Your son Chris (14) lives with his Mom and spends every other weekend at your house. When he lived with you there were clear rules that if broken meant a spanking. These rules involved chores, homework, bedtimes and curfews. Over the last four or five visits Chris has started breaking these rules. He would come into the house late for dinner, didn't do his chores and he has really started to talk back.

You let a lot of this slide because you didn't get to spend that much time with him and you didn't want to spend any of that time with him upset with you. You can not count on his mother to enforce any of your rules.

What will you do? Try to get his behavoir under control? If yes How will you do it? Maybe you just let it go?

Only seeing Chris every other weekend has to be tough for dad and letting the rules slide a little is totallt understandable. However it seems Chris is really testing his limits with dad and needs a good talking to on how the rules of the house still apply. Id wait and see how Chris reacts, and if he starts back talking a spanking is in order. A long hand spanking followed by 5 licks of the belt. Im sure then order will be back and your visit with Chris will be more enjoyable.
Cody

This scenario is entirely too realistic for me to give a good answer. I know of one case that is very like this in real life.

When parents don't live together, it's important that they set aside their differences and try to be supportive and consistent about discipline issues. When they can't or won't, the child is the loser. Children quickly learn to exploit the disunity between their parents, but another problem is that a child is likely to have a truly difficult time in accepting two such disparate standards of behavior.

I suggest a family meeting with Chris, Chris' mom, and you (also include any other adults who are a regular part of the family dynamics). Try to agree among the three of you what are reasonable rules. Be prepared to make some sacrifices on your side. Since Chris is fourteen, it might well be a good idea to reassess some rules, such as bedtime.

Keep in mind that fourteen is a difficult age for many kids. Now is not the time to take an authoritarian stance that could easily damage your relationship with Chris. Do NOT criticize his mom to him. After setting boundaries with Chris' input, hold him accountable.

Kat

I agree with Cody that the boy is testing the limits. I agree that a discussion is needed. I believe Chris will be happier when he learns that the old rules still apply in my house which is also his house when he is here.

He will believe me when I tell him I've still got a cane which I will use if he needs it, but he will appreciate that neither of us wants to spoil our time together by needing to use the cane.

I have just read Kat's response and can see that maybe I should take the wider family perspective. But I will stick to my first instinct.

When Chris lived with you there were clear rules that involved chores, homework, bedtimes and curfews, but now Chris spends 85% of his time at his mom's.

There is plenty of time for him to do his homework at home, so just tell Chris to do his homework there, if his mother doesn't like this tell her to send Chris to live with you! Since Chris is unfortunately a visitor, there is no reason to ask him to do chores, except to clean up after himself and his friends who he may invite over.

Because Chris is only over on alternate weekends, he will naturally want to maximize his time with you by pushing back his bedtime, certainly not earlier than 0100 (1 AM). Curfews should also be relaxed, or better yet, have Chris bring his friends over to visit before his curfew time expires.

Now, go find Chris and tell him to be ready tomorrow morning, to go to the Rifle Range (or some other boy type thing, that his mom wouldn't take him to). On the drive out there you can explain the relaxed rules, and also what the rules would be if Chris came to live with you instead.


Iconoclast

I agree with Kat. Being strict with him won't be much use if the rules are totally different at his mother's house. For Chris' own good, I really need to speak with her and try to reach an agreement about rules and consequences for breaking them.

I will tell you this exact thing happened to Skater around 12-13. I will share with you what happened later. Good responses so far.

The first thing that needs to happen is a talk with Chris. I would allow him input into what rules we should have while he's over and tell him which ones are non-negotiable.

Obviously a 14 year old boy who lives with a non-spanking parent is going to be very resistant to getting spanked. On the other hand, from what you said about Mom, she won't enforce a grounding. Since you have a limited amount of time to spend with him, you really don't want to ground him anyway.

I think that I would cut him some major slack in his behavior (as much because he's 14 as because of the custody situation), but tell him that, if he can't do things I ask him to do and show me some respect, then he can't really expect me to continue giving him money to do things.

I think that, with the exception of threatening to cut off his pocket money, you should just let things be lose. However, it would be a good idea to talk to him and try to agree on some type of punishment that would be over quickly and not ruin your weekend together - and maybe remind him of how he reacted to being spanked when he lived with you.

It would I believe be difficult for a boy of that age to adapt to two different sets of rules, which seem to be set quite far apart. If you come down to hard then it is going to spoil the limited time you have together and perhaps even lead to his mom trying to stop him seeing you at all.

I agree with the previous opinion that a tripartite discussion is needed in order to (hopefully) establish a way forward that all parties will be happy with.

Put the hairbrush to its proper use for now......

When I was about his age and this happened our parents used us kids as weapons against each other. They wanted us to be spies so they could go to court and try to win custody. So I had to changes schools and houses 3 times.

I had 7th grade in school 1
I had 8th grade in school 2
I had 9th grade in school 1
and finally 10-12 in school 2

I guess the good thing is I still have friends from both school 1 and school 2.

It was a mess. They were both sorry but they couldn't take it back. So as far as the rules....there weren't any...no bedtimes, no chores except do your own laundry. I never really missed school because it was the most "normal" place in my life at the time.

Wow, Skateski,

That's pretty rough. My parents weren't divorced, but we still had a very unstructured upbringing in many ways--but not in quite the same way, if you know what I mean. I understand all too well how school can become the only structured, secure place for many kids.

Kat

I guess I didn't really have that problem. My parents divorced when I was too young to remember my father. While I would have loved to spend time with my step-father, he had no legal recourse with me, so it never happened.

Once I did start spending time with my dad, he was as bad as my mom and step-dad, but in different ways, so I mostly stayed in my room as much as I could.