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are my stepkids being mistreated at mom's and what can i do?

elizabethxxx's picture
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first i'd like to say i'm new to step-parenting (about 9-10 months in)... and parenting in general, no children of my own though we would like to have a couple in the future Smile but i've gotten fairly adjusted to it and i love my stepkids! they are great kids, two boys age 4 and 6. they stay with us every other weekend. much less than we would like but we hope to change this. we make the most of our time. it is difficult for my husband as he wishes he could be more involved in how they are raised. he does not agree with many things his ex-wife does/teaches his kids, but less than a week per month is not a lot of time to teach values to the kids and reinforce them, as they will just be told the opposite when they go home.

anyways, here are some things going on that seem off color to me that i'm worried about - but i am new to parenting, and i need another perspective.

1. the oldest gets upset VERY easily, and will get withdrawn yet overly agressive if something bothers him. (sulking for 30+ minutes, or more often getting red-faced, yelling, and hitting (for example, if his brother is playing with a toy that he wants or if he is served milk instead of soda) - of course this could just be what 6 year olds do

2. they are hungry EVERY time they come over, begging for food. i'm always shocked and like, of course you can have food! i now make a point to ask if they ate dinner/lunch, and the answer is always no. the 6 year old says things like "we went home but we didnt have time to eat anything cause we forgot" "mom said dad would buy us happy meals" "i ate an apple at school but didnt get any dinner" situations always seem to come up that prevents them from eating for 4, 5, 6, even 8 hours.

3. they are NEVER dressed for the weather. throughout the winter they were sent to our house with coats only ONCE. every other time it was t-shirts and shorts in 30 degree weather! it puzzles me.

4. she pulls them out of school a lot. nearly every time they come over, one of the kids missed school that day or she is taking them out on monday for this or that.

5. they are sick a lot. the 6 year old always has a cough that is never cured. often she sends a pouch with a variety of medicines, cough syrup, triaminic cough strips, allergy medicine, various nose sprays, ointments, etc. (what do they need all this for?!?)
their mom does not follow the instructions on the medicine bottle. she doesn't make them take what theyre supposed to and they take the wrong meds. this weekend my SS gave me a bottle of medicine saying "im supposed to take this for my cough". it was prescribed to my other SS. theyres always something like this going on.

6. she pushes atheism on them. it isn't wrong to be atheist if you want but little kids shouldnt be outright told that religion is hogwash and be insulting to others' beliefs. (spirituality is very important to me but i do not push it on them, i just want to teach them to be tolerant of all people). the six year old has a rehearsed script about it, my husband mentioned god and he said "you can believe in that if you want but it isn't real" or something to that effect

7. their mom just generally doesn't seem to care about them: she will openly say "i put them to bed early, they were so annoying" and stuff like that. she hugs the younger one goodbye and says i love you but i have never heard her say i love you to the older one or seen her hug him

8. over the kids' fall break she went to the beach and they stayed with us, she uses time away from them as her fun time - every weekend when they are here she and her boyfriend are on a vacation or out at some fair or this or that and change plans last minute - like texting to say "we won't be back till monday night, can you keep them an extra day?" because she is so spontaneous and unplanned... usually she wont even come get them, we drop them off at their grandparents' house. she's always saying "you can pick them up at such and such". only once or twice have we picked them up from her directly and she's picked them up. (we are all civil so that's not the issue)

9. they cuss a lot, calling each other b word, n word, and we let them know they can't say those things at our house. i guess they don't get in trouble for it at home. (for example: SS said he didn't know those words were bad and asked why he was in trouble)

so my question, is this normal behavior or does any of this stand out to you? we don't really know what is going on at mom's house.
my hubby and i are considering asking her to let them come to us every weekend, and we think she will probably be fine with this. we do want majority of the custody someday - i know it is hard to take away kids from the mother and we have no proof, really, and they are not being physically abused as far as being hit or anything. is it possible for them to live with us and how does this work in a court? we want them to see her but we feel our house is a better environment for most of their time.

how would we go about getting them to live with us, should we, and does it sound like they have a bad environment at home?

NCMilGal's picture

Keep in mind that I'm a very non-custodial stepmom to a teenager with no kids of my own - I've never actually dealt with a kid younger than 11 in my whole life.

1-3, I hear that younger kids will have epic battles about control - what they wear, what they eat, even potty training. I'm sure someone with more experience will speak up, but it seems that it may be a 50/50 thing between lazy parenting and kids running the house.

4: lazy parenting. But as long as the kid is not failing (and sometimes if he/she is) the courts don't care most of the time.

5: potentially dangerous lazy parenting. One thing I *have* noticed though; kids are germ factories. DH and I are very rarely sick - my coworkers with kids are sick at least once a month.

6-9: The courts don't care. BM is CP, her house, her rules. SD16 is being steeped in a far right evangelical Baptist church. BM is a raging bigot who uses racial and ethnic slurs. BM and her DH also party down with NFL and college football tix (given by BM's daddy) regularly, leaving SD16 in charge of the house and her little brother. This has been going on for years. The courts don't care. In that state, at least, BM can do no wrong, and BF can do no right.

hwngrljamboy's picture

1. The oldest let him talk it out with you, sometimes kids don't know how to express themselves and don't know why they have anger in them and don't know where its coming from. Maybe when he is at his mom's house, she isn't giving them the attention they need.

2. Document everything including mealtimes. Make sure the kids understand that happy meals are not meals in itself. My bf's ex, recently mentioned (btw, i'm keeping it PG and professional here) that the kids are manipulating them into buying fast food (ie mcd's & subway...) when they are driving back to her place and saying that we are not feeding them enough and should be fed proper meals.

normal day (when they are home with us), they have a snack around 3 or 4 and then they eat dinner at roughly 6 or 6:30. on the days they go to their mom's, they eat earlier which is 3 or 4 because of the drive over to the drop/pick in the Mojave. lately, i've been making pb&j sandwiches and take fruits along for the ride just in case they get hungry again. we always make sure the kids are eating dinner and full before then. kids are always hungry and always growing.

3. tee-shirt and shorts in 30 degrees? document that, day and time. with no coats?? o.O

4. are the kids sick alot or do they have appointments? (nevermind, just read #5)

5. does the 6 yo have asthma? or some kind of nasal problem? i was told by bm's grandmother that there is a nasal passage problem in the family, and its herditary. my bf is still in touch with her family.

6. everyone should have their own belief system, regardless if its atheism or buddism. i think that a child should learn about other beliefs and not to be told that right off the bat. the kid should be allowed to experience it.

7. - 8. sounds like being lazy to me.

9. little kids being exposed to language like that isn't good. they should know that those aren't good to say.

quite a lot of red flags are jumping up. make sure you document everything, pick time, what they wore, what kind of a day.. make a journal out of it. how were the kids' attitude? were they fed?