Dealing with Another Child

WOW this takes me back to last year. Mike and I decided that we wanted to buy a home together. He has 2 boys I have 3 His 8 y/o has some issues. He was very disrespectful and mean to me. And to my 6 y/o. Alot of it was lack of dicipline that his 8 y/o acted this way and he had resentment towards the fact that hid mom and dad would never get back together. So he took it out on my son. Mike and I had alot of differences when it came to dicipline. I like consistency he is a softie. Which in fact will only enable to behavior that his son. I almost left. But then I thought if his parents aren't going to be consistent with him I will. We have made great strides with this child. He has done a 180 Alot of it is adjustment and another is the feeling abandoned. His children are with us 15 days out of the month. Mike would spend alone time with his children and mine. SO they felt important. We still do have issues with the two we are talking about here. Not nearly as bad. However if I would have known how difficult it would be to date a man with children and an ex wife I would never do it again. It is alot of work trying to make everybody happy. Face it you can't make everybosy happy. Now we are married and things are rough at times but that is when we put up a united front with the kids. Good luck you should never have left I dont know if going back is a good idea that sends mixed meassages to all of the kids

If you seriously want to blend families and lives with this man, I'd recommend going to family counseling together so that you can agree on a co-parenting method. The kids need to go to, to get some strategies to interact in a more positive way.

I agree with all of the responses especially the counselling idea, start by talking to the school counselor see what he/she has to say if that don't work sit down as a family with all of the children and talk about their feelings on becoming a blended family. I was in the same situation except I didn't enter the relationship with a child we had our son after we got custody of his son and it was very difficult because he was so acatched to his mother that he didn't want to listen to me at all. To this day we still have problems and he is almost 10 but we have been in counselling off and on due to insurance reason and I find this helps.

If you plan to blend families, you an Steve need to sit down and discuss what expectations you have in the disipline department. You need to agree on who can discipline and to what extent. If you are living in the same household as Brian, it seems to me that you should be able to disipline him as any parent would disipline. But, you need to make sure that you are also accepting the non-disiplinary end of things too. Maybe you and Brian should go and do some activities alone, so he can gain and understanding of you, and respect you. Right now, he's likely to think of you as someone that takes his dad's time from him. He can't bully you, or the older kids, so he bullies the youngest. I just need to caution that Brian needs to hear positive words from you, just as much as your own children do. I'm not sure how much of this pertains to your situation, but it might help to think on this.

Hi C.,
I agree with Sasha. You need to sit down with Steve and figure out how the two of you are going to parent. Kids will be kids but hitting is never acceptable. When my kids hit each other they are punished. Also, I would recommend not being the one who disciplins him (at least in the beginning). If you are the only one who is discipling him he will resent you. I have a wonderful step-mom that knew all the right ways to being a step-mom. Good luck.
Chris

You need to sit Steve down and tell him this is very serious to you and if he cant understand how you feel and work with his child then maybe you need to re think the rest of your life because if he loves you like you love him he will want you to feel cmofy explain to him that your children arent usee to this behaviour and you dont want them to feel uncomfortable because after all the kids are the main thing in ones life an they have to feel love as well as you

I'd be careful about "giving in" to any of his questionable parenting skills. My sister has a blended family with her second husband, and his son was "difficult" to put it nicely...now my sister's 2 boys act out and hit each other just like her stepson...needless to say she gave in to her husband even though she was/is the better parent~ I'd hate to see good kids like yours suffer from a "different" parenting style than the one you've already implemented, stick to what you know is right!!! Good luck!