Changing Day out with children?

FBaby

He CAN have some time with them at the last minute? How generous!

peachyprice

You haven't said how old they are yet. We can see that at least one is a teenager. Early teens, mid teens, late teens? Do they actually want to go on a day out with their younger sibling or would they rather spend time at home with their dad?

Sorry, but you do seem to be coming across as being a bit precious about 'your' car and criticising them for what really is standard teenage behaviour.

Perhaps you need for you to step back a bit and for their dad to take control of their days out, if he can't drive he'll have to take them by train it seems unfair to be relying on you and your car for his contact arrangements when you're clearly not comfortable with it being used as family transport.

Sambucus_Nigra

blondy24 wrote: »

Hi, my OH can't take them out in the car on his own as only just learnt to drive. I have told OH he can have the evening with the children tonight and going to spend sometime on my own.

It's them that are the children - not you! You are supposed to be an adult. Stop flouncing about - they won't thank you for inconsistency.

findingmyownway

I think taking a step back is an excellent idea. Your OH needs to take some responsibility for making tea / collecting the kids (either he can drive or not, there's no half way house).

How often do they stay at your house?

blondy24

Thank you for all the posts.

I have decided that I will tell OH later that he should try using the car with the children in it, he wanted to wait till he was confident but it means that we all have to do stuff when sometimes it is more beneficial for me to do stuff round the house. It has taken him a long time to drive and I guess if honest I got annoyed yesterday as it is my car (took me years of debt etc) to get a decent car which was over £7k and used to be the only driver, so taking a while to adapt to him using it. Also found out that he has damaged the material side near the passenger feet bit but never told me till I sat there. In reference to the children they have marked/dented and also scratched the car in the past, yes I agree I should have mentioned it at the time. I appreciate it is only a car, but something I have worked my !!!! off to get.

In reference to the children spending time with their dad on their own, they do, last time they came round to stay I offered to go away for the weekend for them to have time together without me being there.

I have just been looking at other ideas to do with the children on days out difficult when some are teenagers and one is younger. Eldest doesn't want to go swimming with us or cycle rides, any ideas what to suggest?

balletshoes

why not just wait until the kids get to your house, and ask them what they'd like to do while they're with their Dad? It doesn't need to be an organised day out, maybe they'd be quite happy puddling around at home with him?

I do understand the feeling of "its mine" when referring to you car - but if you're sharing your OH's life and he's learnt to drive, the car is now part of the shared household too. You either learn to relax a bit about the car, or you agree with your OH that he gets a banger and thats the car he uses to run around in.

eta - I do think you're possibly making this harder than it needs to be, and expecting too much of yourself with regard to the kids when they visit. They don't need to be entertained the whole time, you don't need to be engaged in activities or conversation the whole time, thats not normal family life, teenagers grunt, littlies whine, thats normal.

Person_one

Do you have to go on days out all the time? Can you not just relax at home, play some games with the little ones and let the teenagers play on their phones and listen to terrible music?

Families that have the children full time don't go dashing off on days out every weekend!

blondy24

We don't go out every weekend that we have them, but I feel that we should make more of an effort as the children have expressed that they are bored at ours. I know that is a normal teenager thing to say, but would be nice to have some good quality family time together but not expensive like theme parks. I know we need a balance between going out and staying in, which we do but need to be a bit more creative with ideas.

Person_one

Get an Xbox, you'll be in the good books for months.

blondy24

Thanks Person_one we have a wii which we play in the weekdays which is good fun although I am rubbish at Mario Kart!! haha