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INTRODUCTION

This is a book about step-parenting. It is also a book about cooperation, understanding, teamwork, forgiveness, accountability and love.

This book is for you:

•If you are already a step-parent, or you are soon to become one

•If you are a biologic parent who is about to remarry or has remarried

•If you have been happily married but experienced the untimely death of your spouse and have now decided to remarry.

We have tried to exclude no one. Whether you are in an orthodox or unorthodox family structure, if the circumstances that have brought you to our book include the goal of successfully blending your new family, whether you have ever parented or never parented before, we have the compass to guide you on the road to happy and successful step-parenting.

This book covers 8 Strategies designed to help you create a realistic vision of who you are, and where you would like to be within your new “blended family”—a term that applies to the combination of children and adults from previous marriages, but also includes all other pertinent members of the prior family unit who will continue to impact the current family. These individuals include grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, close family friends and even the family dog; in other words, any person (or pet) who has played an integral role in the lives of the children, and who will continue to be important in their lives.

Each chapter will build upon the previous ones, incorporating questions such as:

•Are my expectations realistic?

•Can I achieve them?

•What type of emotional support can I expect from my spouse?

•What is the significance of each person’s role in the new family dynamics?

Your relationship to your partner’s former spouse (or your partner’s relationship to your former spouse) will be addressed, since this person is integral to the confusion around, and the solution to, much of the turmoil surrounding your step-children’s behavior, and how this turmoil can be lessened.

8 Strategies for Successful Step-Parenting especially recognizes the importance of your role as a step-parent, and the sacrifices you have chosen to make in order to successfully blend your new family. As with any endeavor, there will be some bumps in your journey. Throughout the book, we will stress the importance of asking for assistance when you come up against a major roadblock or a “Dead End.” We believe there is a resolution to every problem, and will offer guidance as you confront your difficulties head-on, and find the joy you initially envisioned when you agreed to become a step-parent.

Vignettes of thirty-one families and individuals are included throughout the book. These are based on the true experiences of our clients (modified to protect identity), and hopefully will serve to clarify each of the strategies presented here. Although these stories may not be specific to your predicaments, they will surely highlight aspects of a situation you have gone through alone, or issues that you too have misunderstood. Your circumstances are unique to your family, but we trust that all our readers have the common denominator of wanting things to be better. And we know they can be!

Step-parenting is serious business that can be enormously rewarding both to you and your step-children. This book will assist you in gaining insight and understanding into your own expertise with relationships and parenting, as well as with the hidden pitfalls that can hamper the success of any blended family. It is written not only for those individuals who are step-parents, but also for the biological parent-partners whose guidance, input and support is vital to the cohesiveness of the family unit. Both of you need to work hand in hand in a true partnership, but this good intention is often misdirected unless both partners are given ample information.

We have organized a wealth of experience into these eight necessary step-parenting strategies. A strategy is a plan of action to pave the road as you attain your goals. Every goal is unique and completely within your grasp. Enjoy your journey!

What This Book Will Cover

Strategy #1: Know Who You Are: Take A Personal Inventory will address the foundational issues of:

•Defining your new role for yourself

•Learning more about yourself

•Assessing your potential strengths and weaknesses as a step-parent.

Here we will encourage you to awaken your senses as you sample our Personal Inventory, Sentence Completion Assignment.

We created this tool to help you gain insight as you become acquainted with your true self.

Strategy #2: Examine Your Expectations deals with various issues ranging from dating to marriage. These include:

•Assessing realistic and unrealistic expectations

•What to do when children say they “hate” the new partner

•How to deal with feelings of disloyalty toward biologic children

•Incorporating honesty as a foundation within the family

•Juggling your roles of intimate partner and new stepparent.

Questions addressed in this chapter include:

•When to tell your child about a new partner

•What to expect when you meet your partner’s children for the first time

•How to separate prior biologic parenting skills from your new role as step-parent

•How to gain confidence when you don’t have prior parenting skills

•How to identify and separate positive feelings for children from negative assessment of their behavior.

Strategy #3: Use the Hierarchy Ladder: A Short Course in Family Dynamics shows you how to cope with step-parenting challenges while keeping your marriage fresh and your household under control. These action steps include:

•Understanding the family hierarchy

•Appreciating the timing in family dynamics

•Drafting and using a Behavior-Consequence Chart

•Prioritizing which issues should always be enforced

•Establishing protection for each member of your family.

Strategy #4: “Make Nice” With the Former Spouse deals with difficult issues that may arise between you and the former spouse. We know it is challenging to deal with insecurities arising from jealousy or intimidation; and we know it is vital to establish a relationship of open and honest communication with the former spouse, in order to help step-children bridge the gap.

This chapter offers pro-active advice and answers questions like: When should I call attention to the different parenting philosophies in each home?

Strategy #5: Create a Parenting Partnership will emphasize that your parent-partner’s job cannot be minimized. This chapter offers advice to encourage and applaud parent-partner support, and will help you identify those behaviors (in yourself and your partner) that need modification as you transition into your roles. It addresses such questions as:

•What gender differences relate to parenting expectations?

•Why do men and women communicate differently?

•How do my preconceived expectations sabotage my new partner’s role?

Strategy #6: Respect the Past as You Create the Future. With this chapter you will be well on your way to tossing out old insecurities and embracing both old and new memories. We will also consider:

•The importance of blending traditions, and incorporating religious differences

•Finding room for old and new family photographs

•Wedding day plans that respect all parties

•Housing arrangements for all types of blended families, including residential and non-residential children

•Honoring extended family members.

Strategy #7: Never Underestimate Your Importance! is about appreciating your importance in the family. This chapter is our favorite section of the book. It contains one woman’s true story as she learns the meaning of the love of a step-parent. In it, she attempts to complete unfinished business, writing a eulogy to her beloved step-father on the first anniversary of his untimely death.

Read this story any time, and many times, particularly when you need encouragement in this challenging task of step-parenting.

Strategy #8: Get the Help You Need deals with difficult issues that may arise for even the most well-intentioned step-parents—issues that you can’t or shouldn’t deal with alone. What if you are unable to bond with your step-children? What if you decide to terminate your marriage? What if your children are seriously suffering?

This chapter also contains a Resource Guide that you can refer to all along the way. Here you will find helpful books, websites, and numbers to call for counseling help.

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As therapists, we have worked with families just like yours for more than twenty-seven years. Aside from 8 Strategies to Successful Step-Parenting, we have also written In The Best Interest of the Child,A Manual for Divorcing Parents and You Don’t Know Anything, A Manual for Parenting Your Teenager. Our intimate involvement with our clients have offered us a hands-on approach to the process of well-balanced step-parenting dynamics, not only from the perspective of blending strangers into bonded relationships, but in recognizing the importance of the former partners and their impact either positively or negatively on the blended family. We are confident that we are able to assist you to gain confidence and control just as we have helped other step-parents and families to do the same.

We want you to succeed, and with very little effort, you will. Regardless of your own unique situation, each of you brings valuable experiences to the table. You have been raised with philosophies that may resemble others’ on the surface, but underneath you have a treasure-trove of experiences, talents, memories, and wisdom that have been handed down for generations within your family. As a new or prospective step-parent, each of you, regardless of your talents and experiences, feels apprehension, anxiety, and concern that you are undertaking a new role for which you are not fully prepared. This is square one! Regardless of wealth, education, family background or wishful thinking, we all begin with little more than a firm intention. Whether we are employed by a five-star company or are temporarily unemployed makes no essential difference to our step-children; what does matter is our genuine desire to be a loving, contributing member of this family. Step-parenting is as fundamentally different and equally as rewarding as anything you have ever done, or will ever do again.

On a more personal note, we (Nadir and Laurie) also share a blended family; ours is comprised of a single man without children married to a mother of four children. We have experienced first hand the triumphs and the disappointments that come with venturing into the uncharted territory of this unique parenting situation. This allows us to offer you not only professional but also personal advice that has worked both with our clients and in our own blended family. These strategies will work for you too.