Topic : General Advice

Hello

         I am a father of two wonderful kids. My daughter is 8 years old and smart as a whip. My son is 6 years old and also smart as a whip. I recently had a case in family court, where I was made to pay for 50% of the plane tickets for my children to fly and SEE THERE MOTHER. I was ordered to do this because she is unemployed.  Now I recently quit working to attend college full time. I used to run heavy equipment and made good money doing that. I did it for 5 years out of my 8 years in the US Army then two more years after I was discharged. I don't like doing that kind of work. I was wrongfully terminated from my last employer as an operator, it just so happened to be the largest heavy construction company within 100 miles and one of the oldest. So after that I applied with some of the other companies none would hire me. I them went to work for a nation wide home improvement store. At this point I decided to go back to school and work part time. Once school started the store would not work with me on scheduling so I was forced to quit. I now take care of my kids the house and go to school full time. In my recent hearing to set visitation for my ex-wife I was demonized because I was going back to school. But she was put on a pedestal like a great person for being lazy and just not working. She quit her job right after I filed for FULL custody of my children. I am in no way saying I am perfect and have never made mistakes. But it is people like her that do everything wrong lie, cheat, steal, yet they are rewarded for it. She mentally and psychical abused my children. So much so that they both are in counseling for an attachment disorder, my daughter has an eating disorder on top of that. When they came to live with me they were dirt had head lice (this was at least the 20 time for my daughter) there clothes were filthy reeked of smoke. And my daughter had to sit 3 feet from the TV to even see it. Two days after her arriving to live with me my fiancée had her an appointment with an eye doctor she was 20-80 and 20-300 sight but yet her mother never took her to see an eye doctor she never had an eye exam at school. My son was malnourished undersized and you could see every rib and see his entire spine. My daughter has allergies mainly to smoke yet her mother after finding out this still continued to smoke around her. I also smoke; I smoke out side of the house and never within 20 feet of my daughter or my son. This lady was found guilty of child abuse in Texas when we lived there but no one ever did anything about it not CPS, not the court system no one At the time she had taken my daughter and moved back to California where we were both from. CPS there was notified and still nothing was done. I fly back to California to see my family and children one year. I drove to her house to pick up my children and found NOT one but THREE dead animals in her yard within 2 feet of my children’s toys. I called CPS nothing was done, I got told by CPS “My clean might not be her clean” clean is clean and dead animals in the yard are not even close to clean... Yet I go back to college to better myself and make a better life for my children and I am a bad person. Oh I think all lawyers should be shot!!! This woman makes every other woman on this planet look bad. But I was born a man so I am bad in there eyes. She KIDNAPPED my children this summer but nothing was done. The court left the visitation OPEN. She sent me an e-mail stating “If you want YOUR kids back you can come get them after Aug 19”. The local police and state police are on the phone in front of me calling each other names. I didn't spend 8 years in the ARMY to get treated like a pile of dog excrement. She flew over 3,000 miles to go to court she didn’t try and call our children or even ask anything about them nothing. She has used my daughter as a human shield to keep from getting hit by one of her DRUG dealing boyfriends.  

I HAD the same probleme wanna know how I fixed it?

 When I said something like pick up your room or , empty dishwasher, ect... I gave him a grace period at first, to see if he would do it on his own, if not, I would let him know that I had asked him to do this and he did not do it on his own, so now he had to do it NOW and I watched him, even if he whinned and bla,bla,bla I said nothing, I just stood there and waited for him to finish, when he finished I thanked him for doing it and hugged him. that's it, no "It took you long enough" or "that wasn't hard, now was it" I just thanked him and hugged him. He was surprised, and I think he liked it!! The next time I asked for him to do something he wasn't AS hesitant to help me out or do what I asked!

Sometimes we don't realize what we are doing, but when we take a couple of steps back and really look and listen to what WE do and say....... This is what I did a couple of day's ago, I just stopped doing some things, like saying what is mentionned above, and it made a whole diffrence in his attitude, and that was just 3 days ago!!!!

good luck

Mélissa

My six year old son is a cry baby!  I am so frustrated with constantly having to deal with him bursting into tears.  It happens with everything, and so does whining.  If it is time for him friends to go home, regardless how long they have been playing he starting cry and screaming.  He whines that everything is not fair.  His grade one teacher has talked about his lack of maturity, and I am at the end of my wits with it.  I just want to know what I am supposed to do to get my son to act more his age, and less like a 2 year old that can't deal with the world not going the way they want it to.  I have tried comforting him when he is upset, as I want him to feel safe and secure.  I have tried ignoring it, so long as it is not life threatening.  WE have tried talking to him, but all that seems to create is more whining. 

I am embarassed to have my son standing out in the front yeard of my house crying on a nightly basis, just because it is time for his friends to go home, or because they said that they couldn't or didn't want to play with him today.

Please help!!