Parenting Teenagers (12-18) Support Group
This community is focused on the joys, challenges and concerns faced by parents of teenagers (12 to 18 year olds). The major areas of child development include: physical development, perception and sensory development, communication and language development, cognitive development, emotional development and social development.
My teenage son and daughter seem to be obsessed with knowing how we will be disciplining my step-daugther because of a recent foolish thing she did (and it's not the first time she has been caught doing this).
They feel that they should have input on how to discipline her and want to know what steps we are taking. For the record, my teenage son and daughter live with my wife and I and my step-daughter lives with my wife's ex. We have informed her ex about what happened. We have discussed what we feel we should do as far as discipline goes, but my teenagers won't keep their heads out of our business on this matter and take every opportunity to call out the things that my step-daughter has done while ignoring the rude and disrespectful behavior they are exhibiting at the same time It is upsetting my wife and it is irritating the hell out of me.. It is to the point that they are acting like spoiled brats and telling me how I should parent and how unfair I am being.
I have told them that she (the step-daugher) is being disciplined and that it doesn't concern them. My son is so up in arms about this that he refused to do homework last night because of how "unfair" he thought the whole thing was.
Even though it was something my ex-wife used to tell me all the time and that what she did was "her business" and I needed to stay out of it, I have used the same thing with my kids and told them that this is none of their business. The difference is that what my wife was choosing to do had a direct impact on me and was not simply "her business" but was "our business" since were were husband and wife and should work through these things together. The issue with my step-daughter is between my wife, myself, and the step-daughter and truly is none of my teenagers business.
Any input? Advice? Thoughts? Criticism?
They feel that they should have input on how to discipline her and want to know what steps we are taking. For the record, my teenage son and daughter live with my wife and I and my step-daughter lives with my wife's ex. We have informed her ex about what happened. We have discussed what we feel we should do as far as discipline goes, but my teenagers won't keep their heads out of our business on this matter and take every opportunity to call out the things that my step-daughter has done while ignoring the rude and disrespectful behavior they are exhibiting at the same time It is upsetting my wife and it is irritating the hell out of me.. It is to the point that they are acting like spoiled brats and telling me how I should parent and how unfair I am being.
I have told them that she (the step-daugher) is being disciplined and that it doesn't concern them. My son is so up in arms about this that he refused to do homework last night because of how "unfair" he thought the whole thing was.
Even though it was something my ex-wife used to tell me all the time and that what she did was "her business" and I needed to stay out of it, I have used the same thing with my kids and told them that this is none of their business. The difference is that what my wife was choosing to do had a direct impact on me and was not simply "her business" but was "our business" since were were husband and wife and should work through these things together. The issue with my step-daughter is between my wife, myself, and the step-daughter and truly is none of my teenagers business.
Any input? Advice? Thoughts? Criticism?
I suspect your kids want to make sure the step sister doesn't get the "get out of jail free" card because she is a step sister. They want to be sure it is all fair. I don't know how you feel about fairness between the kids. I think it is okay to let them know that you are working with the parents and will come up with a discipline that will be just and fair and they don't need to worry about it.
While it makes sense to have the same set of rules for all of your children (and this is the case with most things), sometimes it just doesn't apply. For example, when I was a teenager, the rules for me and my younger brother were not the same as they were for my older brother. My older brother had broken the rules and had more stringent rules enforced with him because of it. My younger brother and I stayed "in bounds" with the rules so we had more privelages in comparison.
My two girls (including the step-daughter) and my youngest son have more privelages than my teenage son right now because my teenage son has failed 7 classes in the past two quarters of school. He feels that I am being unfair in how I have dealt with is poor performance at school, however, he feels that he is within his rights to determine how to discipline his step-sister. My wife and I do not agree.
EverChanging - as far as bringing the hammer down, my son lost driving privelages to school the next day because of his refusal to do his homework. He did what he needed to last night so got that privelage back.