My step kids have no respect
It is 1 AM here and my step kids are still up. No matter how many times you tell them to go to bed they stay up as late as they want to. I got up to tell them once again and this is what I discovered.
My BS bedroom door was open and it looked like a hurricane had hit it. This bedroom had been a catch all until my son got back from Oregon a couple weeks ago. Since then he had cleaned it up and made it into a nice bedroom for the teen he is. Now there is peanut butter smeared all over the room and even worse is they used his Magic cards to smear it. For those who don't know, Magic is a card game. My son has been collecting these cards for years and was just telling me he had the perfect deck. He had won many tournaments with these cards while he was in Oregon and was looking forward to entering more. Now they are spread all over his room, some are torn and most have peanut butter on them. My son is going to freak when he gets home and I can't say I blame him but I don't know what to tell him.
I have been raising my three step kids for almost three years now and they have no respect for others stuff. The other day my SD took my box of contacts out of my purse and opened each packet ruining them. My oldest SS picked a small doorknob hole until half the wall was gone. They have ruined my kids bikes, torn their art projects, snuck into their money or candies. Nothing is sacred in our house. Just the other day I found my "toy" in their bedroom. I found my IPod in SD play purse. If I started adding up the price of things they have destroyed it would hit the $1000 mark easy. Some things they have destroyed are priceless, things I have had since I was a child.
What can I do to teach these children some respect. We have tried time outs, grounding, taking away their things, even spanking. Nothing seems to help. I love my husband with all my heart and I love these children, but I don't know how much more I can take of this. Nothing is my own. Nothing is private. I am dying for my own space. Somewhere my things will be safe. Somewhere I can relax without being disturbed.
WHO IS THE PARENT???
Hey, WHY are you up at 1am with kids running riot? Where is DAD? Why is he not clipping his kids in to shape?
You need more support from the bio parent. What's going on???
Boundries
Your DH needs to set some boundries and quick. Does he help with the children? Where is BM? How old are these kids and why are they still up at 1am? I don't mean to sound like a drill sergent but those kids are running your house. I would not tolerate this type of behavior from ANYONE in my home and you shouldn't either just because they are not your children. This is a respect issue and you will need DH to enforce and correct his children and support you. Good luck to you with this, it will not be an easy fix.
~Evil
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius
My response is simple ... I
My response is simple ... I agree with the two posts above!
~ Katrina
I agree
also. Bedtime is awful over here and usually ends with the kids finally collapsing out of exhaustion, and me going in there every 2 or 3 minutes telling them to lay back down. I stay right on top of it and eventually they just fall asleep. I start early so that by the time they finally fall asleep it wont be much past 9:30 at the latest. If they are gonna play around all night we start at 8.
Make them "pay" for the things they destroy by working for it maybe? How about installing a lock on your teens door that opens with a key or the kind that latches way up by the top of the door so smaller kids can't reach them?
Sounds like you need SUPERNANNY!
Great show - she always has great strategies for dealing with extremely difficult situations/children.
skds
Send them home to mommie. Where is their father? Are you going to discipline the kds or are you going to watch them tear the place apart?
Wow!
How old are these kids? Not only do they need to learn boundaries they also need to learn R-E-S-P-E-C-T. If they are still young it will be hard at first, but very doable. You just have to remain consistent with your discipline and husband needs to be there in the trenches with you. If they see division between the two of you (as in he not being on board) they will eat you guys alive and you will never get control becuse they then learn to manipulate the situation.
Establish house rules and the consequences for breaking those rules IMMEDIATELY.
Post them wher all can see them.
Put into place a reward system as well (nothing elaborate). It may by coupons that you make at home on the computer for little things. Outing for an ice cream cone, movie of their choice be it at the theater or blockbuster, etc. As they get older, the rewards can be increased to age appropriateness, but remember to not make it about money. Make it about QT (quality time). Even try the you've been caught being good. Utilize some of the techniquest used in school, such as the traffic light. Everyone starts on green. If they have been warned x amount of times they get moved to yellow. If behavior is very poor they move to red. At the end of the day they may get a gold star. You may start them off initially as they get used to it by rewarding them at the end of the week if they have 3 or 4 green lights. Once they have mastered 3 - 4 days increase it to 5 and so on. This will eventually leave them with no room to be rewarded if they do not behave. You may then adapt this system to your liking once you get control of the behavior. I agreed with MarriedPrinceCharming I absolutely LOVE Supernanny Jo Frost. She can move into my home anyday. In fact, I never miss an episode and a lot of the things she does you can take and modify to your own unique situation. The principles have worked in my home and we now have behavioral problems, but a WHOLE lot less. Try them, after all it can't hurt anything. The key to anything is CONSISTENCY. You can't half-a$$ discipline when you are tired or not feeling well. It screws up the message and often times undoes a lot of the hard work that you've put in. Good Luck.
These are things that you can put into effect even if DH is not backing you. That way they see that the behaviors willnot be accepted or tolerated by you. Yes you will be the wicked Step-B!+@&, but they will know you mean business.
My new StepMother's Motto:
When life gives you lemons... Make a damn good Margarita.
Find the breaker box and
Find the breaker box and turn everything off byt the refrigerator. Hide all candles, matches, lighters and flashlights... they will get tired and fall asleep.
I know someone who got tired of telling his child to turn off the computer, so now he says it once, second time instead he goes to breaker box and turns off the power to the room. I see him as a smart man. He saves the energy of getting upset and gets them off the computer.