Discipline with X

[SillyTreeFairy]

Do any of you have discipline issues that you work on with the X? My dss is a normal 5 year old boy with quite normal behavioral development. Dh & I addressed bad behavior since he started visiting us and so it really hasn't been that an issue for us. However, his X won't discipline then snap and take away toys and tv for a week, which usually we are asked to reinforce since the first time she did it he said "Well, I'll just watch it at Daddy and ... house". Of course, we always support her to a degree but usually have her call him and end it earlier than she intended b/c a week long discipline seems like more than a fair for a 3 yr. old, now 5 year old.

Of course, this only comes up rarely, because most of the time she lets him slide. For a while, every time dh called he was crying b/c he wanted this or that. And when he is sick, she can tell he is feeling better when he has a little bit more of his attitude when he talks to her. (her words). Fortunately, she has started thinking seriously about it lately and has come up with a better plan that hopefully she'll be consistent with. It just makes me really nervous for when he is older.

Anyway, I was just curious about other blended families do?

[Destinye]

I think it is very difficult. I think its best to be consistent with the Ex if possible, but hard to align your parenting styles sometimes. We have the opposite problem, no discipline from her, and he is out of control, and if we try to do something she actively does the opposite, which makes it very hard. So no advice here but sounds like at least you have some open communication and can try to come to a compromise which is the way to go if possible. Good Luck!

[djs_girl517]

In the very beginning, we lived in an apartment complex with a pool, and that was the only place the kids got to swim. She tried a couple of times to punish Ryan with "since you did X, you can't swim at your dad's house this weekend." We quickly made it clear that she couldn't give them punishments that we had to enforce.

We are in a similar situation that the behavior isn't an issue at our house because we addresse it consistently but she still has problems because she is so inconsistent. DH finally told her that we won't discipline them for problems at her house. School is the exception to this. We do try to coordinate on grades and misbehavior at school, but ex usually forgets the punishment and it ends up just happening at our house.

[Flor]

We do theorically belive that we should all be unite when it comes to discipline but usually we are working on things at our house and she is working on different things at her house. We do communicate when it seems that dss is having issues, but it rarely seems like it is the same issue. For example, he might be being really sassy at her house, but fine at home. Or he is having trouble sleeping at home but ok at her house. . so we tell each other, but . ..

Recently she told us that he had lied to her and tricked her into buying him something expensive because the kids at school had made fun of him for something (which I knew wasn't true he just wanted this item). We talked on the phone and decided it wasn't right for him to pull one over on his mom and we would have him grounded at home and at her house. .. but when he got home, and we talked, the story just didn't make since. Since we don't really know the whole story (his version of the story made perfect sense to us) and they aren't both here in front of us explaining their sides, it didn't seem right to punish him for something we weren't sure about.

So, we are back to doing our own things.

Since he is such a good kid, it hasn't been much of an issue (knock on wood!).

[SillyTreeFairy]

Drives Me Nuts

Her discipline practice up to this point has driven us crazy, because dss is a sweet, sensitive kid and no way should he be acting like a brat and having trantrums and discipline concerns at this age. This is part of the reason I have been reading Dr. Phil. She would quote him etc. So we thought, if she was going to listen to what this man said that we should be familiar with his ideas so we could discuss what his opinions with her whent things come up. The best idea in his book is that parents, even seperated parents, should get together and draw up a "parenting plan" for their children. We've suggested this, and it would be great for dss for his parents to actually be able to be consistent with each other. But like most blended families it will probably never happen. I do feel bad for dss b/c he shouldn't have to feel like he has behavior issues, cause I don't think he does really as much as he has had consistentcy issues with his mother. Anyway, we suggested doing this, but of course, we haven't heard one word back on it. Oh, well. If she keeps having issues, we will keep bringing it up. I wish we could suggest other books, etc., but I guess we need to work with her where she is, otherwise she'll be even more unreceptive to our input.

My big concern is when discipline concerns become more complicated, how will the be addressed? What do those of you with teenagers do?