Not Sure How to Handle All of This...

Dear L.:
Here is an ugly truth (with very few exceptions): Your biological child and your step-child will not be in the same position. If you divorce (or break-up if not married), your child will stay with you and your step-child will go away, whatever 'with you' and 'go away' means in detail.

I tried to explain that to my now ex-wife BEFORE we got married, and for seven years it went well. But when she slept around and we had to split, there it was again. At least you are both in the situation of one own and one step child.

Perhaps you should agree on the most important disciplinary measures: The A list of things earns a spanking, the B list a time-out, the C list a verbal admonishment, etc.

If you are incompatible, you may have to reconsider your future together. If his alternate ways of discipline work, you may even do things differently, as long as you agree on what is acceptable and what is not.

My 2 cents,
W.

Dr. Phil has a book and I think it is called Family Matters or Family First or something like that. There is whole chapter that deals with this exact situation. The rest of the book is a great parenting tool for discipline especially if you and your boyfriend aren't on the same page. I've heard it gets better. Good Luck!!

This problem isn't unique thats for sure! My ex-husband and I talked about everything before we got married, except how we would disipline the kids. Ultimately our differences of opinion on how to handle the kids definately contributed to the break up of our marriage.

The key with kids is consistency. As they get older this is even more important because they are constantly looking for weakness! If you guys are fighting about displine you can count on the fact that the kids will use this against both of you.

Take a time when you guys aren't displining the kids or already fighting about something. Discuss your goals for your children and the overall way you want to displine the kids. Discuss any issues like raising your voice, name calling, spanking/hitting etc.

Once you have discussed these things and agreed on a plan make a notebook containing the "house rules". Once you have the "rules" written down, create a punishment to fit the crime. Both of you agree on it and write that down under the rule. Once you have done this agree to meet with the kids and go over the rule book and matching punishments. Be consistent and both of you follow the rules and punishments, problem solved!

Be sure to make a "we forgot that rule" clause. What I suggest is if one parent is home and the other gone and a kid does something bad that isn't covered in the rulebook, agree on a temporary arrangement like go to room, no tv, no games until both parents are there and can agree on a "permanent" punishment. This rule and punishment then should be added to the house rulebook.

Good luck

hello. my name is S.. i can understand where you are coming from. it is hard to mesh two families into one smoothly. i found the best way to handle this situation is to come to an agreement with your partner. if both of you can talk it out and decide together how to raise your children it is much easier to make them "our" children.

I am in a very similiar situation. My son is almost 2 and my husband's son is almost 3. His mother died therefore I am raising him as my own. Most of the disipline issues have been resolved between us (trust me it took time. My husband would say I am too hard on the oldest and too easy on the youngest. I always thought I disiplined age appropriate. He on the otherhand is very strict with both of the boys. My husband has been in mine and "my son's" life since my son was 4 months old and "his son" was 16 months old. Once my son was old enough to fully understand what "time-out" and everything meant....their disipline has been parallel ever since, which has caused my husband to back off with his suggestive comments about favoring my son and being to hard on his. The deal we had to make to keep from fighting about disipline everyday is.....i stay out his way when he corrects the children and he stays out of my way when i am correcting the children. instead of turning things into a fight, we try to calmly let each other "share" our thoughts on the other one's disipline style if we disapprove butnot in front of the kids. it can be hard and sit back and let some else disipline totally opposite of yourself but it is best for the family as a unit. we rarely have to "argue" over disipline style anymore and it is wonderful.

I have had a relationship like yours before. His 2 kids were angels and mine was the devil. (this was a fairly recent situation) His kids were a little older (8 & 12) so they had learned some of the tricks to irritating adults. He would not listen to a word I said about their behavior and would critisize my dicipline tactic. I finally had to pull out the video camera to prove to him that they arn't the good kids he thinks they are. We, however, were not able to get past his children's behavior. He was so far into his denial that he accused me of setting up his kids to look bad. (their mom ditched them for drugs so he let them get away as a way of compensating) My advice, ask him if he wants his daughter to respect you. If he is the man I hope he is, he will say yes. If so, tell him that she does not and will not until both kids are treated with age appropriate punishments for bad behavior. Be conciencious about how you treat your own first born though, make sure you don't just ignore your child's actions and focus in on hers, I remember what that was like personally. This is a sticky situation and I wouldn't want to go through what your going through ever. I know first hand how defensive parents can get over their kids, and how favoritism exists even among biological parents. I just hope that your bf is open to a little bit of change. Good Luck!

From the viewpoint of being a step-daughter it is ALWAYS best to let the biological parent disipline his or her own child. If the biological parent is not present when they need to be disciplined it is best to talk to the child and say if you do not mind we will have to talk to Mama/Daddy about this when they get home. They are very young children anyway. The correct punishment is standing or sitting in the corner for 1 minute for ever how old they are. Focusing on what the children do good or right always builds a good relationship between parents and children. God bless and hope this helps.

I went throught the same thing with my husband. He has a son and I have a son and we have a son together and another baby on the way. We would always argue about the way that I would treat his son or the way he would treat my son. We hardly ever argued about the son that we have together. I finally got fed up with it and made him sit down with me a talk about all of this. He didn't think that I was treating his son equal with my son and I didn't think he was treating my son equal with his son. We talked and I told him that these are children and they should be treated equal, if one does something and he gets into trouble for it then the other should get in trouble for it if he does it. It took awhile to make my husband understand that. He would let his son get away with stuff and then not let my son get away with the same thing. It took over a year to get everything to be normal, I guess you could say. You just have to talk to him and reassure him that the kids need to be treated the same no matter what. They understand that one is getting treated differently then the other and it does hurt their feelings. I didn't know this until my son came up to me and ask me why his step-brother got away with stuff but he didn't. That was when I decided that enough was enough. You have to make your boyfriend understand and if he acts like he doesn't care and he isn't going to work on it then ya'll's life is going to be miserable with the fighting and the argueing over kids. And I don't think that you realy want to live a life of fighting. you could even talk to a counselor about all of this and get help from him/her. Good Luck!!

I had a similar situation a few years ago. I was dating this guy and we had amazing chemistry between us, we were great friends, and everyone thought we'd get married. One thing stood between us... His bratty bratty daughter. He would let this child walk all over him, once she tried to get out of the way with me and I sat her down and had a nice long talk with her... Nothing offensive or anything like that, just more or less explaining to her that I knew she loved her daddy and missed her mom(mom walked out on her at birth, but sees the child every once in a while, We probably have meteor showers more often) and that I was not trying to take her mom's place.
Anyway,
I had a talk with him about it and we discovered that we would never agree on that issue... He wanted her to be disciplined only by him. He worked a lot and if we were married, I would've been with her most often. I couldn't see myself waiting for him to be the disciplinarian if she had done something wrong.
I later decided that it would be in the best interest of all parties involved if we went our own way. We are still friends, but I am engaged to someone else and he is seeing someone else.

I would advise that you express to him how strongly you feel about this situation and weigh out how important it is to you.

It will be a struggle, but it can be worked out!

Good Luck!