Hi,
I'm really worried about DSS (7). He is a lovely child whose only flaw is probably being really, really over-sensitive. He can get very emotional and cries very easily. One example is that he did something silly in class one day (hid another pupil's rubber) and when the other pupil said he was going to tell the teacher, DSS had a full-blown emotional breakdown, sobbing and shaking, it was so bad he had to be taken home.
Recently I had a daughter, whom he absolutely adores. When he's with us, however, she seems to be his second favourite thing after the iPad and other various bits of technology he doesn't have at home. He gets totally engrossed in computers and it is hard to limit his time using them as he'll want to move onto another one once his time on one of them is up. I think the point I'm trying to make here is that if he could, he'd spend the whole of his weekends with us alternating between the iPad, wii, phone, computer etc and would not eat, sleep or socialise with us.
His behaviour has deteriorated recently and we've been careful to keep all boundaries in place whilst being extra-sensitive to the fact that he's probably feeling quite unsettled about the new baby.
He has also regressed in terms of trying to carry around his comfort blanket which he stopped using 3 years ago and watching babyish TV programmes which he used to claim to hate. He is very, very fearful of a lot of things, claiming practically every film is too scary for him (nemo, toy story, Wallace and gromit etc) and certain foods will make him ill, certain activities are too difficult. The things he's scared of are all things he's never tried so it's not like he has negative past experiences of them! This makes things quite difficult when he's with us; we try and get him to expand his horizons by reminding him of the times he gave things a chance in the past and discovered new hobbies/favourite foods etc but with no joy.
At bedtimes and drop-off/pick up, he gets very emotional and doesn't want to leave whoever he's been resident with for the last couple of days. He's also feeding both parents the same complaints about each other which aren't true, i.e. saying to both parents that the other parent is withholding a privilege when in reality neither of them are. DH, exW, her DP and I all get on incredibly well so luckily we talk and see each other often and will never believe negative things about each other - we communicate about what DSS is saying and make sure we are all aware of the truth!
The latest thing he's done which really hurt me is to announce that my daughter is actually his mum's child. We initially thought he'd misunderstood and didn't realise where babies came from (mummy having fat tummy etc) but he proved he knew the facts correctly by referring to our pregnant friend. He was insistent that DD was not mine and should actually go and live with her "real" family instead of with me and DH. The thing that upset me was that he knew 100% he was wrong yet still carried on insisting DD was his mother's child.
He's also thrown tantrums and once accused DH of not loving him when DH was in the middle of changing a pooey nappy - DSS asked him to open a bottle of drink, DH asked him to wait one minute as he was literally right in the middle of clean-up. DSS went mental and it took him ages to calm down and realise firstly he'd asked at an inconvenient time and secondly that DH really could not stop what he was doing at that exact moment without messy consequences.
Last night, things came to a bit of a head, DSS' mum rang and asked if DH can go to their house and talk about things as she's really hurt by the fact he's complaining about us and telling lies about how he's treated here (she initially didn't realise it was a 2-way thing which kind of makes it worse!) plus he's refusing to go to bed or follow instructions without a huge emotional stand-off. When he first arrives at ours, he begs to be taken home but at the end of each weekend he begs not to be taken home - we can't win!!
I am at a loss as to what to do. Our lovely boy has turned into 50% nervous wreck and 50% devious child who seems to enjoy pushing boundaries and winding us up. I know it's because of the new baby and I feel awful because I'm partly responsible for it. I promise we're doing everything we can to make him feel loved and wanted and when he's good, we praise him loads. We feel a bit "stuck" on the technology front - we put time limits on it but he gets really grumpy when time's up, however he doesn't have it at home so if he doesn't get to use it at ours, he'll have to wait another week for it. We've tried going out, bowling, sport, zoo etc to get away from electronic screens but he literally spends the whole day moping and asking when we're going home so he can use them again.
Please help - any advice on any of the above issues is very much appreciated. This situation needs to be sorted for everyone's sake - it cannot go on like this :(
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DSS meltdown after new baby - help! (V long)
9 replies
spg1983 · 24/04/2013 04:23
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