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Step Son Problems
I want to rephrase my questiong because no one in understanding it. I am married. My husband has a son who lives with my husbands parents. My husband was young and unable to care for him now his parents dont want him to live with us (they think and even have him call them mom and dad) I have a son and we have a daughter together. I am thinking my step son is jealous some how and a little more. When we all get together (normally at my inlaws house) he is very "abusive" towards my kids purposely makes them mad yelling at them, example call my son to go play on the swings with him and then start spinnig with his legs out to purposly hitting him. There are many more examples some worse then the first. I have tried asking my mother in law about putting the boys in therepy or counsling together and she refuses there is anything wrong. my son is 4 and my step son is 7. No matter what I do its as soon as we get out of the car he starts with his attitude and being very rude. so as of right now we limit contact with them which we do not enjoy but we dont know what else to do.
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Hi, I'm old enough to be you parent maybe even your grandfather. I am hoping that the wisdom that comes with age may be useful her.
I would first like to address your stepsons living arrangements. You said he lives with his grandparents. You did not say that the grandparents have legal custody. This is very important as no matter what your husband may have verbally agreed to, unless his parents have legal custody signed and filed with the courts; he can retake custody of his son at anytime or exert his parental rights at anytime.
Does your husband carry his son on his employers health insurance. If he does; while I am not a lawyer, I would say that his parental rights are still in tact. If you and your husband want the boys to have counseling then there is nothing the grandparents can say or do as they only have custodial custody or guardianship.
This does not mean your in-laws will not put up a fight. My take is that without signed documents, filed with the court and social services where both the child's mother and your husband have given up all parental rights, your in-laws have no standing in court.
You and your husband need to talk and decide what is in the best interest of his son and your other children. Once you are both in agreement I would then suggest, if you decide to fight for this child, that you seek out a good family law attorney and follow the advice you receive from the attorney.
I hope I have offered some help.
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If I were in your shoes, I would not allow him around my children.
Assuming that your mother in law has custody over this child there is not much you can do. However, If your husband wants to visit his son perhaps he should think about spending one on one time with him. Why would you want a child living with you if he hurts your children? This child needs therapy or psychiatric help not to be put in a house hold where he can continuously beat other children. Perhaps lay off bringing your children around him for awhile.
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well they need to put him in theripy or somthing but im very sorry for you guys.
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I wanted to apologize for the misunderstanding and thank you for clarifying this issue. I am not usually so impulsive but when there are issues regarding child abuse, it really upsets me. however, i am only human and i am admitting it was the wrong way to respond. I hope you can except my apology because I'd like to try and help.The first problem I am noticing is that your husband had a child at a young age and was unable to care for the child at that time, as a mother of having a child at the age of 17 myself, i can understand hard hard it is to raise a child at that age. It sounds like, at some point there was an aggreement that his parents would raise the child, for at least a time, but now that they have raised him for so long, it sounds like they are not willing to allow your husband to have the child back. There is alot of emotional attachments and possible hard feelings between both your husband and his parents since it sounds like you and your husband would like to have the opportunity to have him back and raise him with your family. Part of the child's behavior may be due to the conflict between your husband and his parents. I feel the first step will have to be getting the in-laws to allow your husband to reeneter his son's life as a parental role and to be willing to allow him to reestablish the connection between father and son and them to be willing to allow this to happen without hindering the process. The most difficult part about this is the emotional connection between everyone. I feel that the first steps to healing these relationships may have to be between your husband and his in-laws, and it may be your role to try and mediate and initate this process. But counceling for them all would probebly be the best first step. If this issue can be handled and the communication is open again, then they may be willing for you and him to have custody without alot of court costs and more emotional turmoil. The second steo, i would advise is for your husband to spend some time withthe child alone, if he isn't already, so he can bond with his son on a more deeper level and may help the child's anxiety and reaffirm his place in the family and in your husband's life. As for your children all together, you can either wait and not have the children have contact with each other for awhile until some of the other issues are resolved or healed or there will have to be an agreement between all parties on how to handle his aggressive behavior when he acts out. Though siblings will fight, it should still not be acceptable and your in-laws should and need to be in aggreememnt with this. Again, this is the first step and probebly the hardest step. If you have a good repore with the in-laws, then maybe all of you can sit down and explain what you and your husband would like to have happen and the reason's why and reaaffirm his appreciation to his parents about helping him when he needed it and to let them know that you are not trying to take the child out of their lives, but merely createing the family the way it should be. I would try this first. If this dous not work, i have no other advice at this time, but i will try and do some research on the internet to see if i can find some resources for you and your family. I hope this is helpful and i wish you the best of luck, but i do feel that if he and his parents can find a common ground in all of this, it will pave the way for a positive change and may help with his son's emotions. Children at the age of 7 may have a difficult time understanding and may be impulsive when things begin to change and he may not even understand what he is feeling or why, but over with love, boundaries and possible counciling, i think things will begin to flow as you would like it to and the relationship can heal, to include the one's between his son's and yours.
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