Experience in giving skids back??? Help please?

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My skids have been a nightmare since they came into my life about three years ago. They've just gotten worse over time and finally the youngest said (again) that she wants to go live with her mom (worthless ex-junkie). So, after a particularly bad couple of weeks with the skids hitting, kicking, biting and spitting on us we sat them down and asked them calmly if they wanted to stay here or go live with their mother. SS11 is currently grounded and eventualy said "Yes, because I don't like being grounded". Biomom has no rules. SD7 said yes, of course, because it was her idea. So many hours in therapy with them we will never get back!

Here's my question. What's the easiest way to flip the visitation around as well as the child support? I don't want to give a lawyer tons of cash but this is our chance to be skid free and I don't want to get hosed by biomom for more CS or something like that. She currently gets away with around $600/month for both kids.

Anyone have experience with this?

I have to say that I agree

I have to say that I agree with this lady.
I know your stepchildren misbehave, and nobody want to deal with rude children who are not biological ours. But these children's only chance might be your husband and you.
Don't deny them an opportunity for a normal life.

"These Children" have had

"These Children" have had years of opportunity. They don't just misbehave, they are assaultive. Both my husband and I have bruises and contusions because of their recent outbursts. They have normalcy here with us and my family but continue to act out the more they feel they're being denied access to their BM (she just got married, didn't tell them, didn't invite them even though she said they would both be in the wedding and bought a flower girl dress for her daughter and told her son he'd be best man). They're angry with her and taking it out on us. I'm tired of it. They even scare the dog with their outbursts.

Like

Well, I can understand your

Well, I can understand your snide comments because from the outside looking in- of course we wouldn't turn the kids over to her. She used to use drugs! The situation has changed over the years and she is clean now, married, lives across the street from her parents and brother so has supervision and we have been to every single therapist, specialist, psychiatrist, parenting classes, etc. we possibly could and it's not made a difference to the children. In fact it's getting worse. So short of you with your perfect parenting coming over to super-nanny them, we are out of ideas.

My question was about the changing of parenting plan and child support. If you have something to say about that I'd love to hear it.

I notice OP hasn't come back

I notice OP hasn't come back to comment, another "Don't tell me anything I don't want to hear" poster. *sigh*

The OP went to bed so she

The OP went to bed so she could go to work in the morning to work her ass off for two angry, mean children. I certainly don't post and run and I'm not on here 'not' to hear anything I don't want to hear. I'm open to opinions that differ from mine but not rudeness like this.

I'm not asking for parenting advice, I'm asking for legal tips from anyone who has had to reverse custody and child support. I will gladly give the children back at this point and pay her for it to stop being a punching bag in my own home. Thanks, Amber, for your brilliant insight. Perhaps you should check to see how long I've been on this site before you speak out of turn.

She's not spot on but I

She's not spot on but I appreciate your comments without hateful speech. I think the SD7 will be best with her biomom because she is constantly sabotaging herself here and treating us like dirt. I am tired of her being abusive to me as well as her father and I am convinced that biomom wouldn't be abusive to her because she treats her like a Barbie doll. Granted she will end up white trash like her mother but she will be happy white trash. What's best for the children is not always best for the family and she's tearing ours apart so I think going away is probably best for her. We've tried to introduce structure and rules and family time and she just craps all over it. We're not what she wants and she has a viable option elsewhere. She's not making that decision as others have commented on but we are based on her destructive behavior here and angelic behavior with her mother. (or so they say)

DAD will need to take it back

DAD will need to take it back to court. Has he even spoken to Mom to see if she wants to take custody? If she does, and the court grants the change, he can expect to pay CS. In whatever amount the state guidelines deem proper.

I, personally, would suggest Dad speak with a lawyer.

Yes, my husband spoke to

Yes, my husband spoke to biomom before I posted and she finally agreed to take the skids if that's what they want. Truly, SD7 is the one who wants to leave and causes the most issues here. If we can give her child support or split the kids and each can go with the parent they identify with more then great. Mom didn't want custody before because she didn't want the responsibility or cost. Now with her being married and her parents living across the street I think she feels more able to take care of them/SD7. She's always been her favorite and we really don't care about child support. She's not paid us much at all so it's a small price to pay.

Yes, my husband spoke to

A. Most family law attorneys

A. Most family law attorneys charge fees based on hourly rates of $85 -$450,(medium rate $200/hour) although some attorneys charge as much as $500 an hour. All legal fees need to be paid upfront.

B. Based on my experiences (Famiy members went through reverse custody battles) In most states, it is almost impossible to have custody changed (It does not happen in one week, two months, etc. It takes as long as it takes, so be prepared) It took around $8,000 for my brother to prove that his ex was unfit, uncapable to take care of his 8 year old son, he had to prove that it was the best interest for the child and the ex was unfit or is uncap-able of taking care of the child. My brother wanted the child, so his case is different from yours. However, reverse custody battles go through similar procedures. It sounds like that your husband has a very good record of caring for these kids, A judge’s decision about the child’s best interests can be extremely different from the child’s own view of those best interests. Your stepkid's statement of "I want to live with my mom because I don't like to be grounded" is hardly a strong evidence to prove that why they should be sent to live with their mom whom according to you is a former drug addict.

C. You need a court to sign over custody of these children. Sorry, legal fee cannot be completely avoided.

D. I lived with my bio father briefly when I was 12 years old only because my mom wanted me to "get to know him" a little better. He was completely emotionally unavailable,his wife accused me of being a psychopath just because I threw away her makeup kits in the trashcan. (again, not making excuses for my behavior)(She did not allow me to sit with her own children at the dinner table, she only allowed me to eat in the kitchen.) It did not take much for me and my mom to figure out I was not wanted there in my own bio father's house. BY NO MEANS AM I SUGGESTING OP HAS THE SAME MENTALITY WITH MY STEPMOM, I am only suggesting that if you don't want your step children around, you are right, maybe these kids are better off with somebody else.

E. It was clear to my mom that my bio father wanted nothing to do with me, after the settlement of certain amount/ month Child Support, certain amount/ Month property settlement, she asked for more money. She won! I don't know how she won, I guess she had a brilliant lawyer.

I've been reading posts on this site for couple of days, and one thing interesting I learned is that as a step parent, maybe the best strategy in term of handling these kids is disengaging. (after everything else failed miserably) Have your husband handling his own responsibility. Maybe this is what you are suppose to be doing at this moment.

Thanks, I can tell you put a

Thanks, I can tell you put a lot of thought into that and I'm sorry for your experience with your stepmom and biodad. I've tried the disengaging thing before and unfortunately our place is so small right now that it's just really, really tough. The SD7 has behavioral issues and has been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. It's really difficult to lay that all on my husband and makes him miserable to be around, too. The SS11 then tries to one-up her because she gets so much attention with us trying to manage her behaviors. We're considering splitting them up and seeing how she does with her biomom because we get reports back from them that she's fine there (perhaps they don't care that she acts out so much). There are other protective factors like family and stuff that live right across the street and she's making the rest of our family miserable. If she'll be happier there and we can have some relief, I'm all for it.

I will disengage with her as much as possible and see if that helps while still trying to help my husband behind the scenes.

I think you should re-read my

I think you should re-read my post a little more carefully and hopefully you will read the clarifications as well. If you wanted to be judgemental, perhaps you should have asked for some claification of the things you didn't understand before being completely nasty in your response.

Firstly, the definition of

Firstly, the definition of snide:
1.Derogatory or mocking in an indirect way: "snide remarks".
2.(of a person) Devious and underhanded.

I didn't accuse you of not being serious.

Secondly, She pays Us a piddly $600 in c/s and I'm wondering if that would just go to her should she take the children (fine by me). She is in no way the custodial parent. I wish that instead of jumping to judgement and attacks you would ask for clarification first. Yes, my post was not laden with detail- I thought I was asking a simple question and was looking for simple answers, not attacks on our parenting. By the way, when a child has ODD and is overtly hostile, it stems from attachment issues and early childhood trauma (initiated by biomom when skids were 18 mos and 5 years) so don't question my parenting. I've spent more time carting those two around to therapy as has their dad then I ever thought possible.

Lastly, I didn't go postal on you. Not even close. How's about you just skip over my threads from now on and exercise some self control. You clearly think we're horrible people so why waste your time and words?

sigh I have a feeling

*sigh* I have a feeling you've been reported to admin before. You don't read other people's posts before ranting and you ingratiate yourself with those who will do the same if not worse. Unfortunate for the women and men who come here to find advice and suggestions or just empathy.

I WISH i could give mine

I WISH i could give mine back... i have the same situation. BM is a drug addicted hoe bag, and HD would never return her but there are days... okay. everyday i wish she never came.

It's not easy to stand in the

It's not easy to stand in the place of an absent biomom who pays just enough attention to keep them interested and not enough to nurture them. I, too, wake up every day now wondering what new hell there will be to come!

Open said biomom is EX

Open said biomom is EX junkie...

once a junkie always a

once a junkie always a junkie. lol I said that in jest, but seriously isn't that a saying in AA?

I used to think this, too. I

I used to think this, too. I judged her for it and still do. However, no, she's not using now and has a lot of supervision from family. I would never send the skids to a using person.

Thank you for recognizing the

Thank you for recognizing the difference- I can't imagine the number of moms out there who have been sucked into the meth trap but I know it's huge. I've definitely judged her for it, but she's been clean for a while now and works full time and has family very close (like 30 ft. away) so I wouldn't feel like we were throwing the skids into a dangerous situation or I'd never consider it. I don't like her rules, or lack of rules, but they're not out of the ordinary.

Clarification: she pays us

Clarification: she pays us child support. I'm wondering if we can just flip that around or have to go to court or just see an attorney or mediator, etc. Dad and I have toughed it out for years and this year it's become unbearable. They have actually injured us due to their hitting, kicking, biting, etc. The 7 year old has woken the neighbors with her screaming tantrums. We've fought for them, told them how much we love them, everything- they still want mom because she's unavailable. We don't mind paying CS at all- frankly it's less than what we spend being the primary caregivers. The questions asked pertain to the legal aspects of transferring primary households and giving her cs.

The problems have been dealt with and unsuccessful. We don't really know where to go from here. Every kind of intervention has been tried.

I think the question is more

I think the question is more clearly ... WHO LETS A 7yo AND 11yo DECIDE WHERE THEY WANT TO LIVE????? And yet more importantly .... WHO WOULD GIVE TWO YOUNG CHILDREN TO A JUNKY??????

And about their behavior ..... BLISTER SOME BARE KID ASS WITH A BELT AND THEY WILL LOCK STEP IN TO LINE!!!!!!!!

When my SS took a swing at me (when he was 14) I threw his ass out of the house in to a raging blizzard with no coat and only one shoe. 20mins outside freezing his ass off solved his problem.

If you do not get this addressed with some effective parenting, consequences and discipline, or more subtly CORPORAL PUNISHMENT you are going to have a real problem on your hands in another few years.

And take another think on this ..... if you give your back to their junky whore of a mother then your CS goes up and you will be funding her junky habits and life.

I get that you have a difficult situation. However, these keeds need their dad and you to act like adults develop some courage and do what is in their best interests rather than your own.

My wife and I could have sent my SS (when he was 15mos old) to live with his DickHead toothless moron SpermIdiot and the SpermClan in SpermLand. If we had been that cowardly he would not be the 20yo self sufficient, intelligent USAF Airman, college student confident young man that he is. Instead he would have been living in the morally and character bankrupt sphere of his SpermIdiot and the entitlement minions SpermClan. He would have been raised by the idiot who abandoned him and his 16yo teen mom after he was born and then went on to spawn 3 more out of wedlock children by 2 more baby mamas who he then abandoned to be raised by the SpermGrandParents.

So, both you and DH need to put your hands between your legs, grab a handful of crotch, man up, grow up, and raise these kids to be viable adults inspite of the fact that their BM is a crack whore.

SWAT SOME KID ASS!!!!!!!

IMHO of course.

^^^THIS^^^

Rags, I agree with you those

Rags, I agree with you those ideas do work, but I know personally my SD's BM would throw a FIT if she ever heard I laid a hand on SD (and she is not a good parent in any way, shape or form- she doesn’t work, on drugs, multiple babies each with a different father- you get the picture- but she would still FLIP just because it’s me and she hates me). The only time I ever touched my SD was shortly after we all moved in together (SD was 2- she is 5 now) and we were having major bedtime issues with SD because she was used to sleeping in bed with daddy and I wasn’t having that in my house/my bed. We put SD in her room to go to bed and she was screaming bloody murder for HOURS “I WANT MY DAAAAAAAAAAAADDYYYYYYYY”. My blood was freakin boiling! I went upstairs to her room and popped her right in the mouth!- not hard, she didn’t bleed or anything like that but it definitely shut her up & guess what, we never had a bedtime issue again!

Rags, I usually agree with

Rags, I usually agree with you 100%, but in this day and age kids scream abuse. The 11 year old already has. He tried to get to the knives threatening to kill himself and while I was restraining him he was kicking, hitting and spitting on me so I flipped him on his stomach and sat on him on the couch while my husband called the local hospital for a full psychiatric evaluation and the kid started yelling "sexual abuse!!!" so loud the receptionist was asking what was going on. These kids will not hesitate to call CPS, their mother, whoever to get us in trouble because they do not want to be here- we have rules. If you read my original post and subsequent responses you'll see she is a former junkie; not current. We've done everything we could think of, everything the experts said to do and nothing has worked. Holding the younger one's hand at the zoo so she doesn't run off (again) and she starts screaming "You're hurting me! Stop!" and screams so loud people think it's true whether it's us or her grandparents. Oh, and their mother wasn't a crack whore... it was meth.

instantfamily, I'm not an

instantfamily, I'm not an expert on this but in my own personal situation, as long as DH and BM agreed on the custody/CS arrangements, they did not need to go to court. There is still a CO but it just states what they agreed to in mediation. They did not actually go before a judge or anything like that. Now if they did not agree to the terms, then they would have had to go before a judge. So I am *pretty sure* that as long as your DH and BM are in agreement with the change, they would not need to go through the court process, but you would want to get the new CO in writing. Good luck to you!

Thank you so much. This is

Thank you so much. This is exactly what I was looking to hear- just about what we need to do, etc. I'm sure I didn't give the best details in my original post but I wasn't trying to write a book and relive the last few years of therapy and drama. I appreciate your input!

Based on my experience with

Based on my experience with dealing with a situation that sounds much like yours, I will share this for what is could be worth. DH's kids lived with us and wanted to go back with their bm where it was easier/no rules. I believe its normal for people in general to want the easy way out especially teenagers. My sd became aggressive to the point that we had no choice but to bring her sorry a** back. After two attempted murders and multiple abuse of others and animals, we brought her back. On the trip over with bringing her back, all she said.. was "at least I can go back to only having one parent again". Really!!! Why did I try or even care is beyond me now but oh well I guess. I can't save my own skids from their bm but they are not at a time to be saved so it was wasted time for me to care. My advice, disengage while you can, take your loses and like it, and worry about yourself.

Sorry for it sounds harsh but it is what it is. I learned that the more you try/care, the more you can/will get burned in the end. We were in debt after trying to get sd help. She did not want it and that is on us bc we cared. BTW, that help we sought for her just trained her all the more on how to manipulate others sadly to say. Truth is, you can't help others (skids or not) unless they want the help themselves.

Sorry you went through that crap the hard way and cared.

WoW two attempted

WoW :jawdrop: two attempted murders??? Animal abuse??? One of the things that upset me most with SD7 and SD11 when they first moved in a few years ago was that they both lashed out at my dog when they were angry or having a tantrum. That was completely unacceptable. I can go get massage therapy, my dog's not covered nor was she a willing party to this family. I cannot imagine two attempted murders??? Wow.

You are here

Experience in giving skids back??? Help please?