Son's Stepmom Spanked Him for Making Fun of Special Need Kid?

I am not an advocate of spanking anyone at anytime. That is just my personal feeling about hitting a child as punishment.

That said, your boy lives the majority of his life with dad and stepmom for whatever reason and she is the primary female parent in the household. Your ex and she established their own household rules and that is their business. You feel as though she is entitled because you are angry and bitter.

Your son got a good punishment and the fact that she had him write a letter is another good step. What your kid did was wrong and I likely would not have stopped at an apology and loss of electronics if it were my kid who did something so cruel.

First... calm down. Look at the big picture here. WHY dis your son do this?

Second... communicate with your ex and try to work with him because he is trying to raise your son to be a good man and your son royally f'ed up. Your son knows better than to do what he did and he may need some sort of counseling to find out why he feels the need to hurt others.

Third.. appreciate the fact that your son's stepmom cares. He could easily have a stepmom who didn't care about him. Your child has mom, dad and stepmom who care about him and want him to grow up to be a responsible adult.

You do not "need her to learn" anything. You NEED to work together with her and your ex to give your son the support he obviously needs. The fact he is a bully, especially to a special needs child, is a big red flag that he needs you ALL to help him.

You see your son every other weekend? 4 DAYS of the month?This other woman is parenting your child for 26 days of the month. SHE is parenting this child.
I don't think spanking ever solves anything, especially with a 13 year old, but I bet she was HORRIFIED that this child was bullying a child with a speech impediment. AS YOU SHOULD BE.
I don't know what your course of action should be...but what I do know is that a parent that only sees their child 4 days of the month is not the one that gets to complain about how other people are parenting their responsibility.

i can understand being upset, but your ex gave her permission and your son does live with them full time. instead of storming about and playing mama bear, i suggest you sit down with your son's custodial parents and have a calm, rational, mutually respectful conversation about disciplinary methods (which should have happened a while back.)

i don't think spanking is a great response. there are lots of better ways to handle things. but if there's anything worth spanking over, it's this.

you say you're upset at your son, but it's coming off way more at being pissed off at his stepmother. as a custodial guardian of this child, she has more of a 'place' than you seem willing to grant her.

if you want her to remain uninvolved when your son is being hateful, you should sue for full custody.

khairete
S.

I don't agree with spanking. However, I think you need to keep in mind the bigger picture in this situation.

She's been a parent-figure in his household for 5 years. In all that time, have you ever known of her spanking him? Have you ever before had any suspicions he was really being mistreated by her? If this just happened out of the blue as a reaction to this particular behavior of his, perhaps it was a one time occurrence that may either be 1) not at severe as your son is describing or 2) an isolated more severe reaction due to significant stress and/or circumstances. Does this make it right? No. But you should really stop and think. Remember you were not there to witness exactly what went down.

Your son told you about the spanking and you got pissed. Whether or not he was mindful of what he was doing, he successfully redirected any focus on HIS actions to amping your emotions and anger over HER actions. Teenagers do this sometimes. Make it all about how bad the parents are. It is easier than dealing with the root problem and having the pain of shame and admitting responsibility for their own really bad decisions.

If you've never had an issue with her before, I would not raise hell. You could have a civil conversation later with just your ex about the whole situation just to get on the same page. But in front of your son? I'd simply let him know how disappointed you are in his bullying and back the school consequences and back the apology letter writing and grounding his father and stepmom gave him. Uphold the same consequences when he is at your house so he gets a united message that bullying is not acceptable at all, from you or his dad and stepmom

I have friends who are stepmoms and the dads are not the best at parenting.

I do more parenting than my husband does. I think you'll find that's quite common (from this site anyway, and it's the case with my friends and sisters).

If the stepmom is involved heavily with your son, then her coming up with the idea for punishment - then running it past your ex isn't that unusual - if he's a weak father or not that involved.

I don't like the hitting/spanking your son. That - I would talk to your ex about. If he doesn't agree, then you can get it put legally in writing.

If I was ever to lose it on my kid, this would be that instance. I don't mean to excuse her behavior - you need to address it.

For now, focus on your son's behavior. Address the spanking at a later date.

I understand why you're furious.

You're turning this into a battle with a stepmother, a battle you cannot win. She's there, his father isn't, you aren't.

Spanking is not effective. Spanking a teen is a ridiculous move because it's demeaning and because she's setting a pattern for physical responses when angry with a kid who will soon be bigger than she is. It's absurd and it's dangerous.

Your son is a bully. You have to get to the bottom of why he's so insecure. It's not helping that he has no parent in his life on a daily basis. It's not helping that he's being bullied by his stepmother with his father's acquiescence.

An apology letter is a good move although it doesn't undo the hurt. What that special needs kid is feeling after the bullying is exactly what your son is feeling after the spanking - residual humiliation.

You have to sit down with your ex - alone - and talk about your son's actions and his unhappiness and his choices to pick on a vulnerable person in order to feel powerful. Do not do not (do not!) start talking about the stepmother. You will lose the battle because he will side with her. The point is your son's behavior and why he does what he does. If you can agree, you can get your son into counseling. He can tell the counselor (without your direction) about the spanking and the counselor can deal with the parenting from there.

Note: I've edited throughout my initial post

It sounds like you've only heard your son's side. To know what happened, you need to listen to the step-mother's explanation. An effective way to handle any dispute is to first get as much information as you can before passing judgemenr.

First, calm down. Then talk with your ex. Even tho he has primary custody, are the two of you parenting together. What does the custody agreement say about your parenting responsibilities.How have you and your ex worked out situations such as this?

Accept that your son's step-parent is parenting your son and makes decisions day to day. If you want rules/situations to be handled differently, you and your ex have to work out an agreement satisfactory to both..

I suggest you will have a better chance at changing this if you are not angry and confrontational. Use I statements. Tell him how you feel but don't blame him and his wife. Say you are concerned about stepmom hitting him and would like an agreement that there will be no more spanking.

It's important that your son knows you are upset by him mistreating the boy. Talk about why teasing, calling names or in any way mistreating someone is not acceptable and why. Tell him that even tho you do not approve of the spanking, he was wrong and needed a consequence for what he did. If you want him to learn from this experience, you must support the step-mother. You be a calm rational Mom.

He has a consequence with a 3 day suspension. In my opinion that's enough. I suggest that adding on 3 more consequences does not teach him anything except it's OK to hit someone when you're angry.. It's likely he will be angry which could cause more acting out. This is a conversation to be had with his Dad. Your ex is the parent with primary responsibility for decisions about his care. Does your custody agreement outline your responsibilty in co-parenting?

I suggest the reason you're focusing on how the step-mother disciplined is related to your anger about her being the step-mother and you not having more input into her decisions. Why is it that you only have "visitation" and not shared custody? I suggest that you are angry because ex shares his responsibility with step-mother.

I suggest you get some professional help to navigate the custody decree. My first thought is with a counselor who has experience with custody issues. Perhaps just a personal counselor to help with your issues, including those not necessarily about parenting. would also help.

I think the other responses cover a lot of what I was going to write. That said, why do you still have this arrangement if your ex has ceded parenting to his wife? If he works such long hours that she's in charge of everything, perhaps he shouldn't be the primary custodial parent? What's your situation? Can you care for your son full time? Is it time for you to step back up as the primary parent? I obviously don't know the details of your situation but I've experienced a lot of parenting arrangements over the years (totally single parent, non-custodial step mother, custodial step mother, divorced with primary custody) so it's possible and sometimes appropriate for changes to occur when what made sense at one point stops making sense later. Just something to consider.

If you and your ex are on good terms, I would seek to get an agreement with him in writing regarding discipline. My ex and I have no corporal punishment spelled out in our divorce agreement. His lawyer rolled her eyes at my insistence on it being included given that our kids were 12 and 14 at the time it was signed but a situation like yours is exactly what I had in mind. Let your ex know that if this happens again, you will do whatever you can to make sure that it's the last time.

Of course you're right - spanking is a stupid and counterproductive and totally inappropriate form of discipline, especially at that age.

I'd also get your son into counseling to figure out what his issues are. Bullies are compensating for something - figure this out.

Good for her! I know its hard having someone else punish your kid but he deserved it.

Lots of advice below, which encourages a good discussion with your ex and his wife, and a need to focus on what your son did and needs to learn not to do.

My post is about the way you express yourself may help the situation from this point forward. When speaking with your son, please do not label him a "bully". (I know you did not in your post.) Do help him understand what he was doing was bullying. And please refer to the other child as a student or child with special needs, rather than the label "special needs child". It is important that your son sees this child a person first and his speech disorder secondly.

All my best.

I’d be upset too, she had no business spanking him and I have to wonder what their relationship is like at other times. Punishing a bully without offering him the help he needs will only backfire. He’s already been suspended by the school, and I think having him write a letter of apology was appropriate, but the spanking will only reinforce his feelings of powerlessness, which is part of why he was being a bully.

It would be reasonable to seek legal advice and get in writing some discipline guidelines.

I think it would be even better to seek counseling for your son. Approach his dad and step mom with the idea that your son needs help. A counselor could be very helpful in understanding why he was bullying this special needs child, and how to best help him become a kinder and more empathic young man.

It's fair to let your son know that you don't agree with her spanking him, and you're sorry that happened, but you do want to help him so that never happens again. What is he saying about why he bullied this child? How does he feel about his life, his dad's work hours, his step-mom, seeing you every other weekend? I'm not saying these things can or should change, but it might help him to be able to talk about his feelings more so that he can feel understood, and you can help him think of ways he can feel better without demeaning others.

He was very wrong for what he did but a 3 day suspension, writing an apology letter and 2 weeks with no electronics was enough. Spanking a 13 year old is excessive and I would be upset too. As Marda said you and your ex husband need to set boundary's. My next question would be has she hit him before? She seemed comfortable spanking him so I wonder. You do need to deal with this but with a calm head. If you go in with anger then you will get no where. Good luck!

He’s probably more embarrassed than hurt. That being said his dad should have been the one to handle it. I’d take it up with him.