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I found it hard to find my step parent groove. What finally helped me was thinking about how I would feel if it were my kid acting that way. When I did that I found myself more forgiving of stuff, not like "have it your way" forgiving, more of "well this is normal kid stuff, and it's my job to deal with it appropriately." It really brought down my blood pressure.
But it does help that DH and I are on the same page generally speaking. He is actually a little more strict than I am, and I soften that a bit.
That the son wasn't ready isn't a big deal to me, and it is easily worked with, because that is typical teen behavior. It helps to remember that teens are supposed to get rebellious, it's part of breaking away to become self-sufficient adults. I think it's the job of adults to teach them how to do it maturely, and to be mature themselves with conflict.
This is really good advice.
I'm not a step, but the way I keep my cool with my kids is simply by finding everything secretly (and sometimes, when I can't help it, not secretly) hilarious.
Like, your behavior is so cliche, kids. OF COURSE you did/said/reacted like that. Becoming an outside observer instead of mixing all my emotions into the situation has really served me well. Plus, they're really good kids so it's hard to get too annoyed.
I'm not a step, but the way I keep my cool with my kids is simply by finding everything secretly (and sometimes, when I can't help it, not secretly) hilarious.
Like, your behavior is so cliche, kids. OF COURSE you did/said/reacted like that. Becoming an outside observer instead of mixing all my emotions into the situation has really served me well. Plus, they're really good kids so it's hard to get too annoyed.
THAT's IT! It can be hard but I think it is more productive and easier on ALL parties involved.
And really, most of the stuff IS funny.
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I will not change my expectation of looking decent and acting decent but I will work on expressing those expectation better.
Your expectation is very reasonable and respectable that we want our citizens to have, but in that is "I'm the boss and it's my way whether you like it or not you little kid" approach. Like I said.. hardpower won't work like you think it should.
Good to see you'll be approaching it in a more calm and mindful manner which is what most of this is about. Generally, all of us, especially parents and spouses can be better at that.
We were the boomers the flower children we hated authority And thought old people were stupid
felt we should not have to work much and if we were tolerant we would have no conflict with others and would be treated fairly
Then we had kids
We were astounded they were just like us
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