Supporting her with the kids

[BowlOfPetunias]

My wife often complains that I do not support her enough with the kids.  Keep in mind that sometimes she is going on a rage and I am doing my best not to criticize her in front of the kids unless it is absolutely necessary.

We went to a movie at 10:30 yesterday.  My wife announced that the kids would not be getting snacks.  She took our daughter into the women's room and I went into the men's room.  When I got out, my son started in on why couldn't we get snacks while my wife was in the restroom.  I got a little angry that he was needling me when he already knew the answer and forcefully told him no.  Then she comes out of the women's room and announces that we are getting snacks!  I pointed out that I just yelled at our son because he was pestering me for snacks when she had said no snacks.  Then she turned it into she would go with my decision.  In other words, did I want to tell the kids that they could not have snacks now that their mother had offered to get snacks?  Yeah, right.

Our son is supposed to be helping with redoing the attic so he can move up there.  He will do everything he can to shirk work, however, and will often sneak tv or video games when he is supposed to be working.  I had the video game system locked away so he could not do so.  When I got home from shopping, my wife announced that he had taken off a lot of the wallpaper.  When I went up, there was no difference.  (I had taken some off last week, but it was really bad for my shoulder.  I am recovering from surgery.)  He started bugging me for the game system, and I said we would talk about it with his mother.  I made it clear to her that he had not done anything on the attic.  He got angry about not getting to play.  I went downstairs to switch over the laundry.  Next thing I know, she has told him that he can play and I should get the game system for him!

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[teapay]

Do you still have the game?  For me, no work--no game.  If work---then no problem giving kid the game.  You can validate their feelings.  But at the end of the day, teaching them how a quid pro qou system works would have benefits to you and to your son as he grows up.

[BowlOfPetunias]

Unfortunately, he had the game back.  I convinced my wife that we had to hold on to it when we went to bed, however.  He often sneaks downstairs to watch and/or play instead of sleeping.  He will even sneak into our room in the middle of the night to get his phone or games.

The game system controller was locked in a cabinet in the basement.  He has previously pried the cabinet partially open to retrieve things, so I have taken to putting it behind other things. 

About a week ago, I found a set of my keys that my wife had lost last Labor Day.  I hung them up, forgetting that the key to the cabinet was on that ring.  He took the keys and retrieved his game system and computer.

A big problem is my wife's inconsistencies.  One minute she is fuming mad at him.  A short while later, however, she is telling me how much things have improved with him (when they haven't changed or changed very, very slightly.)  Then she is fuming mad again.  I have told her that she needs to have a more realistic view of who he is and what he is doing, so she does not think he is doing better than he actually is only to come crashing down when confronted with reality.

She also has a habit of giving strict--sometimes overly strict--punishments, only to back off of them a little while later.

BTW, he is 13.

[motherhen]

It is very difficult for BPD to be consistent in their parenting. It sounds like your son is a hard kid to parent right now, and she's struggling with that so she flip flops between two extremes. Since BPD tend to have their identity based in those around them, she needs to try to self soothe by convincing herself he is improving. I see this a lot even with nons in the special needs community. Otherwise she might end up painting him black and that would not bode well for her image as a parent.

I have a very, very oppositional 11 year old with special needs. Part of it is biological but growing up with a BPD parent is no picnic and can lead to some very crappy learned behaviors, like the asking for snacks while she is in the bathroom. He's learned that pestering is a highly effective way to get your wife to give in.

No judgement here, I have a pretty laid back personality who happens to have a child that requires firm consistency. That said, if my child had that level of sneaking, where it's a pattern and not just one time those items would be removed from the home. Keep them at your workplace or a friend's house. But they would not be returned until the overall pattern of sneaky behavior is replaced with earned trust. I'm not sure how your wife would react to that, but it would take away the ability to give it back when it hasn't been earned back.

[GaGrl]

I agree.  It's not just disagreement on specific, isolated instances that is going on here.  It's a pattern of negative behavior that is becoming evident and that needs to be addressed across multiple instances.  I had the same situation with my son at that age -- it was frustrating, and frankly, it took about 3 years to resolve.

[BowlOfPetunias]

Yes, she does go on rages because she sees the kids behavior as a referendum of her parenting skills.  If something goes wrong, then she (or I) must be the worst parent in the world.  I have referred to this as "supermom" behavior when he was younger.  Crying baby?  She SHOULD have been able to comfort him and stop his crying.  Why wouldn't he stop crying?  She was extreme about even things like vaccinations and c-sections.  (Our current pediatrician told her to keep up with the vaccinations or see another doctor.  She was obsessed with "v-backing" for our daughter's birth, which did not work out.  She has put down other women who have had c-sections.)

I have tried explaining to my son why she gets so angry.  The problem is that he responds with "giving her a taste of her own medicine" despite the fact that it never, ever works.

This false/inflated improvements reflect the need to see herself as not a failure as a mother.