Question about competition and hurt feelings in a blended family.?

Question

I have a 12 year old son from a previous marriage, and my husband has a 13 year old son from a previous marriage, both boys live in our home.

We are running into problems with competition and jealousy which is normal between siblings, but this situation is a little different since there are so many other parents and grandparents involved.

One set of grandparents will buy one child something, so the other one feels left out and is upset. Then a few weeks later, the other child may come home with something better that his dad has bought and allowed him to bring to my house. (We are talking laptops, cell phones, video games, etc.)

Now they are talking about what each other's parents and grandparents outside of our home are going to buy them for Christmas and their birthdays that they will be bringing here. It has already started bad feelings and fights between my husband and I.

Should we tell them they can't bring anything into our house unless we buy it?

I know I always looked forward to what my grandparents were going to buy me for Christmas, but I couldn't imagine if I had to leave it at their house (or my other parents house) and I never got to play with it. Maybe that is an unfair solution, but we are trying to make everything equal for them in the house and teach them to be spoiled and take things for granted like they do now when they are lavished with gifts from guilty feeling parents.

Answer 1

I agree that forbidding this gifts in the house may not be the answer. I suppose you could talk to the different sets of grandparents and try to set parameters re the gifts, after explaining abut the hurt feelings that are being generated, but that could be confusing too. To some extent though, the comparison game is something that's always going to exits, but will likely diminish as they get older (hopefullly, anyway!) I can remember my siblings and I (and we have the same parents) exclaiming "that's not fair!!!" so to some extent, kids in general will find something to find exception with, so perhaps fairness will be an issue anyway so you might just decide to live with it and go with the flow.

Answer 2

This is a tough one.

Maybe you and your husband can sit down together and discuss some options:
1. Talk to the grandparents and tell them you expect them to treat the boys as equals. You do not expect them to buy expensive gifts for either one. If they have a problem accepting the "new" grandson (for lack of a better term), then tell them they can keep the presents for the "old" grandson at their house.
2. Talk to the other parents involved. Maybe you can all come to some agreement on things.
3. Tell the boys they have to share with each other. If they cannot share, then they need to leave those certain things at the other parent's house.

Kind of sounds like you and your husband cannot accept the child who was brought into the marriage. That is going to be a huge problem for you all if you can't come to some terms.

I'm not sure this helped any, but maybe it has helped you come up with some other ideas.

Good luck!

Answer 3

These kids are old enough to understand that they each have a different set of relatives, who are going to buy them things from time to time. And one isn't being "left out" if the other gets something new.. that's rediculous. and it sounds like they are both rather materialistic, on top of it all.

You can do whatever you like -- if you don't want them to bring new things home, then have them leave the stuff at other relatives' houses.

If these kids are getting upset about not receiving material items, i think there is a problem!!! Perhaps these kids need more structure in their lives, chores and responsibilities. Maybe they could be allowed to do things if they behave, stop the whining about what the step-brother got... otherwise, no privileges.

And also, spending quality time with you and your husband on a scheduled "family night" might be a good idea... maybe the kids need to interact more, without competing over electronic items?

Answer 4

Inform everyone you're putting a stop to this crap right now. Tell them all it's doing is causing problems and these are problems that you can live just fine without.