Winning Ways to Wipe Out Step-Family Wars
Step-families are the Mount Everest of challenges. No matter how terrific the romance in the marital courtship, every child involved will most likely have mixed feelings toward the union at best., Establishing a détente between the two family halves is a delicate process indeed and begins with the attitudes of the two parents.
A step-parent should do several things to foster a healthy
parenting connection with the new spouse:
1. Explore the behavioral history, developmental course, major transitions,
strengths and weaknesses of each child.
2. Conjointly establish a well-defined set of household
rules and chores. Charts are very helpful for monitoring each child’s
progress.
3. Decide who will enforce what rules with which child.
4. Do not get into a conflict with you spouse over parenting issues in front of the children.
5. Do not let a child divide the coupleship (“divide and conquer”) and maintain good, ongoing, communication between the two of you.
6. Do not give an instruction to a child unless you are willing to back it up.
7. Always put the marital relationship BEFORE the relationships with the children. Think of your marriage as the children’s bedrock and future marital blueprint.
8. Consult a psychologist when you get stuck in resolving a parenting problem.
Ways to connect with your new step-children
1. Talk with and listen to the child; get to know him or her and just become a friend.
2. Do something fun together each week, just the two of you.
3. Spend quality time together with each child each day, at least 15 minutes.
4. Do NOT play favorites, by giving biological children
preference over step-children.
5. Have a weekly family pow-wow in order to resolve any sprouting differences between step-siblings.
6. Do fun games and activities together as a family in order to foster a sense of “we-ness”.
7. Know that a girl generally has a more difficult time accepting a step-mother, as compared with a boy accepting a step-father.
8. Give the step-family a transition period of two to three years to build healthy working family relationships.
9. With older teens, it is often best to let his/her biological parent do most of the limit setting and enforcing, initially for the first year.
10. Find something to praise about your new step-child (i.e., catch them doing good).