Do you think it effects the stepkids if their parents can't communicate well with each other?
Ok maybe they are not having screaming matches on drop offs or restraining orders every week but what about Like ZERO communication. No eye contact with the other parent at sporting/school events. Pick up/drop off same thing. One bio parent could be standing right outside and neither bio parent will even look at the other bio parent. Only communication is through email which frequently turns ugly and Steps know this. Both Bios, DH and BM are guilty of this as they both hate each other. SS is also aware of this. They have never said anything nasty in front of SS BUT you could cut the tension with a knife when those two are within twenty feet of each other. Even a kid must be able the sense it. My quesion is how if anything does this effect SS?
Yes
The skids were much more, um, closed off and quiet if there was a topic they knew could be inflammatory or had been crabbed about by their parents. They also had reactions to the level of emotion coursing through the houses. DH and BM fought a lot and were competing to be the “better” (more loved) parent. That’s a lot for young children to handle.
Yes it will affect them but
Yes it will affect them but that doesn’t mean it will ruin them and that you have to be the prefect co-parents.
When we started exchanges things were not exactly friendly. We’ve gotten to a point where it’s much better and you can see the children are more relaxed. The best thing we could do was to minimize contact.
While SO has the “standard” visitation order for our state we did alter a few things. One is that he does pick up from school when possible. This means less direct contact with his ex. Her family normally does Sunday pick up but when she would come she would text us from the car the kids were old enough to walk out the door to her themselves. Since nothing gets exchanged between the houses all they would have are backpacks and maybe coats so again no need for an adult to walk them.
Most of the communication is through texting. There is absolutely no reason the children need to know what’s being said. Even when there was a nasty exchange we as adults were able to maintain an appropriate boundary. They might tell we’re stressed for a moment but when we need to address what was said we stick with facts. “Your mom said she’ll be running late tonight so you’ll just get to spend a bit of extra time with us so that’s cool.” While we may be frustrated that we have to change our plans we spin it so the kids are presented the idea that everything’s good.
When they did see a negative exchange we’d address it as simply as we could. “Sometimes people don’t see eye to eye and disagree on stuff. We as adults will work this out so you don’t need to worry about it.” The biggest example we have of this is when BM tried forcing us to allow the oldest to have a phone in our home. SO tried having the child return the phone inside but BM wouldn’t allow it. SO then told the child to get in the car and she did. He tried to speak to BM but she started yelling so he walked away and got in the car. We told the kiddos we’d deal with it and that was the end of it.