Living by the words of the Bible

We have been doing our own family devotional every Sunday night and trying to get points across to our 12 year old.  I usually pick out the scripture or lesson and it comes from an email I get called Family Devotional most of the time.  http://www.worldbiblesociety.org/
These always have a lesson about respect or ignorance or something with a bible story and prayers.  I usually pick out ones that will make our 12 year old think about how he has been acting and possibly change it.  It has not seemed to work, because he still will come begging for something that he wants or being selfish.  We read one the other day saying that people are to absorbed with material possessions and to think of others instead of himself.  It did not work, he still is always begging for something that he wants.  We try to teach him that if he wants something that he should save his money up, but instead he is constantly wanting to run to the gas station down the street to buy snacks and wasting his money.  It is so hard to teach a 12 year old something when he was raised differently by his mother and he is at the age that he thinks he is right about everything and us as parents are unfair and don't know anything.
He has been very spoiled by his grandmother and thinks he deserves all the expensive electronics that we can't afford but she buys him.  He doesn't appreciate them, because he ends up breaking them within a month and then she just buys him another one.  I have tried to get BB to make him save his money to teach him but he doesn't do it.  A lot of the time his excuse about stuff is that he it is too late to change him his mother already did the damage.  I tell him that it is never too late to teach him a better way to do things.
 Just like when he does not agree with the music he listens to or some of the shows he watches, he still lets him listen and watch them because he says his mother has done the damage and it's too late now.  That is absolutely not true, he can make him stop listening and watching inappropriate stuff and explain to him that it is language and actions that he doesn't think a 12 year old should be listening and watching. Some of the things he thinks are ok or I'm just being way to worrisome or protective about them, I tell him that is just how women are.  But usually we end up fighting about the fact that some ways we think about raising children are so different.  I believe that a lot of the time the reason the 12 year old doesn't respect me or listen to anything I say is because his father gives him the impression that I don't know anything and he doesn't have to listen to what I say.  That concept is so wrong, we try to tell him that he should always be respectful towards adults and do what they say especially his father and I.

I just got laid off this week and even though I have already applied at a number of places I dread the thought of getting further behind in our already outrageous bills.  We have been so far behind we have been floating ourselves with payday loans, so every week a about $400.00 comes out of the bank and that is what is killing us.  If we didn't have those loans we would be ok, but we can never seem to catch up enough to get them paid off and we just have to keep getting more to survive.  Now that I have lost my job I don't know how we are going to make it.

Stubborn Pre-Teens

I am having the worst time with the pre-teen and his stubborn and know it all self centered attitude.  He thinks he can get everything he wants and has to do nothing to earn it. I guess boys are worse than girls also.  He is not that bad unless his dad is out and I'm alone with him, then he decides to act out and not listen to me because he thinks he can get away with it.  His dad does not punish him as much as he should and lets him get away with a lot.  Since I'm just the (step-mother) girlfriend I can't do as much to punish him either.  He thinks his dad is going to take his side and he can do what he wants.  His dad is finally seeing the light and has started punishing him a little bit more but he still acts up with me.  He gets all upset and says he hates living with me every time I get on to him or ask him to do anything.  The latest episode was today I asked him to clean his room and do some of his chores.  He has a friend over but his friend was staying the whole weekend.  He said he wasn't going to do anything because he had a guest over, I explained to him that when his friend stays two or three nights then that is not an excuse and he can stop and do some chores.  He refused and ran out the door trying to call his dad.  He said he hated me and wanted to move back to his mom's which is about 1,000 miles away.  He purposefully ran his bike into the garage. He has a bad temper and refuses to control it.  His dad and I have both told him that when he lets his temper get the best of him it only makes things worse for him, but he never gets it just keeps doing the same thing over again.  I hope he matures some in the next year because this really wears on me.  I live in a very stressful environment sometimes and I'm at my wits end. What happened to the days where kids feared their parents and when  the parents told them to do something they said yes sir or ma'm and did it even if they didn't want to.  Now days kids argue and fuss and think they don't have to do anything. We both get tired of his smart answers for everything we say.  He thinks he is the only one in the world that has to do chores.  He always tries to use that argument.