New family

[mlssdwn]

Although my husband and I have been together for four years, we have only been raising my daughter as my sons have lived out-of-state with my ex-husband. My children are now, 14 (son), 12 (son), and 11 (daughter). There was, however, visitation.
In January, the boys came to live with us and have limited contact with their natural father. Although, for the most part, we all get along fine, there is some trouble with the rules. While living with their father, my children ran all over town with no supervision, be disrespectful, and have even been arrested for theft. In my house, rule #1 is to respect the parents and the house and there are times when this just seems to be impossible. We are firm believers in knowing where are children are and to know when they are safe.
We understood that it would take time for everyone to adjust to the new living arrangements, however, how can we help? We thought things were going well, and then it seemed like they forgot everything and that makes us, the parents, very frustrated.
My 14 yr. old and my daughter love my husband very much, however, my 12 yr. old seems to take everything as a joke. When given a punishment for rules broken, such as you lose this priveledge or that priveledge, he just replies, "I don't care." This drives my husband nuts, because he knows that he DOES care.
We have always spent a lot of money on the kids, not $1000 a time, I'm talking about buying them new toys, clothes, etc. (when the boys would come for visits, they never had decent clothes, so we had to buy new each time and tried taking them places they would enjoy) and then when they came to live here, they did not have anything, therefore, we had to provide everything, from new underware & socks to posters for their room. Any ideas as to how we can let are children know that we are not the Rockafellers and that money is not the way to show that people care about each other?
Please if anyone has any ideas PLEASE help us. Thanks!

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Mom,
Hold onto your hat-I've got a flash for you: Sounds like you guys are doing GREAT as a new family. Bringing teens into a new family is very, very hard to do. And you've only been at this for 6 months? You might want to lower your expectations a bit since for the most part the kids are doing very well. Your middle child is actually acting more normally, given his situation. Suddenly losing a dad, house, friends, school and then getting a new dad, house, friends, school, parenting philosophy, and so on is enough to make anyone crazy, don't you think? How would you feel as an adult if I forcibly changed your life all around like that? I'm actually more concerned that the 14 yr old may be trying to be too good and might blow a gasket later if you don't provide him the time and space to express his anger and upset at all the changes.

Think about shifting gears. Instead of focusing on what's not good, try telling the kids how impressed you are with how wonderfully they are doing. Try and get the older boy to talk about how hard this has been for him. He might feel disloyal if he complains, but tell him you love him so much that there is nothing he could say that would make you love him less. Let him know it's OK to be angry, that people still love each other anyway.
Regarding the money issue, kids are supposed to think that it grows on trees. Perhaps think of having them earn allowances (via chores) big enough to cover their clothing costs as well as goof-around money. This way the fight goes inside of them as they wrestle with $120 jean/sneaker urges. The added benefit is that your middle son would now get rewarded for being good versus punished for being bad. He sounds like one of those kids who will play chicken with you on punishments ("I don't care") to the point that punishments are useless, and only create more bad feeling (See "Punishments vs. Consequences" in the book). This reward system gets the power and control struggle out of your relationship with him.
Good luck and keep us all posted!
Mike Bradley