1. What specific boundaries have you and your DH put in place with respect to BM and the skids?
-I'm going to be having this talk with Dh when he comes home today. We have slotted the whole evening to deal with this.

2. What are your House Rules for the kids?
- No voilence (this means people, animals, and toys)
- Act your age (no baby talk or asking for help when we know you can do it)
- No toys out of the HUGE toy room.
- Eat your meal or you do not get dessert
- Whining and crying happens in your bedroom (Ps crying at your toys or clothes does not help, lol she does this all the time and looks soo confused when I remind her that her shirt can not hear her.)
- Remember your manners
- Nudity belongs in the bathroom or bedroom

3. How has your DH managed in upholding the boundaries? What makes him slip?
- He's pretty good with the rules so I guess I have high hopes for the boundaries... if he could stop breaking them long enough to discuss them. He usually slips on the rules if he is doing something for himself. If he is hungry and eating, he will not remind Sd about her table manners, untill a piece of food flies from her mouth or something. But he has been getting better.

The biggest thing is to make sure you both agree. We have a nudity rule that Dh didn't agree with. Then we found the naked pictures of SD on the internet. Now he understands that she has to learn somewhere that her body is supposed to be her specail thing. If you are not on the same page you will fight about it. Talk about why you want certain rules in place to help get everyone on the same page.

Ohh and if you can The Complete Idiots Guide to Step Parenting has some good family activities for rules ect.

Rules/Boundaries ETC. Ideas (BTW-My SSons are 8 & 12)

#1
--Our relationship is the priority.
--DH handles all the communication with BM. I stay out of it. BUT DH will not agree to anything i.e. schedule changes etc. till he talks to me first. If I don’t like it he lets BM know and they work something else out. DH has made a point of telling BM when she wants something: “I need to talk it over with BettyRay and get back to you.”
--Anything having to do with spending money on the boys above CS we (DH and I) discuss first and come to an agreement. Before DH responds back to BM.
--I am not obligated to babysit stepsons or go to any of stepsons’ activities or to transport stepsons to any activity. I CHOOSE when I want to participate. (Although ssons usually will ask me if they need a ride - DH made a point of telling them that I, as SM, am not required to help them, if they want something they need to ask me for it)
--If we (DH and I) have plans on a sson weekend then the boys attend with us even if it means missing one of their activities.
--We take 1 week of vacation for ourselves; the other week is a family vacation with ssons.
--We (meaning everyone) don’t answer the telephone during the dinner hour (BM usually calls then and it interrupts our meal).
--DH will always have 2 sons and I will always have 2 dogs (this is nonnegotiable).

#2
-Everyone in this house agrees to always tell the truth.
-Everyone in this house treats each other with respect
-Children in this house agree that the adults in this house are in charge (this includes stepmom, grandparents and babysitters)
-Wash hands before and after dinner, after using the bathroom, after playing outside.
-Bedtime is at X time. No negotiating. Before bed we shower, brush teeth, put PJs on, get clothes out for tomorrow and pack backpacks and place them in the kitchen. (Anything going back to BM’s house must be packed and placed in the kitchen the night before as well since we drop off early in the morning on weekdays)
-Clothes that DH and I buy for ssons stay at our house.

*We have more rules than this but these are the big ones for us, each rule has a consequence but I figured you guys will come up with you own.

#3
DH is pretty good about all of them. He has problems with bedtime. But it has gotten way better. Ssons used be getting another “15 minutes” for like an hour at bedtime. But we (meaning me) took the TV out of SS8’s room and that has helped a lot. I also explained to DH that he was robbing us of some much needed alone time by letting the boys stay up later, in addition to robbing the boys of a good-nights sleep.

My DH was way against house rules we discussed it for a year before actually doing them. But now it has changed our EOWs for the better and the boys like them too. They have been asking BM for rules but she hasn’t instituted any yet.

He will agree to schedule changes with BM without consulting me first but that’s a rarity. 9 times out of 10 I say yes anyway so it’s not a huge deal when it happens.

Hope this helps.

~BettyRay
________________________________________________________________
"PROBLEMS ARE ONLY OPPORTUNITIES IN WORK CLOTHES."
-Henry Kaiser

Boundaries with BM

1). She is on a NEED TO KNOW basis. Neither DH or I share information about our lives with her, unless it directly involves her.
2). Phone calls are to be made after work hours. If she needs something it can wait until then, unless it is an emergency.
3). She is not to call and inturrupt our parenting time. The occassion call to tell SS if there is a change in who is picking him up from school or whatever is fine. But we try to limit the calls from her to him, she will keep him on the phone for 20 or 30 minutes talking about nothing, and when he was younger she would tell him how much she missed him and make him cry.
4). Day swaps are to be limited. If she wants one of our days, it needs to be for good reason, and with ample amount of notice. Not that we care TOO much, or are being selfish, but our schedule is set to match my schedule with BD's. Too many swaps and the kids are missing eaching like ships in the night. She was taking advantage of swapping and trading days so much at one point that the kids went weeks without seeing each other.

As far as the kids go, normal house rules.

No fighting
No food in the living room or bedrooms
No name calling or cursing
Homework BEFORE TV
You know... normal kid rules.

In order to keep the guidelines for BM in check, it is a matter of controlling what we have control over. She still calls during work hours, but we let it go to VM to discourage the behavior.
She pries information about our lives out of SS. If she says something about it, I just answer her question and keep the details to a minimum. i.e."SS told me you guys got a dog".. RESPONSE "yep". Short answers discourage her prying in to our lives.
Trading days, we always ask WHY, and if it is possible to make other arrangements so we don't have to switch days. If it comes down to it and we DO have to switch, whoever requested the change will do all of the driving. I will not go out of my way running around town, when SHE asked for a favor. Same goes for us. We request... we fly!
When she starts calling too much just to talk to SS, DH will tell her flat out to stop calling, that she is taking up our time with SS to talk about silly things. And she will see him in 2 days...

DISbelief~

~You have to BE crazy to UNDERSTAND crazy!~

House rules have to be upheld. That was my main problem with DH when SD was little and later lived with us. My primary rule was that I never asked SD to do something that I didn't do:
Pick up after yourself
Make the bed
Clean your room
Respect personal privacies and boundaries
No drama

I wish I could be more helpful - but it didn't work for me because DH would not make SD accountable. If your partner will work with you to establish clear and fair house rules you'll have a more peaceful and happy family life. Good luck!
Glynne