ah, my family life is at a low point. Break down of communication. Between me and each of the others. For different reasons, none entirely unexpected. I have started a journal (last week) and writing it down does help relieve the stress and distill the issues for me. Want to commiserate, see below. Or just pass and come back in a few days when I hope things are better.
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Parenting, me vs my husband. It's been several years that I struggle with my oldest on balancing the video games with outdoor activity and household participation. I have stressed these subjects to my son hundreds of times over the years in a hundred different ways. My husband is far to easy on my son, gives in to my son's ways and lets it go. Sometimes that method works, but I want that to be the exception, not the rule. Examples? I made a rule there would be no video gaming on school nights (and I took away the controllers to work during the week to remove the temptation on occasion). My husband said there would be a max hours of video gaming on the weekends: 6 hours a day. SIX HOURS. Oh for heaven sake. Might as well be all day.
Generally, my son makes fairly good choices. I want him to take more charge of his future. He will be 16 in a few weeks. Time to get more serious about a part time job in the summer, to finance a car if he plans to get one, and to look at what college choices (including scholarships) that are in his future. My son is not inclined to put himself out for any of these. I know it is partly from fear of becoming independent, it's scary and he might not succeed. And in the meantime his dad provides very good home, food, and easy extra money.
So I am fairly miffed at my husband for being soft on the parenting.
Teen Mother-Daughter Psychosis. At this point my teen daughter assumes without question anything and everything I say or do interacting with her is going to be critical and unapproving. I am very sad and this is tearing me up. It brings up alot of bad psychology in my own teenage years. So it is full on confrontation no matter if I: try to get her to commit to a figure skate practice time, want her to go to bed on time, pick up her floor, make her own lunch! You name it, every little thing.
I had a lot of tears this weekend. It is not just hormone crap. These are issues that have been on the burner for years.
One tiny good thing, I have not given up in making things better. I can go to my daughter and say 'You worked really hard in skate practice today' or 'Please let me say good things about you!' or something. My son went on a hike with my husband all day yesterday (only after I made it clear to my husband that he needed to be strict and STAND UP for the right thing as a parent). This momentum needs to continue from both the boys and neither will be particularly gung ho about it.
That's all for now.
Trying to stay positive
January 21st, 2014 at 11:26 pm
January 22nd, 2014 at 01:29 am 1390354142
You'll likely disagree, thats ok, DH and I felt we needed to adjust our parenting actions and response endlessly. Rather than try to prevent problems, in some instances it may be advantageous to let DKs cope with the consequences. Kudos to DH who had DS join him on a hike. Great one-on-one opportunity to talk about managing homework and summer plans. Isn't 16 y/o perfect for bribery on one hand and nasty consequences on the other.?
If DD's declines to pick-up her floor, you could decline to wash her clothes. If it includes dirty dishes/food, I'd add some kind of vermin remover and tell her to kill all the bed bugs & coach roaches. If DS doesn't complete homework, he'll have consequences at school but worse, we had DSs clean toilets every day explaining that without a reasonable education, you get menial labor jobs. What boosted marks most significantly was DS1 hired by a nearby restaurant as a dishwasher 5 - 9 PM mostly Friday & Saturday but occasionally weekdays.
I was horrified and vetoed the plan but finally allowed it one night thinking he'd hate the hot, filthy, exhausting work. Long story short, the guys he worked with made it clear that they had blown education opportunities need the job to pay the rent. Dishwashers don't participate in the tip out!
sorry, this got so long
January 22nd, 2014 at 01:43 am 1390355027
January 22nd, 2014 at 03:41 am 1390362078
You might find some helpful ideas.
(Hugs)
January 22nd, 2014 at 04:53 am 1390366415
LF: please add a link, never heard of Lovr&Logic.
Good update: pleasant cooperation today after school. Small hugs exchanged!! Happier me.
January 22nd, 2014 at 03:44 pm 1390405484