# How to establish parenting boundaries w/step parent?



## AvaTara539 (Apr 10, 2011)

My H and I are newlyweds, he has not lived with my son before we were married but he got along with him very well previously. Now that we are in the same household together we have been struggling. We have some very different ideas of parenting, and as my son's bio dad is not involved in his life, my H has taken on the role of father. My son also has ADHD and some major communication issues. So I understand that this change is a substantial stress on H. 

What we did was came up with sort of a parenting plan- set behaviors that my son must be disciplined for, behaviors he should not be disciplined for (such as making a whiney face when he's doing something we asked of him that he doesn't want to do), and what the boundaries for the parents should be in terms of what we should NOT do (spanking, yelling, etc). I made concessions, he made concessions and we reached an agreement.

The current issue is that H is consistently not following this agreement. I know he is *trying* not to over-react to things and nitpick what is not on our 'too discipline' list, and trying not to raise his voice to him frequently... but that is still happening. And I need to know about how to set boundaries for that because I have no idea. Do I just remind him every single time he doesn't follow something (and not in front of my/our child of course)? Do I tell him 'x' is going to happen if you don't start following the rules we agreed on? I am a caregiver type and I have a really hard time trying to force people to do things my way. So any advice on the subject of boundaries would be really appreciated. Thanks!


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## PrivateTalk (May 27, 2011)

I think that you both should talk again but try not to put so many specific rules around each other this is raising a child not baking a cake right  

My husband has 2 children from a prev marriage and I know that for the first little bit I found it so difficult to really truly find my correct role in their life. I know that when they first started to really live with me, I thought that there was nothing that they did that did not annoy me, I was just not used to having kids around and that was my first reaction. It takes a bit of time but he will move past it, the key thing is communication if you lose that the marriage is lost, I know it sounds hokey but make a habit about talking with each other about all issues you have. And when you do listen to your partner let them tell you all their feelings then take your turn try not to attack them for their thoughts, thoughts and feeling shouldn't be punished just find solutions together.

He may be trying very hard, have you told him that he's doing well with adjusting at all or have you only focused on all the negatives, because he may be noticing that and become resentful for it. Also going from no kids to one all the time is a very big change perhaps if you two work out that it would be nice for him to have a boys night on Thursdays or something it would give him a place to go that is away and not child run, it could help with his acceptance to suddenly having a full family.


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