Visitation and the step-kids increasingly busy schedules???

We have my SSs (12 and almost 10) on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and every other weekend.

SSs started school this week and older SS signed up for football. In May they were both in Little League for the first time.

What happens to our Tuesday and Thursday visits when they boys have practice and games, etc.? Is this the point when we don't see them as much because they are growing up and have other interests?

In May during Little League season, DH went to as many games as he could. I went to a couple with DS (2 years old) because they were mostly night games and I had to pick him up from daycare after work, feed him dinner and get him to bed. I did take him a couple of times though. I also went to a couple of weekend games with DH and DS. On our weekend games, we took the boys to the game where BM would be and her boyfriend.

The boys live with their mother and her boyfriend who live with her boyfriend's mother and sister.... The boyfriend was the assistant coach for Little League. This killed DH when he found out...

DH feels like he's slowly losing the boys as they get older.

Also, we can't make plans to do things and go places on the weekends we have them now because we don't know what practices and games they will have.

Is this all normal and OK?

I need some guidance!!

Thanks!

Re: Visitation and the step-kids increasingly busy schedules???

I know, this is such a tough situation to be in. My SD was with us every weekend and every vacation...as she got to about 11 years old. She sometimes did not want to come, sometimes her friends were getting together on Sat. or Sun. and she wanted go with them - which is understandable, someone was having a Bday party, sleepover, etc. So DH never made her feel bad for not coming (eventhough it bothered him) as she got older the visits came less and now well, we are in a totally different situation with her and BM that has not been good but that is a different post LOL.

So what I want to say is, I think it is normal at their age to start to see them less as they become more active in groups/sports and accumulate more friends. Just keep the lines of communication open and let them know that they can come to visit you when they want (I know this may be hard if BM is not flexible with the visits)

Good Luck!

ETA: SD lives about 1 hour and a half from us...so that is why she came on weekends and vacations.

Message edited 9/10/2009 4:24:01 PM.

Re: Visitation and the step-kids increasingly busy schedules???

ITA w/ PP

It does seem that as they get older, much like biological children who live with you, their social schedule makes it harder and harder to spend time with them ...And just as luck has it, many of these events fall on week-ends and at night which is when most non-residential parents are scheduled to see their DC's....

When we were seeing my SD on a regular basis, she was in ice-skating and it took up a good chunk of our Saturdays with her...We couldn't really plan anything for that day because we would have heard a wrath from BM if heaven forbid she missed a practice , where as if she were my DS or DD, we could easily skip a practice or whatever to do what we had planned and not had to answer to anyone...Now if BM wanted her to miss a practice on her Saturday that was ok ( go figure)
It peticularly stinks when you only have your SC's 4 full days and 8 nights a month ( in my case, 4 full days only ), and more than half of them are spent driving them to events and not spending qulaity time...As non residential parents, you do not have the luxury of making up the time on days that are no activities...

I guess really the most you can do, is try to be a presense at these events as much as possible and make the most out of the time you do have your SS's while they are with you guys...It truly does stink

Re: Visitation and the step-kids increasingly busy schedules???

In our situation BM makes sure that the kids are so over scheduled that they dont have a spare minute to spend at our home...

My DH does his best to take the kids to their games on his weekends. But unfortunitely we cant always accomadate their schedule. If the girls lived in our household they would not have had the option to be in every sport and activity known...

Can you tell it's a sore spot with me?

The older they get the less we see them. It stinks but we look like the bad guy if we dont go with the flow..