When children who previously had their own rooms are forced to share, this can be especially problematic. Create dividers in a shared bedroom with curtains or inventive re-arrangements of the furniture. Also provide them with somewhere to put their special belongings — a box or drawer that is respected by other family members as a private no-go zone.
All children test boundaries, and discipline is a challenge for parents at the best of times, but in blended families imposing limits can be especially tricky. The younger family members need to know that rules will be consistently and fairly applied, by both adults, to all children in the family.
Overcoming Challenges In Blended Families
To help encourage a consistent approach, take time to openly discuss your parenting values with your new partner. Talk about those taken-for-granted beliefs you have about family life: Highlight any areas in which you and your partner share different beliefs and try to compromise on some clear family rules which you agree with all family members.
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Although these rules need to be consistent, they should also be flexible; review them from time to time and adjust them as children get older. Remember that a peak of difficult behaviour is normal when blended families initially set up a home together. Be patient and things will gradually improve. Children crave individual attention, and regular time alone with your child is crucial if you are to maintain a close and open relationship with them and help support them through the changes they are facing.
Make sure that you and your partner schedule in regular time alone with each of your own children.
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A walk or drive in the car can be great for catching up and reconnecting. Time alone with your partner is also crucial. When couples move in together they normally spend a lot of time building their relationship. However, for couples with children, this often gets overlooked. There will be clashes of opinion, hurt feelings, frustrations and bickering. A great way of avoiding simmering resentment is to arrange regular family meetings. Take it in turns to chair the meeting and avoid interruptions and shouting with the pass the stone technique: There is only one stone, so only one person talks at once.
Try to adopt a solution-focused approach in which the aim is to identify practical strategies for avoiding problems in the future. Encourage your children to think of ideas — you will be surprised at the creativity and maturity children show when given the chance to solve their own problems. Divorce - helping the kids to cope Around , children each year are affected by their parents splitting up.
9 Strategies For Making A Blended Family Blend | HuffPost
So what can be done to help them to cope? Stepfamilies and how to survive them! Stepfamilies are becoming increasingly common.
But while adults may see the creation of a stepfamily as something positive — the beginning of something joyful — their children may see it as the final nail in the coffin for their parents ever getting back together. With these very different agendas, how can you make sure your stepfamily works as well as it possibly can? There are millions of stepfamilies in the UK, but because of the tendency of children to stay with their mother after a relationship breaks up, over 80 percent of them consist of a natural mother and a stepfather.
Kelvin Wright is one of those Step-dads. Divorce and discipline - how to stop matters getting out of hand: If their Mum and Dad are having relationship problems or going through a divorce it can bumpstart bad behaviour in children of all ages — but you can head off tantrums, aggression and backchat if you work as a team and reach a compromise when it comes to discipline.
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The Common Ground Technique: Families - even ones where parents are no longer together - need to work as one for the sake of their children. But you know what they say about plans. First, I lost my job a month before the move. Second, even though we only have custody of our kids 50 percent of the time, it was summer and we were all on top of each other in a very small house.
How to Bond with Your Stepchildren and Deal with Stepfamily Issues
The shopping, cooking, laundry, dishes and errands suddenly tripled. I was freelancing and trying to find a new job but even with a sitter helping, I was flailing. My husband does as much as is humanly possible, but has very long workdays. All four of our kids were becoming true teenagers -- rude to each other and to us. They furiously boycotted the blended family counseling. Eventually my husband and I -- who had always been on the same page about kid and family matters -- started arguing a lot.
So we undid it. And life now looks pretty much the way it did before we got married. What's the best thing about being part of a blended family? Even if the kids are complaining or arguing, they pretty much always choose to be together rather than apart. And for me, a huge perk has been being blessed with these two awesome girls who like hairstyling, nail art and makeup. Lauren is a master hair-braider, and Caitlin gives me pedicures and does makeup.
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I had been completely deprived of girly stuff having a son. What makes you proudest of your family? The kids and their resilience. And they have another type of resilience that surprises my husband and me every time: They can be really nasty to each other and fighting one minute, and the next, you see them huddled together on the couch looking at something on Instagram or dashing out the door shrieking with laughter. How do you deal with stress in your household?
Just kidding sort of. And my husband and I breathe, reconnect and recharge. Though both of us would rather things were different and we could have our kids full-time, I think the breaks sometimes make us better parents. What's your best advice for blended families struggling to keep the peace? What they need most from you, and what endures after they go, is a good marriage, so do whatever it takes to keep yours strong.