Biting My Tongue on an "I-told-you-so" wrt Grades
For the past term I have mostly disengaged from trying to assist stepkids (and DH) with schoolwork on weekends, and EVERYBODY has been happier. The kids do what they want, DH does what he wants and I have more time to do whatever I want.
Well. This weekend DH was informed about the stepkids' grades by BM. Why the phonecall? Well, the kids conveniently FORGOT to bring their report cards. And yup, their grades sucked!
DH was MAD! He had them doing lots of chores this weekend, and he told SS to take the Xbox 360 to his mom's. DH bought a new game for SS and SS has been playing that game every possible minute and having a real attitude about helping out. SD has her iTouch with unlimited internet access at our house, so she's forever on that, esp Facebook.
When DH told me what was going on, I said NOT ONE WORD. But, really DH? I'm not in the least surprised, why are you?
The worst part is that DH keeps threatening POINTLESS threats that he has no intention of following through on. He's beginning to sound like a broken record with his, "I'll cancel your summer trip" growl.
If you don't bring your glasses, I'll cancel your summer trip.
If you don't get good grades, I'll cancel your summer trip.
If you don't help out around here, I'll cancel your summer trip.
And EVERYBODY knows he's not going to do it. So really, why bother?
Plus, he found out about the grades and then still wanted to take them to see a movie, that they have already been to the cinema to see! They really laid on the honey, "Oh daddy, we'll see it again, because we want to see YOUR reaction, daddy-O". But they didn't end up going because DH got called in to work on Sunday and was just too tired when he got home.
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This is how my DH
This is how my DH roles.
Empty threats in the heat of the moment without any planned follow through which both SS6 and SD12 know very well.
The last one was telling SS6 he can't go to his school water day on Saturday if he doesn't pull green behaviour lights from now til then - like a month (OMG - he can't get a green week let alone a month) anyway. He turned around with the ticket order sheet within 5 mints of telling SS6 that threat for bad behaviour to ask me how many bracelettes we should order. Practically on the same breath - I just said, don't know, besides its BM's day anyway so are we going?
so not only did he threaten something he wouldn't follow through, he threatened an event that wasn't even on a day we can enforce if he wanted to.
Then we all had dessert....
I answer like you, oh? really? look of surprise crossing my face, that really stinks. walk away.
"This is how my DH
"This is how my DH roles."
Ditto. woops. haha, I signed in under my old name, but still true.
Life caters to those that
Life caters to those that don't try. At least that seems to be the trend these days.....
The root of the problem is in
The root of the problem is in the "take the X-Box to your mom's" stance that your DH took. IMHO.
A much more effective response would have been to take the X-box outside, line the kids up next to the driveway and make them watch him back over the X-Box with the car. Then rather than have them do chores, have them do homework. If they bring none home then they write research papers on topics like "How to study", "How to write a research paper", "The Economic Policies of the USA 1850-1925", etc..... Start with getting a copy of "Where there is a will there's an A" and having them all work through the program.
When we eliminated games from our son's life we eliminated games. We got rid of the PS and the DS and ......
Gone. And when he snuck one home from a SpermLand visitation .... gone.
Though his SpermIdiot faught us the whole time by hacking school fire walls so they could WoW all night every night while SS was at boarding school and weasling on how SS should be allowed to game and how schools are stupid and the kids should not have to do what the schools require them to do, etc....
We got him through HS and successfully launched on a 6yr USAF enlinstment. What he does now is entirely on him to deal with and we hope he his keeping his head away from his spincter.
All IMHO of course.
Good luck.
Thanks, I really think I need
Thanks, I really think I need some luck.
I've taken away SD's phone, tv etc. when she isn't wearing her glasses, which she is supposed to do when using phone, tv, etc. 10 minutes later DH will let her have them back. When the kids know that daddy isn't serious, they have to no reason to follow through.
I'm more of a "Give it away to someone less fortunate" kind of person, rather than run over the X-box with a car. But, not mine to give away. I do have some say, but zero real enforcement does not help one bit.