HE WANTS TO CALL HIS GRANDMOTHER TO WHINE AND COMPLAIN...

I AM NEW TO YOUR PROGRAM AND I DO HAVE A SITUATION I DIDN'T SEE ON YOUR SITE. I HAVE 6 KIDS, TWO OF WHICH ARE STEPSONS. THE OLDEST OF THE TWO IS THE ONE I AM HAVING ISSUES WITH. MY HUSBAND WORKS OFFSHORE AND IS GONE A LOT, SO I AM ON MY OWN A LOT OF THE TIME.

THE PROBLEM I KEEP ENCOUNTERING IS WHEN THE STEPSON GETS INTO TROUBLE OR IS NOT HAPPY WITH THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING HE WANTS TO CALL HIS GRANDMOTHER (MY MOTHER-IN-LAW) TO WHINE AND COMPLAIN TO HER.

SHE ALWAYS TRIES TO CONTROL WHAT GOES ON IN MY HOME AND HAS EVEN GONE TO HIS SCHOOL TO TALK TO HIS TEACHERS, COUNSELORS AND SO ON.

I REALLY HAVE REACHED THE END OF MY ROPE WITH THIS ISSUE AND FEEL LIKE I CAN'T EVEN DISCIPLINE HIM FOR FEAR OF WHAT SHE MIGHT DO OR SAY.

ANY ADVICE?

HOPELESS IN LOUISIANA,

K.

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Daughter is angry at me most of the time...

"My 13 year old daughter is angry at me most of the time. It is hard to say anything to her without her snarkyness "don't talk to me" or "I know" ect. I never know if I should let it pass or jump on it. Then later she will ask rather nicely if she can go to a friends. Do I say "no" now because of the earlier rudeness that I endured BUT did not act on at the time? Week 2 is hard. So many issues and hard to pick where and what battles to tackle in the heap. Also, her 16year old sister is so "good". This builds a lot of resentment with my 13year old. She wonders why all these rules only seem to apply to her. She always says we favor her sister. Her sister does what she is suppose to without problem. She is pleasant and works hard at school. I don't know what to say to my 13 year old about why only she had to have all these extra chores and rules."

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I'm still concerned about leaving him here while we're gone...

Hello Mark, First, thank you for your calm and sensible way of dealing with these problems. We have appreciated the help.

We have a dilemma. Spring break is coming and a trip has been planned. Our 17 year old son, for whom we started your program doesn't want to go. He would like to go on an alternate trip with a friend and his family, which would only be for part of the time we will be gone and just staying around town at home or with other friends the rest of the time.

One of the reasons we started your program was a little incident earlier in the year when we found he had a party with alcohol in the house when we were out of town. We tried to get him to talk to us about what he thought would be an appropriate punishment but when he didn't come up with anything on his own we came up with some restrictions he of course didn't agree with. He did stick to it pretty well with only a few changes that we discussed prior to the events. Another was his lack of motivation and sort of a passive aggressive way of dealing with us and blowing off chores and school. He's had a few angry outbursts but nothing violent towards us, he does have a punching bag that has gotten a workout on a couple of occasions.

Since starting your program things have improved but I'm still concerned about leaving him here while we're gone.

I thought about getting him to write an itinerary of where he would be each day with phone numbers of the homes he would be staying in so we could call there each evening and make sure he was actually in those places. The other idea was to write up a contract of what was expected of him while we were gone.

I'm feeling apprehensive but would really like to trust him to do the right thing. He will be going off to college next year so it would be great for him to show more maturity at this point.

If you could help in any way we would really appreciate it.

Thank You, A.

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