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Here’s an interesting statistic: more than 25% of all kids born after 1980 will be part of a stepfamily (also known as a blended family). Moreover it is likely that more than 40-50% of all adults will have a step relationship at some point in their lives.
A blended or stepfamily is a family where either one or both parents have been married before and one or more of the children have come from the previous marriage.
Parenting seems hard enough but step parenting is often even more of a challenge. In addition, partners marrying for a second or third time often struggle with some of the same issues they could not resolve in their previous marriages. Now they have new partners and additional children to manage.
The merging of families can be an exciting adventure as well as a huge challenge. Creating a stepfamily is serious business and understanding some of the dynamics will help lead to a successful experience.
In this month’s Newsletter I write about stepfamilies and offer some tips on how to create a better stepfamily, be a better stepparent and have a better relationship with your partner.
I welcome your comments or q...
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Stepfamilies
Step or blended families are more normal nowadays than ever before.
Almost everyone knows someone who, after a divorce, meets someone new, falls in love and gets married again. More often than not one, if not both, of the new spouses has at least one child. Thus a stepfamily is created.
This trend is increasing. It is thought that today approximately half of the families in America are step rather than nuclear families.
This phenomenon has created new challenges in th...
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Tips For Stepfamily Success
Despite the many complexities of stepfamily life, there are certain principles that I believe are fundamental to its success.
Don’t rush the process: Take the time to understand and get more comfortable with what is going on in your new family without trying too hard to make things work. You can’t be perfect so don’t act as if you are. There will be mistakes made, especially at the beginning, so take it easy and don’t be too hard on yourself or others in your stepfamily....
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