Trade off with other parent/Emotional child!!!!...

[J&KGray]

Hello,

My fiancee has a 6 year old child of her own and I have a 3 year old from my previous marriage. We have an amazing life together as a family but there are glaring issues.

We are at a loss because her child's father is a loser. The father is 25 years old, still lives with mom, has no job and has been known to sell weed. The father allows him to play xbox all weekend at visitation and do whatever he wants. This is a huge issue when he comes home and has time limits and bed times.

Also, he is an emotional wreck when he comes home. He has break downs for anything ranging from not waking up in time to play video games (he has a 40 minute max limit a day), too many choices for cereal to choose from, not being able to tie his shoe right the first time ect. The list goes on and on.

We do not know what to do. We are a very loving and positive family. Both children are great kids but we do not know how to handle the other parent and emotional problems. It is normal and acceptable to cry over certain things but to break down and cry three times in an hour before school over many cereal choices is ridiculous.

Any parenting ideas? For the record, his dad and "nanna" baby the crap out of him. Everything from cooking what he wants to letting him wear a raincoat while he plays soccer so he didn't get wet. Its getting too much.

Thanks.

 

[Incogneato]

Just trying to get more of an idea of the situation with some follow up questions.

1. How do you handle these meltdowns?

2. Do these meltdowns only occur shortly after the visitation with the father and then go back to normal eventually?

3. Have you had any sort of chat with the father about this behavior and is the visitation/custody arrangement court ordered or something they worked out together?

 

[mom2many]

^^ these would help us, help you more.

 

[J&KGray]

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1. We handle the meltdowns in many different ways. Being an ex marine and police officer it is difficult for me to tolerate meltdowns for issues that he shouldn't even bat an eye at. Usually I tell him to stop because its not a big issue. I have gone as far as to tell him to stop acting like a baby. I sometimes use our 3 year old as an example.

2. Meltdowns occur most often when he returns from his dads though they can happen anytime. My fiancee told me his dad is the same way. He broke down crying at age 16 when his friends ate all the pizza and didn't leave him any.

3. We have not spoke to his dad about this issue due to the fact his dad gets defensive about everything. I can see us doing it soon though.
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</LEFT>

 

[Incogneato]

Well being completely honest about myself and knowing my own personality...I would have a tendency to feel the same way you do about handling a meltdown, however it might be more helpful to also include some form of discipline (such as a time out, or further restricting game time), in addition to telling him to stop. I would make sure that you lay out the ground rules for how he is expected to act, give a warning (only one), if he doesn't obey the rules of how he's expected to act, and then follow through with discipline every time he continues acting up. Doing this will start a routine at your place but it needs to be followed in some fashion at the father's place. Now hearing about his personality, I don't think that he is likely to do any of this, which is where speaking to his father about the issue comes in. If the visitation isn't court ordered and it is just an arrangement worked out between them, I would suggest having a serious conversation with him regarding whether or not he actually -wants- to spend time with his son, as he seems fairly uninterested. If he doesn't want to spend time with his son and there it no court order requiring it, and he doesn't intend on supporting your discipline style, then it might be worth considering no longer allowing him to visit.

On a bit of a different note regarding the actual behavior...I know outbursts and emotional issues can be common in children, but since his father is also prone to this and he is an "adult"... it almost sounds like a form of ADHD or bi-polar behavior. I have had experience with this personally as my ex wife was diagnosed as having both.

 

[NancyM]

I don't think you can force the father to discipline the way you want the child disciplined, the only thing you can do is to continue to reinforce the ground rules at you home.

It isn't the 6 yr olds fault that his dad is somewhat of a slacker. This behavior is obviously normal for his dad and his family so even if you do make demands or suggestions they will think your over reacting or overly strict and would most likely not follow through.

I would just <I>not</I> react when the child acts up, it seems this is how he communicates when he's at his dads and he sees that it works there, so being only 6 yrs old, he just continues when he comes home.

First I would have a 'man to boy' serious talk, tell him how proud of him you and his mom are when he acts like a bigger boy and follows the rules at home, and it causes you both to feel sad or upset when he changes or acts up because when he whines or 'breaks down' he's not explaining what he needs and you both can't help him. Something like that. and remind him that when he's back home, these are the rules at our house and when he wants or needs something he has to use his words and ask for it, or behave the way you and his mom expect him too.

I <I>would not </I>compare him to the other child, (b/c that only will pit both kids against eachother) nor would I even bring up anything at all about his father or grandmother, it will only hurt him and cause him to resent you. Just follow through with your own house rules and maybe a little time out when he's being fresh.

Good luck

 

[holbo]

Hi,

From how you describe yourself and your parenting values you seem to be a no-nonse guy. I like that! Makes things much easier when you don´t have to tip-toe around a difficult subject. Adding to that you said in another thread that you have a military approach to parenting. I like that as well!

I get gray hair watching parents safe-guarding their kids wrapping them up in soft cotton so they won´t get a scratch and then when they get into the real world they suffer cultural chock realizing that life isn´t fair nor easy...

So much the praise - And now comes the hard part, but I get a feeling you can take it, so here we go:

Please allow me to be straight forward and comment your own points on how you deal with it:

1. What you do here is, in my humble oppinion based on my own experience, adding to the problem more than solving it. Please allow me to elaborate:

a. if the child feels there is a problem, then there is a problem. If you tell him that what he is crying about is no big deal you´re undermining his God given right to have those emotions. Undermining his emotions you remove the foundation to his self-feeling (Note that self-feeling and self-confidence are not equivalents) and if he looses bits and pieces of his self-feeling he will only become more enslaved by his emotions.

Instead of undermining his emotions you can help him understand how to communicate them in a sensible way. If you think about it, what is the problem here? His emotions or his behaviour? You can´t change his emotions (neither can he for that matter) but you can help him communicating them in a better way. For example you could say: "I can see that you´re upset and I understand that. It´s not easy for you. Still, you need to tell me what´s wrong using words in a respectful manner, because if you don´t I can´t help you"

b. Calling him a baby, which is actually what you do when you tell him to not act like one, i.e. "right now you´re acting like a baby," might not exactly help him deal with the emotions he has.

Instead you might want to explain to him why his behaviour is not helpful for any of you. In other words what I said before under a.

c. Ehmm... Honestly this one poked me right in the heart. When i grew up my dad used to say: "Why can´t you be more like your brother?" whenever I disappointed him. It´s one of the most effective ways to take away a kids self-feeling, because the message he recieves is: I love your brother more... Never, never, never compare siblings when it comes to behaviour...

You can always tell your kids that as the oldest they have more responsibility and so on... but if you use their siblings as examples of "The better child" you will end up with the opposite result of what you really want...

Adding to the danger of this is the fact that his younger sister is not really his sister and even worse: he is not reallt your son...
(of course he is, but I think you get what I mean)

2. It seems to me that his problem is really quite simple (bare in mind that I´m not an expert on the matter)
He is living in a home with a substitute father being a huge contrast to his biological father when it comes to parenting. When he is with his dad he can do pretty much whatever he pleases, but coming home there are rules. I´d be confused too... and I´d be finding it difficult getting the feeling that none of the above really loves me: the one doesn´t care what I do and the other one want´s to control everything I do (overstated, but again: I think you get what I am trying to say here)

3. Don´t have any meaningful to say here. If you talk to him about it you might end up in a fight making it even worse and if you dont you might end up in a fight with him when he finds out you didn´t tell him about it and that would make thing even worse than worse, so.... I am fresh out of ideas...

Hope I wasn´t to rough on you. All was said in the best of intentions!

 

[Tori]

I have this problem too. My son is 9 and is such an emotional wee thing.... when he returns from his Dad's the rules change and we become the bad guy's. I honestly can say - stick to what your doing. I believe it may be confusing sometimes but at the same time he will recognise (hopefully) that there are different rules. I feel your pain dude.... keep at it! Remember all the time - it's not his fault.

 

[marlow]

all the best with it

 

[LucidKitty]

Well given you have primary care i can tell you that you should consider taking him to court to alter your custody agreement.