Comments on: Parenting without guilt

By: Irene Mullin

Irene Mullin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:30:16 +0000

Our situation is a little different. My step-daughter’s mother and my husband were never married. They never lived in a combined household. The child (11) has only ever known a two-home situation. My husband and I a more traditional/”old school” with regards to discipline, boundaries, responsibility, manners etc, and have no issues with providing that guidance. However, the mother is complete opposite – it’s all about having the child “feel good about themselves”, which entails giving them latitude to do whatever they want, say whatever they want, no direction, no boundaries etc. As a result the child is becoming more disrespectful, insolent and refuses to listen to reason. The latest being “teachers don’t know anything”!!!! It’s a very frustrating situation. Mother is impossible to deal with – completely irrational, control freak and manipulator. She also uses the legal system to make false accusations against my husband (has filed charges against him for violence, molestation etc)- although he’s been found completely no guilty of anything – we still have to go through all the pain and suffering of fighting this abuse, not to mention the financial burden it has put on us. How on earth are we supposed to deal with this?

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:27:39 +0000

My husband has allowed his daughter (now 23) to get away with anything and everything without consequences or boundaries since his separation 13 years ago. Her disrespectful manipulative behaviour has got worse and worse over the years culminating in a recent event where she manipulated him into buying her a car, she crashed it and then wanted him to fix it. She has a graduate position earning £27k per year (Yes he applied for it on her behalf grr) and she still expects him to pay her phone and fund a car for her without putting one red penny aside for it herself. When he finally stood his ground and said enough is enough you need to stand on your own two feet financially she spat the dummy big time. Got so verbally abusive (foul language and threats of violence on both him and I) and still expected us to pick up the tab! (Daddy always did if she went off on one) but this time she went too far and he is finally standing his ground. I just hope he has the courage to continue to do so. Now she is off getting a guy that obviously fancies her to fix her car for free! She has turned into a nasty manipulative little witch and he may well have sentenced her to a series of unhappy relationships by not making her a more considerate and less self absorbed person. I really pity her husband/partner

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:26:43 +0000

Adele,

I’ve been wanting to chime in on this one as I too believe that fear and guilt play huge roles in how we tend to overlook unfavourable behaviour in our biological children. From my experience I can offer a slightly different perpective. I found myself being fearful of conflicts that would often arise between my spouse and my children. I always expected there to be differences of opinion but my spouse would often really lose her cool if the kids offered their opinions, my kids would become sullen and try to avoid her and I would try to make peace. It was always difficult when my wife was critical of the kids’ mother in front of them. This only made them resent her. In time as my kids got older they tended to avoid my wife who became very resentful and spiteful. Eventually my wife and I separated as she wanted me to make a choice between her (and the son we had together) and my two older children. It has been a very difficult experience but I think that we have different parenting styles and its difficult to use a tough love approach when the opposite approach has worked so well.

Bernie

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:32:56 +0000

I think when it comes to my step children they dont like discipline from the different parent,so I use different phrases and techniquies on how I say things so I dont hurt them I am starting to learn myself on how to say a simple thing for eg to get them to do a task and to them its not such a big deal in the end,make it fun,etc,they havent come to the drinking age yet but it will come,we try the parenting controls on the computers and that seems to be working so using tacticks helps alot.

By: Alanna

Alanna — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:07:10 +0000

Discpline seems to be a bad word in our household — as least as far as my boyfriend is concerned. I don’t agree with the way he wants to “discpline” my child because the way he does it is very negative and damages my child’s self-esteem. He uses cruel words and makes my child feel like he’s “stupid” or “unworthy.” Therefore, I don’t allow my boyfriend to say anything negative to my son. For example, if my son leaves a candy wrapper on the table without throwing it away, my boyfriend will use a why question. “Why is the wrapper on the table?” While this isn’t horrible at first glance, a repetition of why statements, to me, is asking “why are you so dumb that you couldn’t throw this away?” My response to my son’s neglect of throwing away his wrapper is to enforce a consequence directly related to the problem, instead of negative the reasons. Why is the sky blue? Because it is. Why didn’t you throw away your candy wrapper? Well . . . how would you answer that one? The point is to get him throwing away his garbage, not undermining is character. On the other side of the coin, when my boyfriend’s kids are here, I see him following them around and taking care of their candy wrappers and other “garbage” laying around. He doesn’t say anything to them and it really makes me mad. I understand that they don’t live with us and he doesn’t want to “ruin” his weekend with them, however, my son sees it as a personal offense and that he just doesn’t like him and his kids get away with everything. I don’t let my son get away with a lot as I know the importance of learning good behavior early. I prefer he makes mistakes now rather than later, so that he learns from the consequences before the consequences turn more serious, as with breaking a law. If he learns there are consequences for bad behavior now, then he will know in the future that the more serious and the older he gets, the worse the consequence will be. He will also learn to think about his actions, making him wonder what the consequence might be. Also, if I don’t have an immediate response to a problem, I do let him know that I am thinking of a discpline action and will get back to him. Instead of lashing out in anger or disgust, thereby damaging his self-esteem and character, he worries more about the results of his actions and not that he is a “bad” person. The result is that it is connected to his actions and not himself. I do get mad when my boyfriend’s kids are here and if they don’t clean up after themselves or follow the rules of the house, then my boyfriend wants ME to say something. I think he should discipline his own children because the relationship between steps is already a fragile one. An action on the part of the bio parent doesn’t seem to be taken as an offense, but by the step, it seems to put the stepchild in defensive mode.

By: Wendy on behalf of Mamaw age 89

Wendy on behalf of Mamaw age 89 — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:45:05 +0000

Frances Ruby C. (my grandmother 89 years old)
Many years ago before modern medicine when women passed away during childbirth or shortly after for another reason, their widowed spouses found another wife to care for his children. My mamaw just a month ago was talking to me about my blended family and asked me if my kids liked him and vice versa. I said yeah its a lot of give and take though. She said and I quote “I hated my stepmother and she was good to us. I never gave her a chance because she took my daddy away from me. He was a good daddy and she was a good woman, I just hated her and now I regret it cause we could’ve had a better relationship.” And when my daughter visited Mamaw later she told my daughter the exact same thing.

I thought that was worth making a comment.

By: zelda

zelda — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:51:59 +0000

Guilt can be a strong hold if a person allows it to be. My daughters father left in front of her and lied to her that he ws not leaving he was just getting “rid of some things”. He drove off in his car and never came back. Needless to say I divorced him for several reasons. I told my new husband that he has to give her time to adjust. Our son told him the same thing. When we got together and moved into the house he started inspecting every little thing and found something wrong. I got fed up and called him a nag! I taught my children how to clean up and be respectable towards adults. But it seem that nothing my daughter did was good enough. She was working a part time job and in high school. He got her a cell phone and agreed to pay the bill as long as she worked. This was HIS rule not mine. My rule is different education is first. I told her if her grades slip she could only work weekends but it did not work out like that she ended quiting her job. He took the phone and I got her one and I pay the bill and I told her when she finds another job she will pay her portion of the bill. He later told me that he git her the phone to show her that she does not have to want for anything. I told him that I raised my children to be humble not to be materialistic. You can not buy my children’s love. If its there it is there if it is not there its not there.
I thank my father for that little grain of gold. He always use to say “A woman can not buy my affection” and “A man can not buy a womans affection.” I passed this on to my own children adn it seems to be working.
Since the incident with the phone I told my husband that he was pushing the children away by being overly critical about every little thing. Since I told him this things have been much calmer. It is going to take some time for this blended family to work itself out but it will. I can’t get frustrated and I am glad that I found this website and I prayer ALOT.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:38:42 +0000

Hi I know you were addressing this to bio parents but as a step parent I have found myself having the same feelings. In the beginning of my relationship with my step daughter I found myself putting up with very negative behaviour from her and was really afraid of setting boundaries for fear that she wouldn’t like me, but as time went on I realised for her sake and mine it was my job as a step parent to teach and guide her as much as it was her dad’s job too. Today we have a really loving relationship and we both respect each other I found that the more effort I put in and the more I showed her that I cared about what happened to her and taught and guided her in her life the better she responded what she really wanted to know was that I cared enough about her to take the time and make an effort.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:52:45 +0000

I’m not so sure I am guilty, or at least not so much that is could be considered detrimental, but I know my fiance is. He felt so much guilt over divorcing his childrens mother, and leaving their home, breaking up the family that he kind of lets his kids schedule his time with them. They won’t stay the night ever (he lives just down the road from them) unless dad is taking them hunting which leads to it being too late to go to nana’s house. His mother is guilty as well, allowing the children not only to practically live with her, but to also sleep with her or together. It is a boy and a girl, ages 11 (girl) and 7 (boy), which leads to part of the reason why they don’t stay over often. Yet, come Saturday morning, they are blowing up the phones for him to come pick them up, then 9 or 10 that night, they are ready to go, and he takes them wherever they want to stay that night. When he does decide to make them stay, which isn’t consistently, he allows them to sleep together, which I feel is totally inappropriate. We can’t make plans to do alone activities, or have date night becuz he feels guilty about taking them to his mothers for that reason, but not if he wants to go hunting without the children, then he’s running them right over there. He says it makes him feel guilty for taking time with them to give it to me. So, on we go, haha. Thanks for letting me vent.

By: Gill

Gill — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:53:09 +0000

Agree with many points from previous entry. My parenting style is less relaxed than my partner’s and my son lives with us whilst his children (same age group 13-16) come on alternate weekends and holidays. Our semi-blended situation causes a problem in itself in that my son is being brought up by me prdominantly but my partner’s sons are here for a relatively short period to see their Father. As they are the same age there has to be a degree of consistency and my son is in his normal environment whereas my partner’s are here for a ‘treat’ and are cut a lot of slack as he considers that their Mother’s parenting style is too strict, more akin to mine. This has resulted in me being more relaxed with my own – sometimes against my better judgement but trying to keep a workable peace – but not at the expense of spoiling him. My partner wants his children to want to continue to come and see him and feels that if he lets them do whatever they want then that will be the case as they are not ‘hasseled’ here. They are very receptive children and do adhere to my suggestions but i feel that I’m the one who has to be the ‘baddy’ all the time – even if it is just to load the dishwasher! This issue causes more problems between my partner and myself than between me and his boys. It has taken me quite some time to realise this as I used to think that my problem was with his boys but as they are used as a stick with which to beat me it has taken me a long time not to resent the stick but address the issue of the person weilding it.