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new and in need of advice please ( sorry -long)
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 230535" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>To reinforce what you were saying, MWM - I'm thinking, the boy (and the father) accepted Tunaq's deep involvement and help, until the marriage. That seems to be when the problems began. The boy's age (testosterone time) probably is a factor, but there are just so very many reasons, tunaq, for you to drop it all and formally hand control back to the father. it won't be easy for you.</p><p></p><p>As things currently stand, you're losing the war. You're being sabotaged by the generals, so to speak. They origiinally were working with you (or letting you take the lead) but have now decided on a different direction to the war, leaving you out there alone and exposed, like a shag on a rock.</p><p></p><p>The boy is a handful. His dad needs to know just how much. Your involvement has been shielding him. OK, so it's time for him to find out the hard way, while you sit there smiling sweetly and filing your nails. Your role now is to be husband's support and back-up. If your stepson comes to you and asks you to help him, limit your help to each time he asks. "Please will you help me with this maths problem" means you help with that, then step back again. This doesn't mean you have to stop watching movies with him, or making popcorn. But once you married, you stepped over some invisible line in his mind and it's causing him a great deal of internal conflict. When his mother handed him over to his father, that also would have made the boy feel very bad inside, nobody loves him. The more unloved he feels, the more unlovable he behaves because when we feel unloved, we get grouchy, anxious, depressed and very difficult to motivate.</p><p></p><p>You were right about him going out, common courtesy should have been considered. But since your husband is now increasingly making decisions where his son is concerned, you need to defer to the dad in this. Perhaps you could have said to difficult child, "It perhaps would have been wise to ask your dad first. How about you call him to let him know your plans?"</p><p>By not insisting, you don't risk egg on your face when he refuses. HE makes the decision, and HE then has to face his father if he makes the wrong choice.</p><p></p><p>Something else I've suggested to people, is to treat your child as an adult flatmate. That isn't as anarchic as it sounds. When we share an apartment with someone, we each have responsibilities to the other people we live with. We have to share the workload (with some modification, based on people's needs, skills and amount of free time) and we also have to work as a team. We must show respect for the others we live with or we will not be ppopular as house mates and when the opportunity comes up, we will risk being asked to leave.</p><p></p><p>Flatmates show consideration as follows:</p><p></p><p>When one person is doing a load of washing, they ask the other, "Do you have anything you want to go in the wash? I'll do it for you with my stuff now." They do this also expecting that maybe at some stage or in some other way, the favour could be returned. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."</p><p></p><p>When planning meals, we like to plan to eat what we really like. This has to be modified according to the tastes of all others who have to share the meal, and also budget constraints. Time is also a factor. I'd love to make Peking Duck, but it takes a lot of time and effort, you have to dip the duck into a boiling solution of hooney, water, soy and star anise, then hang the duck up to dry. Then dip it again, hang it to dry again (often fanning it as it dries). Eventually the duck is roasted on a vertical spit, the skin gets crispy, it's carved off and served with hoi sin sauce spread onto a mandarin pancake with a brush made from a spring onion. The rest of the duck is made into a stir-fried duck and vegetables dish, followed by a third course of soup.</p><p>Fabulous, but time consuming.</p><p></p><p>We do not eat Peking Duck in our home very often. My children would love it, but recognise that if I take the effort and time to make it then a lot of other things they want form me, would go by the board.</p><p></p><p>This flips the other way. If my daughter says to me, "I'm fed up with you cooking roast chicken all the time, I want spaghetti carbonara," I say to her, "You want speghetti carbonara? That's OK, as long as you make it for yourself. I like it but it's bad for me. difficult child 3 won't eat it. husband might eat a little of it only. So I will still cook roast chicken tonight, but you can make spaghetti carbonara for yourself, if you like. You might like to cut up some cooked chicken meat and add it to your sauce, perhaps."</p><p></p><p>Or perhaps my child is fed up with me cooking spaghetti bolognese and says, "I want something different."</p><p>I would say, "Do you have any preferences? If not, let's look at recipe books together and make a choice." I encourage him to choose a meal, plan the recipe, shop for the ingredients, prepare the meal, serve it and help clean up afterwards.</p><p></p><p>Once your child begins to do this, not only do they have more choice in their life but they're also learning to work as part of the team, not just ofr themselves. Because to choose osmething different you still have to consider everyone's likes/dislikes as well as stick to the family budget. You can't blow a weeks' food budget on seafood platter for one night only.</p><p></p><p>My kids learned that if we need to save money in the food budget for something special they want, that I have a store of "gourmet poverty food" recipes to fall back on. I taught them to cook these because when they left home I knew they would need them. </p><p></p><p>There are many ways in which we show respect for one another. A very important one is something you touched on, tunaq - it's the "If you are going out, we need to know where you are going and when you will be home."</p><p>I strongly recommend you bring this in as a family rule, one which everybody in the household complies with. So if YOU are going out (perhaps to the shops) you let difficult child know (if he's the only one home), "I am ab out to go out, I'm going to the shops. I expect to be home in an hour."</p><p>YOu can even add, "Is there anything you can think of that should be on the shopping list?"</p><p>He then has the option to say, "While you're there can you please buy me some more pencils for school? I broke my last one yesterday," or similar. It's also encouraging him to take personal responsibility, even as you are keeping him informed as to your movements. You are modelling for him, what he should be doing purely as a matter of courtesy. it has nothing to do with him still being a child. It's housemate rules.</p><p></p><p>Visualise two girls sharing an apartment. Jane says to Mary, "I'm going out with my boyfriend tonight, he's taking me to meet his parents at their home down the coast. I expect we'll be staying there the night, so don't expect me home until tomorrow afternoon. I'll have my mobile phone if you need me for anything."</p><p>That way when Jane doesn't come home that night, Mary knows to not worry, she's safe with her boyfriend and his family.</p><p></p><p>it's common courtesy and it goes both ways.</p><p></p><p>I do think you and your husband need to sit down and talk things over, I do also think that family counselling is not a bad idea. When you two married, the goal posts got moved and you need to go looking to find out exactly where they are and how likely it is that they will be moved again. Your need to talk isn't about blame, it's not about who made what mistake, it's about defining the situation as it is now and working out who is going to be responsible for what area of your mutual home life. This is a planning meeting. At some point you need to try to draw difficult child in to the planning meeting so you can establish with him, who is responsible for which part of his life, and what HIS responsibilities are.</p><p></p><p>And as MWM emphasised, I think you need to insist that for the time being at least, you are taken off difficult child's case and it gets firmly handed back to husband unless specifically, clearly delegated otherwise. And frankly, there had better be a darn good reason for it being delegated back to you, while difficult child is still coming to terms with the marriage. It's not fair to you, not fair to difficult child, probably not fair to husband.</p><p></p><p>But that shouldn't stop you asking difficult child to teach you how to play a game on the PS2. Try and have short but positive interactions with him, let them finish on a positive note with him wanting more.</p><p></p><p>And a tip about the bathroom - if you use ONLY bubble bath in the bathtub and no soap, it's really easy to keep it clean. It's when you put soap into the bath that you get that nasty ring around the tub. To wash a kid, you can put a drop more bubble bath onto a washer and use that. Soap is the natural enemy of bubble bath bubbles, it kills them fast. And frankly, we found that mostly, bubble bath alone in the tub was enough to wash the kids, there was no need to froth up the washer. </p><p></p><p>I hope this helps.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 230535, member: 1991"] To reinforce what you were saying, MWM - I'm thinking, the boy (and the father) accepted Tunaq's deep involvement and help, until the marriage. That seems to be when the problems began. The boy's age (testosterone time) probably is a factor, but there are just so very many reasons, tunaq, for you to drop it all and formally hand control back to the father. it won't be easy for you. As things currently stand, you're losing the war. You're being sabotaged by the generals, so to speak. They origiinally were working with you (or letting you take the lead) but have now decided on a different direction to the war, leaving you out there alone and exposed, like a shag on a rock. The boy is a handful. His dad needs to know just how much. Your involvement has been shielding him. OK, so it's time for him to find out the hard way, while you sit there smiling sweetly and filing your nails. Your role now is to be husband's support and back-up. If your stepson comes to you and asks you to help him, limit your help to each time he asks. "Please will you help me with this maths problem" means you help with that, then step back again. This doesn't mean you have to stop watching movies with him, or making popcorn. But once you married, you stepped over some invisible line in his mind and it's causing him a great deal of internal conflict. When his mother handed him over to his father, that also would have made the boy feel very bad inside, nobody loves him. The more unloved he feels, the more unlovable he behaves because when we feel unloved, we get grouchy, anxious, depressed and very difficult to motivate. You were right about him going out, common courtesy should have been considered. But since your husband is now increasingly making decisions where his son is concerned, you need to defer to the dad in this. Perhaps you could have said to difficult child, "It perhaps would have been wise to ask your dad first. How about you call him to let him know your plans?" By not insisting, you don't risk egg on your face when he refuses. HE makes the decision, and HE then has to face his father if he makes the wrong choice. Something else I've suggested to people, is to treat your child as an adult flatmate. That isn't as anarchic as it sounds. When we share an apartment with someone, we each have responsibilities to the other people we live with. We have to share the workload (with some modification, based on people's needs, skills and amount of free time) and we also have to work as a team. We must show respect for the others we live with or we will not be ppopular as house mates and when the opportunity comes up, we will risk being asked to leave. Flatmates show consideration as follows: When one person is doing a load of washing, they ask the other, "Do you have anything you want to go in the wash? I'll do it for you with my stuff now." They do this also expecting that maybe at some stage or in some other way, the favour could be returned. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." When planning meals, we like to plan to eat what we really like. This has to be modified according to the tastes of all others who have to share the meal, and also budget constraints. Time is also a factor. I'd love to make Peking Duck, but it takes a lot of time and effort, you have to dip the duck into a boiling solution of hooney, water, soy and star anise, then hang the duck up to dry. Then dip it again, hang it to dry again (often fanning it as it dries). Eventually the duck is roasted on a vertical spit, the skin gets crispy, it's carved off and served with hoi sin sauce spread onto a mandarin pancake with a brush made from a spring onion. The rest of the duck is made into a stir-fried duck and vegetables dish, followed by a third course of soup. Fabulous, but time consuming. We do not eat Peking Duck in our home very often. My children would love it, but recognise that if I take the effort and time to make it then a lot of other things they want form me, would go by the board. This flips the other way. If my daughter says to me, "I'm fed up with you cooking roast chicken all the time, I want spaghetti carbonara," I say to her, "You want speghetti carbonara? That's OK, as long as you make it for yourself. I like it but it's bad for me. difficult child 3 won't eat it. husband might eat a little of it only. So I will still cook roast chicken tonight, but you can make spaghetti carbonara for yourself, if you like. You might like to cut up some cooked chicken meat and add it to your sauce, perhaps." Or perhaps my child is fed up with me cooking spaghetti bolognese and says, "I want something different." I would say, "Do you have any preferences? If not, let's look at recipe books together and make a choice." I encourage him to choose a meal, plan the recipe, shop for the ingredients, prepare the meal, serve it and help clean up afterwards. Once your child begins to do this, not only do they have more choice in their life but they're also learning to work as part of the team, not just ofr themselves. Because to choose osmething different you still have to consider everyone's likes/dislikes as well as stick to the family budget. You can't blow a weeks' food budget on seafood platter for one night only. My kids learned that if we need to save money in the food budget for something special they want, that I have a store of "gourmet poverty food" recipes to fall back on. I taught them to cook these because when they left home I knew they would need them. There are many ways in which we show respect for one another. A very important one is something you touched on, tunaq - it's the "If you are going out, we need to know where you are going and when you will be home." I strongly recommend you bring this in as a family rule, one which everybody in the household complies with. So if YOU are going out (perhaps to the shops) you let difficult child know (if he's the only one home), "I am ab out to go out, I'm going to the shops. I expect to be home in an hour." YOu can even add, "Is there anything you can think of that should be on the shopping list?" He then has the option to say, "While you're there can you please buy me some more pencils for school? I broke my last one yesterday," or similar. It's also encouraging him to take personal responsibility, even as you are keeping him informed as to your movements. You are modelling for him, what he should be doing purely as a matter of courtesy. it has nothing to do with him still being a child. It's housemate rules. Visualise two girls sharing an apartment. Jane says to Mary, "I'm going out with my boyfriend tonight, he's taking me to meet his parents at their home down the coast. I expect we'll be staying there the night, so don't expect me home until tomorrow afternoon. I'll have my mobile phone if you need me for anything." That way when Jane doesn't come home that night, Mary knows to not worry, she's safe with her boyfriend and his family. it's common courtesy and it goes both ways. I do think you and your husband need to sit down and talk things over, I do also think that family counselling is not a bad idea. When you two married, the goal posts got moved and you need to go looking to find out exactly where they are and how likely it is that they will be moved again. Your need to talk isn't about blame, it's not about who made what mistake, it's about defining the situation as it is now and working out who is going to be responsible for what area of your mutual home life. This is a planning meeting. At some point you need to try to draw difficult child in to the planning meeting so you can establish with him, who is responsible for which part of his life, and what HIS responsibilities are. And as MWM emphasised, I think you need to insist that for the time being at least, you are taken off difficult child's case and it gets firmly handed back to husband unless specifically, clearly delegated otherwise. And frankly, there had better be a darn good reason for it being delegated back to you, while difficult child is still coming to terms with the marriage. It's not fair to you, not fair to difficult child, probably not fair to husband. But that shouldn't stop you asking difficult child to teach you how to play a game on the PS2. Try and have short but positive interactions with him, let them finish on a positive note with him wanting more. And a tip about the bathroom - if you use ONLY bubble bath in the bathtub and no soap, it's really easy to keep it clean. It's when you put soap into the bath that you get that nasty ring around the tub. To wash a kid, you can put a drop more bubble bath onto a washer and use that. Soap is the natural enemy of bubble bath bubbles, it kills them fast. And frankly, we found that mostly, bubble bath alone in the tub was enough to wash the kids, there was no need to froth up the washer. I hope this helps. Marg [/QUOTE]
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