Reply to Kids, cousins and a rat's nest of family politics

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Kids, cousins and a rat's nest of family politics"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I think the fact that "what happens now could make or break them," and you recognize that, really does give you a mandate to help them through this.

Forget your parents and your sister and her STBEx and focus on the people you care about: your husband, your kids, your sister's kids.

Talk with your husband and kids (separately) and come up with a few specific, concrete things that would make this more manageable for them -- maybe once a week do something that's just your nuclear family? maybe certain behaviors from the visiting kids bother your husband more than others, and you can focus on those?

Be really clear with your sister's kids that you are committed to helping them through a really shitty situation, but certain things are non-negotiable. (Figure out ahead of time what those things are, and what the consequences will be if they don't meet them.) BUT also talk with each of them, separately, about what specific concrete things might make the summer more bearable for them.

How old are the kids (yours and your sisters)? What are their summer plans? Are you in a position to get them into camps or other activities that get everyone out of the house? Depending on the ages/genders, think about splitting up the siblings for camps -- like if you have a DD about the same age as a female cousin, maybe have those two do the same program while kids of other ages/genders do other things?

Keep in mind also that school starts in less than two months. I'm guessing they'll wind up going back to their mom when school starts? So that's a natural end to things that doesn't involve you kicking them out.

Also, if your sister says therapy is OK, do you need their dad's permission? If not, maybe make counseling a condition of them staying with you. (You don't mention anything about finances -- which is understandable, it's not our business, but makes it harder to advise you. If you can afford to send them to therapy yourself, I wouldn't hesitate. If you need their parents to pay for it, that's another story.)[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics