Step Parenting Question – Rules

I love my kids. I love the KoD’s kids. I love each one of the seven assorted children differently. They all have different personalities and need different parts of who I am at different times. Any parent worth their salt knows that you cannot parent each child the same way. It just doesn’t work. BUT there are certain things that hold hard and fast no matter the temperament of the child. Things such as House Rules.

I don’t believe in there being different sets of rules for his kids and my kids, for the kids that live there full time, and those that just visit occasionally. I know in some blended families that is done, but I cannot operate that way. That really doesn’t help the kids to all integrate into one big happy blended family. By the time we are all together under one roof I want us all to have an idea of what the rules are.

How do we enforce these house rules especially when some of the rules may not be in play in their other homes? How do we answer “my mom/dad lets me do that / doesn’t make me do it”?

What are acceptable House Rules? so far I have :

• Speak respectfully to both parents and all siblings at all times
• Keep your hands and feet to yourself
• If you have a problem with someone talk to the parents
• No friends over when parents are not home or are resting
• No TV on a school night
• Bedrooms must be kept neat at all times
• Homework must be done before computer games are played
• No door slamming

What rules do you have in your home? How do you enforce them? Are you a blended family? How is that working for you?

Advertisement

Frumster Files #70856

I received this story by email not too long ago.

One day I received an email from a guy on Frumster who had a “password protected photo”, so I did not see his picture. We exchanged several nice emails, then he offered to give me the password so I could see his pic. I typed it in, and up comes a picture of this very good-looking guy, sitting in MY LIVING ROOM, on MY COUCH!!!! It turns out that he was a friend of my ex-husband who had come to us for shabbos, and asked me to take the pic for him, so he could submit it to Frumster. We had a good laugh over this, once he realized who I was. He didn’t recognize me in my Frumster pic b/c I do not cover my hair post divorce, and he had only seen me in a shaytel.  Anyway, we live too far to date, but we speak on the phone every now and then.