when something happens, there is no other sibling that you can possibly pin the blame on. No way, ain't gonna happen, you can't escape the blame.
These step kids do everything they possibly can to make sure that they are not to blame. The finger pointing never stops, the arguments go on sometimes for days. It drives me nuts. Especially when all I want to say is, "Don't do that again!", but they are too afraid of what the possible consequence may be to actually accept blame.
I bring this up because my step-daughter and I had a knock-out drag-out fight over her breaking the vent to the microwave. The right side was already broke (unbeknownst to either of us), and she proceeded to pull the whole vent from the oven. That broke the left side, which had been in nice and tight. The reason why it broke is because the front vent was screwed in from the top. Slamming of the door had probably broken the right side, and now we've got a broken left side. She would absolutely not take any blame for breaking it. She ran off, and I ran off. Now, up to this point, I've been feeling outright putrid sick (stomache flu) for 5 days at this point. Let alone, I'm in the worst week of the year for me (between my birthday and Christmas), and the oldest took off with the youngest at noon on my birthday, the day before this argument, without asking, knowing that we were going to have a birthday dinner that evening, having just shoved what was supposed to be my birthday cake into the oven, and then proceeded to keep them out until 8PM. More on that day in a later entry.
I was pissed, I was upset. But I did manage to have an epiphany. They were so used to their father disciplining them, badly it seems, that they do anything they possibly can to get out of it. This explains a lot to me, especially with the older ones, and the battles that I've fought with them. This is not the way that I was brought up! Not even close. But it is the way that they've been brought up. I'm not out to discipline the kids. I'm out to correct the kids. These kids are not stupid. None of the four are. Correction should not automatically lead to punishment, which is what I think has to be the way that their father treated them.
And since my wife was the breadwinner for the family since they'd been married, their father is the one that has the most influence on the way that they were raised. He even went on to tell my wife that she didn't know how to raise children. She was no expert, but I have a feeling that if she had been the one to actually raise them, things would be a little different, and not quite so hairy now. When I ask my children to do something, I expect cooperation. Lots of cooperation. I don't get it. I have to pull and shove to get them to do a lot of things, including bribing. I'm not impressed with that. And of course my wife's ex blames every situation that we now have on her, which isn't even close to being fair.
I've decided that we are going to have a family meeting. I'd love to include the older two as well (one of them certainly needs a good talking to, but even this meeting wouldn't solve his issues), but it's intended toward the two little ones. I'm declaring myself absolute Alpha, ruling absolutely. The argument amount who did or didn't do anything is over. But in return, I promise to only correct them, not to discipline or punish them, unless the problem is a repeated serious violation. And I will make it very clear that arguing with me over who gets blamed for what will be punished if my first correction about it is not followed. I'm going to make it sound more like a test at school. "Yes, you make mistakes, that is why you don't have straight A's. But you should (and better!) be learning from your test scores in order to bring your grades up."
I'm hoping that getting this out in the open air, and spelling things out a bit, and reducing their fear that they are going to get punished for the least little infraction will change the attitude around here. I wish I had this epiphany a few years earlier. Then again, live and learn. It's been awhile since I've been a kid, so my memories are definately clouded with age. I've known that these kids were not raised the same way that I was. I just didn't realize how big a difference it actually was till now. Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 12/19/2004 02:55:00 PM
0 comments
Links to this post
