Falling in love and wanting to blend families is exciting! But navigating the transition from friend to parent-figure can be tricky. You want the kids to like you, but you also need to establish a foundation for discipline and respect.
Building Trust:
Establishing Boundaries:
Moving Forward:
Building a strong stepfamily takes time and patience. Here are some additional resources to support your journey:
Remember:
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blended family, building relationships, discipline, remarriage, stepchildren, stepfamilies
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Read MoreWhile legal dependency usually ends at eighteen, the economic resources available to a stepchild through remarriage could continue to be an important factor past childhood. College education and young adulthood are especially demanding economic events. The life-course studies undertaken by some researchers substantiate the interpersonal trends seen in stepfamilies before the stepchildren leave home. White reports that viewed from either the parent’s or the child’s perspective, relationships over the life-course between stepchildren and stepparents are substantially weaker than those between biological parents and children. These relationships are not monolithic, however; the best occur when the stepparent is a male, there are no step siblings, the stepparent has no children of his own, and the marriage between the biological parent and the stepparent is intact.2 On the other end, support relationships are nearly always cut off if the stepparent relationship is terminated because of divorce or the death of the natural parent.
When a stepparent is the only one available to perform child discipline—especially in a new step-home—it helps if the biological parent(s) verbally “authorize” the stepparent in front of the step-kid(s) to act in their place.
I love this thanks for posting. I like what you said about observing the family dynamics first before you jump in and try to change things.
While legal dependency usually ends at eighteen, the economic resources available to a stepchild through remarriage could continue to be an important factor past childhood. College education and young adulthood are especially demanding economic events. The life-course studies undertaken by some researchers substantiate the interpersonal trends seen in stepfamilies before the stepchildren leave home. White reports that viewed from either the parent’s or the child’s perspective, relationships over the life-course between stepchildren and stepparents are substantially weaker than those between biological parents and children. These relationships are not monolithic, however; the best occur when the stepparent is a male, there are no step siblings, the stepparent has no children of his own, and the marriage between the biological parent and the stepparent is intact.2 On the other end, support relationships are nearly always cut off if the stepparent relationship is terminated because of divorce or the death of the natural parent.
When a stepparent is the only one available to perform child discipline—especially in a new step-home—it helps if the biological parent(s) verbally “authorize” the stepparent in front of the step-kid(s) to act in their place.
I love this thanks for posting. I like what you said about observing the family dynamics first before you jump in and try to change things.