Hey everyone. Just wanted to apologize in advance if this turns out really long, and say thanks in advance to anyone who reads this, especially parents out there. I trust the people here at curezone more than any place else on the internet, so your help would really mean a lot to me.

{Im just going to refer to my family as "my boyfriend" and his son as "the boy" because I dont want to use their names here}

Let me begin by explaining my situation as simply as I can. Its not a very good situation at all. Ok, I live with my boyfriend and his 4 year old son. We have all lived together for a little while. My boyfriend works the graveyard shift at a casino about 45 mins away from here. I have your average day job, 8-5 type deal. My boyfriend gets home from work in just enough time to take over watching the boy so I can leave from work. My boyfriend gets about a 1 hour nap every day while we have his son, he is dying of lack of sleep but thats another story all together.

Now let me explain about the boy's situation, what it is is we have him sun night thru fri night, and his mother has him on the weekends. When absolutely needed, my boyfriends parents watch him as well. His mother, and my boyfriends parents live in a town about 30 mins away from here, sort of near where my boyfriend works {dont ask why he is working so far away, I was against him getting this job in the first place but he claimed to have "no choice" like I said-whole other story}.

Before I say anything else, I should say that while his son is not MY son, I do care about him. I want whats best for him, and even though I dont really want children {or didnt I should say} I decided to try being a parent because I wanted to open my heart to a child, and also mostly because I am crazy about his father, he is the best man Ive ever had in my life, treats me very well, and we get along good and have a good relationship. But these problems are destroying us.

The first problem the boy is having is he refuses to eat much of anything that isnt candy. Its frustrating to me being a step parent because I had to part in ages 0-4 so if he was my son candy never would have been introduced to him in the first place besides as a very very once in a GREAT while special treat {this is how I was raised}. My boyfriend has a terrible diet and they have an entire cupboard full of candy here, and eat like s*it which I find very upsetting and a terrible example for this child. When I moved in with them I told my boyfriend things were going to change, and he is working on it.

We have to FORCE this kid to eat. He refuses to eat, anything, and its not even just pickiness, because he is refusing to eat even kid friendly type food like goldfish crackers or cereal. This morning he would eat NOTHING and demanded candy from me, even when so far as to disrespect me and threaten me if he didnt get any. After this, I told my boyfriend Im not allowing candy in my house anymore. Its unhealthy and Im tossing it. But basically the boy does this every day. Whines and whines about being hungry, begs for food, refuses 99.9999999% of what we offer him, whines some more, we end up making him something, he eats maybe ONE bite, claims to "be full".

I DO NOT think he is really full, but that he wants to go watch tv and we wont let him eat while watching tv. If we all have dinner together we turn the tv off but when I get home from a hard days work I like to watch my tv shows and am not going to sit there in silence because he cant behave.

So anyways he will claim to be full and then I swear, sometimes as little as 5 minutes later, he is begging for a snack. And guess what he wants. CANDY. Very very occasionally we will get him to eat an orange or something.

My boyfriends parents {and my boyfriend} spoiled the hell out of this kid his entire life. That is something Im very against. He is 4 years old and has a full entertainment system, video game systems and a personal computer ALL IN HIS BEDROOM {I feel this is very very wrong} and a room full of every toy a little boy can ask for. Ive talked to my boyfriend about how this bothers me and he just says "what can I do my parents just buy him all that stuff". It makes me sort of sick to be honest. He is growing up not only not appreciating SHIT (sorry Im so mad) but thinking he can have anything he wants. It seems like now we are in the process of trying to reverse this.

Despite this spoiled-ness, my boyfriend DOES discipline him. Tonight was a terrible night. He acted up ALL day, he was sent to his room screaming and sobbing Im not kidding like 25 times today at least. He got one spanking {something I dont like happening but I cannot say I blame my boyfriend, I mean what are we supposed to do??}. We have tried talking to him like an adult. We have tried being nice to him. We have tried laying down the law in a way that scares the hell out of him to try to scare him straight {he gets terrified when my boyfriend gets his really mad voice}, nothing works. He still acts up again, sometimes like 3 minutes later.

Ive read all the articles that talk about kids testing their limits, and I absolutely NEVER let him break me down through nagging, crying, whatever. If I say something I stick to it and he needs to learn to respect that. The question is, how?

Now I should explain his mother. She and my boyfriend were together in the begining and they broke up before he reached the age of 2. My boyfriend said he saw what kind of mother she was going to be and couldnt stand her anymore. Basically she didnt want much to do with him. Now, Im not saying she doesnt love him or anything and Im not calling her a bad mom because who am I to judge. But basically, she lets him OWN her. ANd this is a big problem because if he has no discipline over there, how do you think he behaves when he comes home to us on sunday? I can tell that with her its almost like she is afraid of him, afraid of him throwing a fit so she just breaks down. Not to mention she feeds him fast food and junk while he was there {he always talks about macdonalds when he comes home to us, and Ive made it very clear we dont eat that kind of "food" in my house. HIs mother doesnt have a job and is on welfare and doesnt buy him all his clothes and toys like my boyfriend and his parents do. BUt we always end up being the bad guy because we are trying to set limits.

He just wont listen at all anymore, and since Im stepmom, he doesnt respect me because he isnt scared of me. But what am I supposed to do, beat the crap out of him? I try to treat him with respect and talk to him like a smart child, not like someone who is "too young" to get anything.

Now.. {once again, sorry so long}

The other part of my problem is that two weeks ago, he had a grand mal seizure out of nowhere {we have no idea why}. It was terrifying, it happened when I was alone with him, he even stopped breathing for a minute and I thought he was going to die in my arms. I had to call 911 hysterical, the paramedics came, the works. He is fine, but we are taking him to the nearest childrens hospital in about a week for an EEG and some other testing. At the ER they tested his blood urine and did a CT scan and they all were normal so we know he didnt injest some sort of poison or anything. They just said they "didnt know".

I dont know if the seizure and his behavioral problems might be related. I doubt it. This is my theory, please tell me what you think. I think:

1)He doesnt get enough attention, he has no one to play with, and while his father is here with him all day he is like a zombie most of the time and very short with him because Im not kidding, he DOES NOT sleep during the week. He goes to work at 11, works all night, comes home in the morning and is with his son all day then does it again. Its a nightmare, and he has almost zero time for me but like I said, another story. He is desperate for attention, he needs it more than any toy, it makes me sick almost, because I give him as much as I can, but we both have to work so much just to barely scrape by and provide for him, there just isnt time. It breaks my heart. :(

2) I feel he really needs preschool or day care, but we dont have the money for day care and preschool and we have tried calling all the low income ones and they have either given us the runaround or are not answering their phones because of xmas vacation. We are going to keep trying, because if he was in daycare or preschool for even a 4-5 hours, my boyfriend could sleep during that time and then have energy for him during the late afternoon, evening time.

3) I feel this kid is really messed up because while we are trying to do all this setting limits stuff, he is getting a completely different message at his mothers. Not to mention she lives in a different town, he is just all over the place all the time.

4) He isnt EATING almost any nutrients. I mean really, I dont understand how he will be able to grow. BUt he refuses to eat. And since he had that seizure, I worry something might be wrong inside and would love for him to get at least some good nutrition. BUt candy is all he wants.

5)He is sickeningly spoiled, and he doesnt know anything else. Im not kidding, his grandparents buy him toys and video games every day. NOt only does it hurt me because those things mean so little to him now, but it makes what small gifts I can afford for him almost meaningless in his eyes {Im not rich like they are}. I should also point out they spoil my boyfriend and even me too, even though I really am uncomfortable with that. I didnt come from that, I had good parents but they raised me up right and with a really good work ethic, everything I have Ive worked for, nothing was given to me. So all this is really nauseating to me sometimes as spoiling kids has always been something Im so against.

Every day Ive been bugging my boyfriend to look for preschools or daycare for him, but like I said, the low income ones are so hard to get into, you have to do all these applications and thats just to be on a waiting list. He will be in kindergarten next fall, but my god thats a long time to wait and live and I truly feel if he were in a structured environment every day, could get some of his energy out with other kids and projects, it would help him SOOOO much. He needs that, I can feel it, it makes me ill how much he needs it.

With everything Ive said bad here, I have to point out, on his good days, this kid can be very sweet and I do love him, he is very affectionate, especially with me, in fact he is glued to my ass most of the time, always wanting hugs and piggy back rides from me, so I know this isnt just an issue of him hating me since we moved or anything, in fact he seems happy to have a woman around. I dont know if its just because he misses his mother-oh yeah, I forgot to mention, before the move my boyfriend and his ex had week on, week off custody, and then we switched to us during the week her on weekends.

This whole situation just kills me, I see a good kid with a good heart inside of him, I dont want him to become a sh*tty person, I want to know how to raise him right but Ive never been around kids in my life besides these last few months, and I just suddenly became a mom and so you can understand this is so overwhelming for me. When he had his seizure I didnt know what was happening, I turned him over and his lips were turning blue and I was so terrified, I realized I was growing to love him then, and when he misbehaves SOOO much its hard not to hate him in the moment but I have such guilt because its not his fault, but how can we give him what he needs when we both have to work so much?

Am I right that preschool/daycare/some sort of a playgroup will help here? I know he needs structure, we have tried making little goal chart type things for him with stickers and stuff but it hasnt been working well, whenever he gets in trouble for something he never really seems sorry or to understand, he just goes to his room and screams and cries for hours and then the next day does the exact same thing that got him into trouble in the first place. He either totally doesnt get it or he is at least subconciously acting bad to get attention, even if its bad attention, its still attention. I suspect thats at least part of it and it all goes back to us not having time for him and like I said tis just killing me.

I think Ive rambled on long enough and you get the picture. Any tips, ideas, suggestions, about behavior and how to get kids to just LISTEN {if its even possible lol} would be so appreciated, also any ideas about seizures out of nowhere would be helpful too. Im sorry if somethings in here are obvious about kids{maybe all kids are this bad, I dont know}, but like I said I was never a parent before, the only things I know about kids are what I remember from being one, and I had a very troubled childhood myself so Im not the best example.

I just need to be pointed in the right direction here. Thanks! God bless anyone who actually read this.