Do you have any suggestions for handling this sticky situation with my kids, their father, and Christmas gifts? (Details inside).

It appears to me that the ipods are ruling the meaning of Christmas and not the children and your ex.

If the ipods come into your home, your children will be occupied with them and not you or Christmas.

These mind-controlling devices should not ruin your Christmas or your children’s.

Hold your ground and say “no ipods” at your home. You want their undivided attention for the holidays and not having to compete with a game.

Breaking of these devices is second nature, but if this is the only excuse that will have your children focused on you…....then use it!!.

I say let the kids bring them. Refusing to is punishing the children for their father’s unreasonable attitude.

If something happens, then you can decide what to do.

I’d let them bring them. If they break anywhere, they just won’t have them anymore, which is a natural consequence. Let them know you won’t support them having to pay their father if they break. There’s no way he can actually make them pay for half, right? I mean, he’s not going to sue them for it.

Tell them that their father said they have to leave them at his house. Then you aren’t the bad guy, and you aren’t lying because that is basically what he said. Kids who go back and forth between parents are usually used to having to leave certain items at one house or the other.

It is patently ridiculous that your ex would put rules on letting them use gifts, no matter who paid for them.

I’m with @augustlan. If they break, they break. If they want new ones after they’ve broken them, then they either go without or figure out a way to pay for them themselves.

Don’t even talk to your ex about it. He is an unreasonable man who is trying to use this whole iPod thing against you. The best advice as a non-parent that I can give you is to explain the situation to your kids and then let them decide what to do. If memory serves, they’re old enough and intelligent enough to be able to make an informed decision about this.

Question: Do your kids live primarily with you or with your ex? That can have a big impact on this whole iPod thing.

@KatawaGrey I have primary physical custody, they spend most of their time at our house.

Your ex sounds like a prize.~ Don’t allow the iPods to your house. In a way, your ex is doing you a favor! You’ll likely have more attention from your kids this way, if my own experiences are anything to go by. Two X-mas ago, I suggested my then bf to give each of his kids an iPod Touch which they LOVED and still love to the point of spending much of their visit time ignoring us in order to play on the iPod Touch. You go ahead and leave all that wonderful family time for your ex to enjoy with them. You’re not losing out on anything.

I would be honest with the kids and tell them what their dad said. (Without telling emotion.) I don’t know how he will enforce “making them pay” but that is between him and them anyway. If he’s an ass hole, they kids will learn it on their own.

One of the rules is that they are not allowed to bring them to my house and if they do and something happens to them, the kids will owe their father half the cost of the ipod. – he sounds insane, btw

I would absolutely let them bring it into the house.

On second thought, you should let your ex be the i-pod sheriff. Let him know that you will consider it his responsibility to make sure the ipods don’t go home with the kids.

It’s his rule, not yours. Let them bring them to the house. You don’t need to protect them… he’s just showing the boys his true colors.

So he is essentially lending the kids the iPods. If they were gifts, by definition, they wouldn’t owe him if they don’t do exactly what he says with them. Somebody needs to give that man a dictionary. and a good swift kick, but far be it from me to advocate violence…

Just as an FYI, he told them this rule so I didn’t have to, they were the ones who told me about the rule. Needless to say I was taken aback. I also told them that these kind of rules are shocking to me, as to me the idea of giving a gift means that the thing you are giving belongs to the recipient and is theirs to do with it as they wish – with no strings attached. They agreed that this is an excellent point.

Ahh, divorce is such fun. Remember how much you used to love your spouse?

I went thru the same thing last year. My ex wanted to split an I-touch with me for my 10 year old daughter, but I said no, thinking it wasn’t appropriate. She got my daughter the I-touch anyway, and she broke the screen about a week later (with me).

I didn’t want to fix something that I thought was inappropirate to begin with, so I told her to ask her mom, who refused. Eventually, I offered to split the cost with my daughter and took her to the Apple store, (and they replaced it for nothing!).

But this is part of a bigger issue, which is one of control. There is not much you can do about what your ex does or says about you. He wants to be in charge and make the rules, but his rules don’t apply to your time and space with your children.

So here is my suggestion: the I-touches belong to your childrens and if they choose to bring them, knowing what may happen if they get broken, let them bring them.

As far as what his rules are and what he says about you, continue to take the high road. Your children know which parent is honest, respectful, patient, loving, considerate, etc. They will always love their father because he is their father, but it will never equal the love they have for you.

No point in discussing anything about this with your ex. There is nothing you are going to say to him that will make him understand that he is unreasonable, about any issue. Do what you have to, informing him about school, extracurricular activities, health concerns, etc, but everything else is your business with your children, not his.

PS-I can ask my kids for half the cost of any present I give them that they break? That sounds great! I wish I knew about that for the last 10½ years! But then, how much would I owe my parents?

Do you have an agreement about enforcing rules in common? Do you have any agreement about treating the kids consistently? I’m guessing not.

Your ex is clearly using this in some attempt to make him into the better/more fun/wealthier parent. He’s also engaged in some kind of battle with you that only he understands the rules of. He is not very emotionally self-aware, it seems. He is still hurting from the divorce and somehow thinks he can punish you with these games.

I’m not sure if he understands how he is hitting the wrong target, and punishing the kids, not you. Presumably the kids can see this. I’m sure you don’t need to do anything. You don’t need to enforce his rules. You don’t need to try to protect the kids from his insanity (I mean, it would be nice, but it’s impossible—like sticking fingers in the dike). Unfortunately, he will punish them and I really don’t think there’s a thing you can do about it.

This is a situation where you have to let them figure it out themselves. They can try to sneak the iPods over, or they can leave them at their Dad’s. In either case, they will complain to him about it. You have nothing to do with it. I think your refrain should be, “take it up with your Dad,” whenever they ask about it. No comments. No judgments. It’s just that he is an independent person and you can not influence his behavior. Maybe they can.

Your ex’ rules are his rules, and that’s between him and the kids.

As an aside—has he ever been treated for some kind of mental illness? This sounds really crazy. Like he could be getting into trouble.

How old are your kids? If they are old enough to understand the situation, I would ask my kids if they still want a “gift” that comes with such ridiculous “strings attached”. When I was a teenager, if my father had pulled something like that on me, I’d just say thanks, but no thanks. Some free things in life aren’t worth having.

Sorry your ex is acting like a tool bag. The gift belongs to the children, not the parent. The children should be allowed, at any age to take their gifts between homes and even leave them at your house if they desire to. After-all it is not their fault that you two could not work things out so why should they suffer? I let my daughter take whatever she wants to her mothers home and her mother does not. Sometimes it is frustrating because she will leave everything over at her mothers however it is life and it is their life, not yours or his. He should stop interfering at a level that offers no parenting value. What is the point? He is holding it like a badge and it is a prick thing to do. He is just waving it like an extension…Remember kids, Daddy bought you an expensive Ipod touch that you can’t play with at your mothers…Only here. Say it out loud, it just sounds ridiculous and stupid (for a lack of better words.) The real value in parenting and the real lesson he could teach them would be to show them that it is ok to take it with you where ever they go, that is the freaking point of an Ipod touch, it is a mobile device, not a stationary gaming system. He should encourage them to take care of it by telling them to invest in Ipod cases to protect them if dropped…Beyond that, he is offering no parenting value here, he is just being a prick.
another idea: email this quip to him.

I’d tell the kids that it’s their fathers rule. NOT yours that the iPods aren’t allowed.

You’ve got a win-win situation there. Your husband makes it easy for the kids to see why you two aren’t married anymore and you get to enjoy your kids without the iPod Touch BFF’s. If you let them bring the iPod Touch’s into your house, no big deal, you can claim you didn’t know about it if he bugs you later. Those rules are his and the agreements are between he and the kids, no need for you to police it.

I’m just saying about the electronics… be careful what you ask for.

My advice is different from most of what I see here. I would try to keep the kids out of it as much as is possible. You ex is making a power play using the kids as ammo.

If the kids ask, tell them it is an issue between you and your ex and you don’t want them involved.

Sounds like your ex-husband is an ass-wipe. Put him in a big slingshot and hurl him into the sun.

Actually, I wouldn’t worry too much. If that’s how he ordinarily behaves, the kids will eventually figure it out on their own that he’s an ass-wipe…

We have a situation with my Grandchildren that requires that we buy toys for our house and additional toys for their house. This came about because toys at their house always end up broken or lost, so they usually only have a toy to fall back on at our house.

Maybe you could buy duplicate toys for them to use at your house.

Let them bring their iPods over and enjoy them! But make absolutely certain that YOU take responsibility for knowing where they (the iPods) are, while the kids are in your custody (and this would apply regardless of who paid for them). Just automatically ask every time you leave the house with them, “Do you have your iPods?” It will help your kids learn to be aware of where they are at all times – something that comes in very handy when, as an adult, we’re looking for our phone, bluetooth, car keys, wallet, etc.

I didn’t read you were opposed to the kids having the ipods, just that you don’t want to have to worry about anything happening to them at your home.
My kids are 12, 13 and 14 so I would sit them down and ask them how they felt and what they thought about it. If they said they thought their dad was being unfair, I would tell them that I agree and that even though we don’t agree with their dad, they still needed to respect him and his decision as to the ipods. Then I would ask them what they wanted to do in regards to them.
This sounds like such a cheap attempt at having control so I would give the kids control and let them decide whether they take them back and forth or not.

Is your relationship with your ex volatile as in unstable and potentially dangerous? If so I would not discuss it any further with him and let him think what ever the hell he wants.
If it was my ex, I would tell him (privately) that over my dead body were the boys going to pay for half of their Christmas present if anything happened to it and if he didn’t like it, he will need to get them something else.
With divorce comes self power. I no longer have to back him up in his decisions and choices in regards to things like this.

@SuperMouse: If they live primarily at your house, when are they supposed to use them? Will your ex physically take them away when your kids leave the house? I say that this rule will be impossible to enforce even if you agree to it as well. If one of them forgets and has the iPod in his backpack when he comes back from seeing Dad, are you going to drive him all the way back so he can drop the iPod off again? Does this mean they aren’t allowed to download music that may only be on your computer? Can they take their iPods to friend’s houses, so long as the iPods never actually enter your house?

In the end, this rule of his will be impossible to fully enforce. Your ex is going to be unreasonable no matter what. It seems to me that there is no point in making your kids bear the brunt of his petty attitude as well.

I hope that didn’t sound harsh. I’m mostly mad that your ex is being such a stupid poopie head.

SuperMouse, are you sure we don’t have the same ex-husband? Mine is still playing these control games with me, and we were divorced in ‘02. He puts the kids in the middle, (17 and 21 y.o. boys) and the oldest jumps whenever Daddy says to, even when, like tonight, Daddy has gone against the divorce decree, and so Mom sits home alone, looking for answers online. At least we know we aren’t alone in this, SuperMouse, and misery certainly loves company, right?! I think, unless you have a super-slingshot, that EnchantingEla has some great advice for you.

As for me, I think that from now on, I’m going to go out of town for Christmas, and the kids can do whatever the heck they want. I’m not going to set myself up to be home alone in my apartment on Christmas night again., cursing their dad and trying not to be mad at my kids for following the Piped Piper and falling prey to the same mindgames that I used to, before I finally wised up…