The courts say a joint/shared/half time schedule is the best for the kids. I think that is yet to be determined in my opinion. It is a lot of shuffling around and takes GREAT organization. Which very few people actually have and even less with both parents having it! You have to keep up with the schedules for sports/extra curricular activities, homework, doctor and dentist appointments, haircuts, school communications and appointments, plans and where all of your clothes and stuff are! Yes every family has to do this, but when you add in the mix two households, two parents that are not particularly fond of each other and a step parent things get 10 times more difficult.
I believe we will learn to adjust to it. But it takes a lot of patience, organization, communication and back up plans!
The routine on homework has been, is and will be a work in progress. This is the first year for all of us to have to handle how we keep up with school work/projects and communications on a joint parenting schedule.
We have my boys full time, but have his boys half-time. We have them every Wednesday and Thursday night and rotating weekends (Friday thru Monday morning). Two of them (Cameron and Aiden) catch the bus at our house every morning and two come to our house after school (Corbin and Cameron) every afternoon.
The oldest is responsible for his own homework and we do not hound him or constantly check up on him about it. We will see how things are going with the first report card. If its a failure, then we will re-work how we do this. But we need to give him his space and a chance to succeed or fail on his own -- then go from there.
But Cameron, he is a different story. He is in the second grade and still needs lots of involvement from his parents. His reading logs and reviews sheets are given out every Wednesday and are to returned the following Wednesday. And his planner is to be signed every day. This should all be very easy. Not complicated at all. But somehow it is.
A little note about me -- the VERY LAST thing I want to do is step on their mother's toes. She is their mom and I DO NOT want to replace her or have any intentions of trying to do that.
The kids have been in school for 2 months now. Cameron has been doing reading logs since the second week and Review Sheets for two weeks.
The planner was only getting signed on our nights, with a few exceptions from his mom. I will be checking it every morning now. The problem with the reading logs is that I ask Cameron to do his reading and he says no he will do it at his mom's. I can't tell him no do it. I am not his mom and if he wants to do it there that is fine. So I remind him. Then I remind him on Tuesday's to have his mom fill out the reading log and sign it. It has happened MAYBE twice. So his dad and I have really been trying to make sure this gets done. We were doing a great job at it. Unitl.... I will finish after I describe the Review Sheets.
The review sheets just started two Wednesdays ago. We got the letter for the first one, and it was during a week we were out of town and his mother had them the entire week. When I asked him about he said his mom helped him with it and they turned it in already. I was SO impressed. I did not question him about it all. We got the paper back on Friday and he had gotten an F on it with a note from his teacher "Did anyone help Cameron with his homework?" Well obviously not. Which was not good. On the review sheets you are supposed to initial the problems the child has trouble with so the teacher can have a better understanding on what the child needs help with. It is CLEARLY a homework assignment that needs lots of parent involvement. The next Tuesday comes around. I remind Cameron that he needs to have it done. I ask him to let me help him and he tells me no because his mom will help him and he wants to do it at her house. So I say ok. So Wednesday morning I ask him if he has his reading log and his review sheets finished. He says yes. Then I find out Thursday he had neither. I was so frustrated.
So now, his dad and I have discussed that we will be responsible for the homework period. Because he works so many hours, I will be helping him. And he does not have the option of waiting to do it at his moms. We will do it every Wednesday night and have it all ready way before it needs to be turned in. This way it will be done and we won't have to worry about it. He and his dad had a discussion about it this morning, so hopefully there will be no more "I will do it at my mom's house". This will be our first week of it. I will let you know how it goes! Keeping my fingers crossed!
I think with his dad and I working together on this and communicating we will be able to get things back on track. It is just not an easy thing for me to MAKE him do his homework with me. So many things/dynamics of blending a family. Things I would have never thought about. My biggest worries were whether the kids would get along and if his kids would like me. I didn't think about all of these other things. But we will work together and get through them.
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