More on (not) quarreling

I wrote before about how the lack of quarreling with the kids. I read it over and thought that what I had written was exactly right and misleading.

Only Ann, who wanted to go back to Mandy, carried on the campaign I described for any length of time. She started (though I did not realize it) they day she moved in and stopped, you guessed it, the day she moved out.

The respite kids, like E, never move past either avoiding or deferring to the bios.

Carl and David moved past it with only a short period of underground hostility directed at the boys. My fantasy of actual quarrels became a reality. Evan moved from deference to complete avoidance very quickly.

All three boys continued to turn to me to solve problems for the entire time they lived here.

I handled it better with David and Evan.

I stared from the very beginning telling the them, in front of Andrew, "Now...don't let him push you around. If you don't want to wash the dishes you stand up to him." Of course David or Evan would insist that he did not mind but I would repeat myself, "Okay...but when you get tired of this I want you to know you have my permission to fight with Andrew."

Though the tendency to be deferential never left with David, he did learn to have a healthy quarrel with Andrew every now and then. Evan's strategy so far has been avoidance.

They have all complained to me or their social worker, or both, that I don't treat everyone the same, but I have decided to write a separate post about that sometime soon.

I would like to point out that even with my most difficult placement this is the worst behavior that has actually been directed towards my bio kids.

I was afraid of much worse.