Is it alright for a step mom figure to smack your bio

Kirby - posted on 08/19/2011

I am not a fan of smacking, but when my stepson almost seriously injured my son, I smacked. My stepson told his BM, in front of my fiance, and she agreed that he deserved it because he could have done serious damage to my son.

Generally, we only tell BM that Ive had to discipline my SS if he has been really naughty, because we need to parent as a unit and follow the same rules. She tells us when she has disciplined him, so we return the courtesy, and try to follow each others rules. Our rules, given that my fiance and I have kids, and my SS is an only child in his BMs house, do differ, but certain behaviours are acceptable, and certain behavious are not. If its a time out that my SS gets, we dont always tell his BM, but if its a behavioural pattern that may occur at BMs house, we let her know (like he has been drawing on the walls, getting into the kitchen cupboards and breaking plates, hurting our children or pets)

Jodi - posted on 08/19/2011

Can I just say that if your child is old enough to tell you what happened to the extent that you have described, then she is well and truly old enough not to be biting and should know better!! And if she isn't old enough to be able to tell you what happened, how did you know if the SM didn't tell you? Not that I agree with a smack, it's not really necessary, but I was just confused.

Anyway, as a step parent, I sometimes have to discipline, and I don't tell the bio mum, I tell my husband. But my kind of dicipline doesn't include anything physical. I don't see why the bio mum has any say in how we discipline in our house or why she needs to know unless it is something major. The only time we have involved him mum in anything that went on in our home is when he went through a stage where he lied ALL the time. It was constant. So we had to talk to her about it.

But generally, it is none of her business what is going on in our house, and none of our business what is going on in hers providing there is no abuse of the child.

Julie - posted on 08/19/2011

Um, yeah she should have told you. I'm SM to a 13 y/o boy and I've had to discipline him. He lives with us now, ao I always tell his dad and when he was still living with his BM, I would tell her if he got in trouble while he was with us. If his dad is around, I usually will leave the discipline to him, but that doesn't work all the time. If I had to do sometihng, I would tell his mom what he did and what I did about it, unless it was something so minor it wasn't worth mentioning. I think if I were to leave a mark, I'd definitely want to tell her my side so to speak so he couldn't exagerate what happened, which he probably still would.