I'm there also, same condition with my daughter and similar actions by my wife.   agree with you about more space for your kids to be able to learn from there mistakes, give them a chance to finish what they are doing and control the anger and fights that are the results of the action taken.   i like you have felt that I am on my own, the family is against me and question why I get involved in trying to keep the harmony within the family.    However all this said, we have found that some ground rules are needed with the kids. We have introduced some (as aggreed to by my partner and me) and then discussed and agreed to by the kids. As you can imagine, this was a challenge and took a while to be aggreed to but the kids now know what will happen and is expected and with an agreed approch by us on how these rules should be tackled, we do have success more than not.  Examples are, phone and computer removed at a set time, during the week we remove access to computer games during the week, this was not easy so changed the time on them to equal the time studying. Are there any other suggestions?   finally you are not alone with what you are saying. Try and work out ways that you and your wife can team up and be a force when you need to with the kids.   Good luck ... View more

Hi, first time I have been on a forum such as this..... - We have two beautiful kids, girl 18 (starting Uni this year) and son 15 in Yr 10. What has made me laugh - my son's developing humour of which cheers up my wife  - My wife introduced me to reachout due to issues that my son is going through including depression, saying that he will self harm and recently starting to hurt himself  - the weekends are usually packed, working at home, me time but more important, this is when the footy is on of which my son and I are members. This is one of the rear times that he lets me in, and we spend a fun and exciting 90+ minutes one on one.   Our issues are minimal in comparison to some of the feed backs on this forum. However when it is you child, you some times think it that what they are going through is so unfair. We are lucky that we have great support with a local councillor and the school however the most wonderful thing is that my wife has the knowledge and ability to ensure that we are doing everything we can to help him.   Thanks     ... View more