I'd like some input on how you parent your kids with 3 parents. For example:

Yesterday I borrowed my 15 year old son's dvd player because ours (my husband and I) didn't work. We discovered a porn dvd in it. When my son came home from a friends we confronted him and he "knew nothing about it" and couldn't see why we were making a big deal about it. Then I talked to my 19 year old son who lives at college and he knew right away which of ds15's friends had given it to him. So, DH and I talked to DS15 and informed him that he's grounded from going to the friend's house and can no longer have a DVD player in his room. We also tried to talk to him about porn but that didn't go well.

Since he's going to be with his dad this weekend and dad lives near the friend, I thought I should inform him about what happened and maybe he could also talk to him. I called and told him and then told him what DH and I had decided as punishment. He got very upset and said "leave your DH out of it! He doesn't get to make decisions about our son!" Just a note...DH and I have been married 2 years, I have full custody of DS15, and they have an overall good relationship.

anl,
Without knowing much about your situation I would tend to agree with your sons dad. I see no problem with you and your DH discussing the situation and him giving you his opinion but when it comes right down to it, any disciplinary action for DS15 should be between you and the boys natural father as long as his father is engaged and involved in his life. It probably would have been better received by your DSs father if you had stated that the disciplinary action was yours alone and you were informing him of that decision and asking his opinion and/or support.

What your DS15 would have to understand is that even though discipline is your decision you do consider your DHs opinion and it does not give DS15 the green light to disrespect your DH by ignoring, rejecting or dismissing DHs opinion.

Just my thoughts based on my own experience.

L4S

Well, until the last year my ex has had nothing to do with parenting his kids. We were divorced 9 years ago and there was a restraining order against him for 2 years. He was supposed to have supervised visitation but refused it. Then he disappeared for several years and I didn't know where he was most of the time. About 3 years ago he moved to the town I moved to with the kids and started making some attempts to be involved in their lives. The kids have no regular visits with him, but it just happens that DS15 had asked me if he could go see his dad this weekend and I had said yes. I haven't regularly involved his dad in parenting; but I know he has strong anti-porn feelings and thought he might want to be involved in this issue.

I guess to some degree I feel that since DS15 lives in our house, and DH and I are the responsible adults, we should make the rules in our own house. It bothers me that my ex runs down my DH's authority in the house to my son.

As to actually telling DS15 his punishment, I told him with DH sitting next to me implying agreement after we had discussed it.

I agree 100% that you and your DH make the rules in your home and DS should always respect those rules. I was referring to the decided discipline and your conversation with your X.

Your sitch puts a different wrinkle on the cat's *ss so to speak. If his father turned away from him and has little involvement then IMO he gave up the right to be involved in discipline also.

Agreed, co-parenting only works when both parents are involved. However having been a step father, I know from my own experience that one child thrived under my active participation in disciplinary things and the other resented it heavily. Depends on the child I guess but I would and will in the future err on the side of the bio-parents doing all the active disciplining and step-parents being the silent support and partner.

Travis

You and your DH share responsibility for discipline in your home. However, anything that carries over to your ex's home is between you and your ex. Your DH should never be mentioned or discussed with your ex. In fact, the only thing you should be discussing with your ex is your children. It doesn't matter how crappy a dad he is. He IS the dad and whatever custody and visitations you have with him are between you and him alone, not your DH.

In other words, your punishment was appropriate. That your DH agreed on it, implicitly or otherwise, was appropriate. Requesting that your ex honour the punishment was also appropriate. But involving your DH in that particular discussion was not.

anna i am going to have to go out on a limb and agree with you on this. Tabby i do agree with most of what you have to say as well. I think if you have custody of your children and your now DH is also to set rules in the house he should have the rights and say in the punishment. There should be one set of rules in a house not 2 or 3. How else are you to create stablity and respect for the step parent.

For example.

The married couple of the house make ground rules for the kids that both adults agree with. Now one of the children disobey's those rules in the house the "step-parent' is supposed to just sit there and not do anyting? I'm not sure how that would great an respectful relationship between the child and the step-parent. The step-parent in turn would sound like nothing more than a tattle tale with no real authority behind it. This new person is there helping raise and support the child in addition to his/her bio parents are they not? THey help with providing a house and food as well as taking them on family outings and such. It's almost by saying they can sit there an agree but not admitting or letting you xs know what was agreed upon in your house seems silly... They are good enough to help out monitarily but need to be kept out of other converstations.

No my xh lives with his OW still... I don't communicate directly with him but via IM. We do get message about our dd and any problems she is having. I know full well that when i send my dd there she is under "their" care as they both live together. I may not like it but she does have a say in the rules of that house and i am aware that as she gets old and if they stay together she may participate in the punishment of my child. I get that and honestly i think my child would lose respect for someone who let her walk all over them.

The typical approach when dealing with step parents is to have the bioparent do as much of the actual discipline as possible.

HOWEVER, you both have the right to establish HOUSE RULES and their subsequent consequences. I liken this to an apartment complex having rules about music, parking and guests. This way, if a house rule is broken, the consequence is already determined and anyone can impose it. Now this won't work for everything. In your situation, it probably never occured to you to have a rule about porn...so now you know.

These rules should be as specific as possible. For instance, for every minute late, you lose X minutes of TV/game/computer time. You and DH can establish these rules together; however, you probably ought to be the one to present them. Allow for respectful discussion and even input on the consequences. Be prepared to have reasons for the rules. Porn is disrespectful to women and I won't allow that sort of disrespect in my home.

As far as the coparent, it is great if you can come to agreement on character issues but that isn't always the case. The small things can be dealt with just by saying, in this house you are home by 9:00....whatever happens in the other house is out of your control. I do this even with guests in my home. "In my home, we don't say shut-up". This way I'm letting other kids know that it isn't acceptable to me. The character issues, you just have to let your feelings be known and hope that it sticks. If you are the primary parent it most likely will in the long run but there will be testing.

Good luck.

This is tough to be in the ex-H position. Best to spare his feelings and not mention current DH's input. I would just say that I found it and I determined this punishment, would you go along with this? This way, ex-H still feels involved in parenting and isn't reminded of being replaced. That is painful for him, I am sure.

Don't hold SD over XH. Not polite to rub new H in old H face. No matter how the D went down no man wants to hear about his replacement.

Being XH is getting more into the picture you need to appear to co parent issues such as this porngate being DS is going to be near a bad influence that weekend. He has no legal rights but he has feelings as a dad.