My SS is starting school in September.
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm trying not to get involved, because SS has 2 parents, and I'm not it. Not because I don't want to get involved, but because I respect that the parents are being parents, and I'm just dad's fiancee.
For the record, he doesn't mind the idea that I act as "2nd mother", but I'd really rather not give any reason for conflict between dad and bio-mom unless I really feel necessary that I jump in, since the kid does live part time in my home and we all share space, after all.
I have a lot of concerns... and they're generally due to my comparison of my own kids and SS. I know I shouldn't compare the kids, but I worry because of it. I'd be equally worried if SS was mine.
SS will be 4 in June.
SS is freshly potty trained. Underwear as of last week, and a few accidents - still has a pull up at night.
Mine were day trained by 2, and overnight trained by 3. Ok - comparing... I get that kids train at different times. No biggie.
But, I stepped in - I suggested to SO that we make a sticker chart for SS, because SO kept pleading with SS to use the potty and SS wasn't having it.... I gave SO my parenting experience - told him what worked for me... up to him if he wanted to try, he did, and now SS is "trained" come one week later.
Frankly I was just tired of the constant smell of diapers in my garbage.
I'm concerned that SS doesn't really know his letters, numbers, etc... and again, I realize all kids do things differently... but my kids could identify them all by the time they were 3 years old. They started sounding out letter combinations for small words like cat or dog. They could also control a pencil enough to follow on dotted lines... SS can't even draw a circle. Forget writing his name.
SO doesn't really spend time with SS doing that kind of thing, whereas I spent a lot of time with my kids playing around with letters and numbers etc...
SS needs to know all his letters/numbers by the time school starts. He also needs to know how to write his own name.
that's less than 6 months away... and I'm not convinced he will get it... Not because I don't think he can, but because I know that SO doesn't really do it with SS... and his mom, well... I'm pretty convinced she doesn't do much with SS other than plop him down in front of cartoons.
So - I bought him some little work books. SO looked interested, SS looked excited.. it's been a few days and they haven't been touched.
Is it crossing the line if I get involved and spend some time with SS with these little booklets? Am I worrying about stuff that doesn't concern me?
If SS were my kid, I'd have done this type of thing a long time ago... and I don't want to come across like I'm criticizing SO's parenting... I get that we all do things differently.
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm trying not to get involved, because SS has 2 parents, and I'm not it. Not because I don't want to get involved, but because I respect that the parents are being parents, and I'm just dad's fiancee.
For the record, he doesn't mind the idea that I act as "2nd mother", but I'd really rather not give any reason for conflict between dad and bio-mom unless I really feel necessary that I jump in, since the kid does live part time in my home and we all share space, after all.
I have a lot of concerns... and they're generally due to my comparison of my own kids and SS. I know I shouldn't compare the kids, but I worry because of it. I'd be equally worried if SS was mine.
SS will be 4 in June.
SS is freshly potty trained. Underwear as of last week, and a few accidents - still has a pull up at night.
Mine were day trained by 2, and overnight trained by 3. Ok - comparing... I get that kids train at different times. No biggie.
But, I stepped in - I suggested to SO that we make a sticker chart for SS, because SO kept pleading with SS to use the potty and SS wasn't having it.... I gave SO my parenting experience - told him what worked for me... up to him if he wanted to try, he did, and now SS is "trained" come one week later.
Frankly I was just tired of the constant smell of diapers in my garbage.
I'm concerned that SS doesn't really know his letters, numbers, etc... and again, I realize all kids do things differently... but my kids could identify them all by the time they were 3 years old. They started sounding out letter combinations for small words like cat or dog. They could also control a pencil enough to follow on dotted lines... SS can't even draw a circle. Forget writing his name.
SO doesn't really spend time with SS doing that kind of thing, whereas I spent a lot of time with my kids playing around with letters and numbers etc...
SS needs to know all his letters/numbers by the time school starts. He also needs to know how to write his own name.
that's less than 6 months away... and I'm not convinced he will get it... Not because I don't think he can, but because I know that SO doesn't really do it with SS... and his mom, well... I'm pretty convinced she doesn't do much with SS other than plop him down in front of cartoons.
So - I bought him some little work books. SO looked interested, SS looked excited.. it's been a few days and they haven't been touched.
Is it crossing the line if I get involved and spend some time with SS with these little booklets? Am I worrying about stuff that doesn't concern me?
If SS were my kid, I'd have done this type of thing a long time ago... and I don't want to come across like I'm criticizing SO's parenting... I get that we all do things differently.