Stepkids with next to no social life
It’s Friday night here in Australia and the first day of school holidays. If you thought SD16 would have plans with friends tonight you would be dead wrong.
Nope. She will be sitting in tonight with DH and I when any normal teenager would be at the cinema/at the mall/grabbing a bite with their friends.
I can hear her in the living room downstairs now as I am upstairs hanging out with one of my cats to avoid having to interact with her.
Honestly, get a f**king life.
DH was saying last night how the atmosphere in the house is very awkward between everyone (it is) and that it is noticeable that I barely speak to the stepchildren. It is meant to be noticeable. I told everyone that I was disengaging. I can’t pretend to give a sh1t when I don’t. I have bigger fish to fry like being 3 months pregnant and not having to deal with his ratbag kids.
Hiding upstairs in my own home
That is what stepchildren reduce you to. They don’t give a f**k how much they have negatively impacted your life, your home, your privacy, your space. I am starting not to care how much child support we will have to pay BM again. I want them gone and seriously considering shipping them back to hers and we will go back to every other weekend. They are her kids, why should she get off Scott bloody free but I have 2 freak shows lurking about my house?!
Ratbag. I like that! My
Ratbag. I like that! My stepson is a ratbag also! He is much younger than yours, but I also feel sometimes that he has no social life compared to others his age. My kids who are same age as him often go play with friends down the street. They go cycling together to the house of a friend on the next street, to the park, anything like this. They are close in age to my stepson. I think it is normal for kids who are school age to have friends they meet as much as they are allowed, and only more when they are teens. I have one older kid who goes to meet friends, as you said, cinema, mall, coffee shop, poetry slam, football match, anything happening and those kids want to do it. This is normal. I think it is how most of us were at that age also.
My stepson is with us 50/50 and he has no friends. He sits around the house playing video games like a big disgusting wart on the sofa, eating every junk food he can beg his dad for (I will not buy this), and complaining of being bored. He always want us to take him to some activity, arcade, indoor play place, chik-fil-a, wherever his mother takes him I think is what he asks us to do. I will not do this. I say go play in the street like normal kids. I used to make my kids take him out with them, but the neighbor kids did not like him because he is very immature and also tried telling everyone what to do all the time, and my kids complained about having to take him with them, so I no longer make them do that much. I know it will not get better as this kid grows up.
We can only count the days until they grow up and leave, right?
My ratbag teen SKs have no
My ratbag teen SKs have no social life too. Teen DKs have had several sleepovers and they see or talk to their friends at least once a week. But SKs have had absolutely 0 hangouts with anyone from their school this summer and can't get anyone to respond to their social media requests. And funny how they say their classmates always have reasons for not being able to hangout with them. Both are smart alecs know it alls and always have some stupid condescending remark about everything. It's no wonder they have no friends. I wish they did so that they would be out of the house more.
I don't know how you feel. I
I don't know how you feel. I know that at 16 I wasn't running off with my friends on a Friday night either. I didn't have the social life you are expecting of her. I had friends and we would occasionally get together for a sleepover or a trip to the movies, but I am an introvert. Being social drains me physically and emotionally. I would prefer to spend my hot summer days inside or alone by the pool reading a good book with an occasional meet up. Maybe that's her too. Is she an introvert? Does she get social anxiety? Is anyone offering her to take her to hang out with her friends?
I used to go upstairs and
I used to go upstairs and watch BBC in our bedroom to avoid it but now, for some unexplained reason our provider only allows native shows on the app so if I want to watch BBC I have to be downstairs. grrrr.
But as SS18 has refused to make even the slightest effort towards having any friends etc then we have made it quite plain that we do not want to 'hang out' with him. He has even been told to go upstairs as we want our own time or to go out and find something to do with himself.
We asked him to find a club or something to join that he is interested in: nothing. He does not like to move himself at all so no sports etc. We seriously cannot and will not be his entertainment system. He has always taken an attitude of ' here I am: entertain me'. NOPE.
Friday night he said to DH, what are we going to do tomorrow? have you got anything planned? Pffffft, this boy is seriously BEHIND. We have not done anything with him or taken him anywhere in ages because he has refused to make himself a social life or effort towards activities outside of the house. He is still a scouts member but does little with them, only enough to be able to go on the annual trip, which is at least something. He likes that so he does it. He never does anything unless HE wants it. Never does anything to make others lives better. Even though we asked very nicely that he starts doing this, that we will not be here forever as his only interaction.