7 Tips to Help Your Step Family
Step families are growing in numbers. In fact, more people today live in step families than in nuclear families. I (Yshai) became part of a step-family as a pre-adolescent and I know first hand the difficulty of making the adjustment as a teen. These types of families can be confusing and tricky for parent, step-parent and child alike. Some things that work with nuclear families don’t work in step-families. If you’re part of a step-family we hope that this article helps validate some of your experiences, clarifies your role and offers some useful ideas to help things run a bit smoother.
Stuck On The Ouside- Heather’s experience
I love my husband, Mike, so much. I feel like we have a real connection that is much healthier than my previous marriage. I desperately want to connect with his kids but I don’t know how. His thirteen year-old daughter, Julie, treats me like dirt. Unless she wants something from me I’m ignored. If I show the slightest bit of irritation I get glared at and dismissed even more. I feel like I can’t win. I get jealous over Mike and Julie’s relationship. They have such a tight bond and I just want to feel like part of the family. It’s like I’m an outsider looking in and it hurts. I feel selfish but I don’t know what to do about it.
Stuck On The Inside- Mike’s experience
I wish my daughter and wife could get along better and be close. I constantly tell Julie that she needs to respect Heather because she’s a good person who cares about her. But for some reason, this seems to make Julie even more upset. I know Heather gets jealous of my relationship with Julie but I don’t know what to do about that and I feel stuck in the middle a lot of the time. I don’t know how to make everyone happy.
The Loyalty Trap- Julie’s experience
This sucks! It was hard enough getting over my parent’s divorce, now I’m supposed to just embrace Heather like she’s my mom or something? I don’t know why but she just irritates me. I miss the way things were when it was just my dad and I. I see them acting so happy together and it makes me angry and sad. I wish my mom and dad were still together. I know I’m hard on Heather but I refuse to be disloyal to my mom.
Each one of these three perspectives is valid which is why being in a step-family presents a difficult bind for everyone involved. If these unique challenges and dilemmas aren’t handled in the right way, it can lead to a lot of avoidable pain and acting out.
Consider the following tips to help your step-family replace these built in challenges with more openness, communication and joy:
1. Give your teen time to transition. It’s unlikely that your child will be able to accept this change as quickly as you. Keep in mind that you’ve had a lot more time to get used to the idea of having a significant other in your life. Be patient with your child’s process which may be much slower than you’d like.
2. Discipline issues need to come from the parent. If as a step-parent, you’re put in an unavoidable position of having to set a limit, make sure that you’re going through the parent. Try saying things like, “you’re dad said that...” or “I’m not comfortable with you doing that but let’s talk with your mom about it when she gets home.” As a parent, it’s essential that you don’t check out and throw the step-parent under the bus by putting them in the position of being the “bad cop”.
3. Rely on gradual and bite sized moments. As a step-parent, be patient, don’t try to build a relationship all at once and don’t try too hard. If a teen perceives you pushing caring too much or sucking up, they’ll question your motives and trust you even less. 30 seconds here, five minutes there. If your feelings have been hurt, it’s important to say so but don’t expect an apology in return.
4. Affirm the other parent. A major dilemma for many teens is the belief that embracing their step-parent would be disloyal to their other parent. As your child’s parent, you can help mitigate this by affirming the other parent as having a permanent place in your child’s heart that can never go away or be replaced.
5. Don’t prioritize the parent/step-parent relationship over the relationship with your child. For most kids, particularly older ones, seeing their parent with another partner is incredibly painful. It’s very important that the child knows that their parent is still going to be there for them 100 percent. The more the child feels like their parent is continuing to prioritize their needs the more likely they are to embrace the new relationship and partner.
6. Don’t pathologize your teen if they’re acting out. There’s a very good chance that any acting out on the part of your teen has more to do with their difficulty adjusting to the changes in the family than anything else. Labeling them as manipulative, having anger problems, being lazy or anything else will only further isolate them from the myriad feelings they’re struggling to figure out. The changes that come within the family structure after divorce can be very difficult for teens to adjust to. As they figure out how to cope with the many complicated feelings they’re having, they may make some poor choices.
7. Figure out how to be positive about your child’s other parent. You may feel that your ex is awful, selfish and inconsiderate, however, this is irrelevant to your child. They’ll find out the truth and make their own decisions when they’re older. For now, you must accept that your child cares about their other parent in a deep way and they need to know that you support and value that relationship. It may help to remember that despite how poorly things worked out in the marriage, your former spouse adores the children just as much as you do. For the sake of your child, you must swallow your pride and let go of the past. It’s damaging for children to hear negative things about their other parent and healing for children to see respect and kindness between their divorced parents.
The Brady Bunch, while fun and entertaining was a far cry from reality. While step-families do come with unique challenges, research shows that children can be just as successful and happy in these environments. But they are very different than nuclear families and therefore require a unique approach. Each member of your family has different and complex challenges and obstacles to manage. By being honest, open and thoughtful with one another you’ll be able to turn the pain of the past into a present filled with comfort and understanding.