Making Blended Family Home the Place to be

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It actually takes time to build a blended family since it requires also patience, information, understanding and a good plan. Knowing what you want for your blended family and understanding the challenges and pitfalls inherent the family life in order to achieve the best for your blended family goals.  Establishing positive connections between the step parents and step kids is one of the specific issues that make the blended family challenging.

Make certain you know and show support for the individual talents and interests of each family member. Praise effort as well as accomplishments; encourage creativity; celebrate differences. Work on your marital relationship so that your kids and step kids can learn how loving people deal with one another. Within your blended family, model conflict resolution; speak with considerate and kind words; deal immediately and effectively with disrespectful or abusive behavior, and keep arguments between you and your blended family partner fair and private. Develop a safe haven for children to grow in. People need acceptance, and your blended family home is the best and safest place for your kids to find it. Let your home be a place of unconditional love for everyone in your extended step family. Set aside at least an hour every day to spend with your blended family members. Take special care to set aside one-on-one time with bio kids at least once a week, to be sure your connection does not get lost in the mix.

Reasonable Efforts for Step Moms in Blended Family

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Most challenging jobs that women can have might be becoming a step mom. One of the people who is primarily responsible for managing the home is the blended family mother, which maintaining a loving relationship with her husband besides from looking after the step kids as well as her own biological children. Furthermore, she is also holding down an outside job. Therefore, she is in charge of everyone’s happiness.

Your ex-husband thinks threatened by the presence of your new husband in the life of his kids, and even in your life.  Both your step kids and your bio kids are battling in order to deal with their own feelings of their confusion, loss, and with the new step family dynamic. Becoming step siblings does not come naturally to either set of kids, and anger and resentment may be the only thing they have in mutual. Your in-laws, both present and past, are worried what your remarriage might mean regarding how often they get to see their grandkids, and how welcome they will be in the new step family setting.

There are many things included in the blended family that most step kids are having difficulties of. They normally suffer from their loss greatly and need guidance from their parents. Therefore, the love from your husband and remarriage will help you blended family to succeed and prosper. If you still don’t know where to begin, you can visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center for more information.

Challenges Comes with Step Parenting in a Blended Family

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Love has something more when you love again since it includes more children to your family as a mix. You are surely interested about building new blended family but having doubt about your role as a step parent if you will be doing great as well as acceptance from the step kids. Although parents have a wonderful role, it also includes ups and downs in the process. Blending two families can be difficult but you can make it as long as you have built a loving and caring relationship with your step kids.

It can be intimidating sometimes when it comes to raising a child that is not biologically from you. Being a step parent, you might as well encounter the feeling of being an outsider. You may come across questioning yourself also about your confidence and competence when it comes to the step parent role. Most of the step kids may consider you as the reason why their parent will not be back together again and also being jealous to the time their parent spent with you. You and your step family will actually wonder if all things will get better with such setup. The ex-spouse of your new partner might as well be worries about your way on treating the children especially when it comes to the influence to their children. So if you want to understand more of the details about step parenting, consider visiting The Blended and Step Family Resource Center for more valuable info.

Making your Own Kids like their Step Siblings

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Your kids now have step siblings due to the decision of you and your new spouse to brought children into their blended family. Normally, the hardest aspects for the children when living in a blended family is how to get them together closer and live together. It might take time for the step siblings to adjust in the situation especially when it comes to bringing the loving way even to the groundwork that has been laid by you and your new spouse.

A good way to provide help to your own children is to brief them about the coming changes from the blended family and make them accept their new step family situations. Depending to the ages and development factors of the kids, you can tell them more about the situation of having step siblings. You might as well consider this by doing it regularly. Also, being open is important to encourage them to speak with their feelings about their coming new brothers and sisters, which you can ask questions then about their new life and new family. This is essential to let your children accept their step siblings as well as their new step family.

There are really lots of things you need to make in order to make the relationship of the blended family meaningful or make the flows of the relationship great. And if you don’t know how, you can contact The Blended and Step Family Resource Center to get the necessary information for your step family.

About the Roles of Grandparents in Blended Family Occassions

Grandparents are normally left swinging in breeze when their child divorces especially when there is a child left in non-custodial parent. Normally in such cases, they missed the conventional family celebrations such as birthdays, Christmas, thanksgiving, Hanukah and many other occasions.

Grandparents still have the same role in the new step family but will be bigger especially when the new spouse has children or kids and reentered remarriage with his or her son or daughter. The life will be more improved and useful tool in making wonderful and pleasant relationship with your step grandchildren. The benefits children will earn more from the loving and caring grandparents that is normally immeasurable. You can also help your grandchildren to adjust to the new step family by supporting them to their roles. The first step to do this is to accept the step siblings with open arms and open heart.

If you want to be welcome or make yourself feel welcome to the new blended family, you must treat every member as if they are real family. You need to consider treating the step kids also as fair from your heart and from your mind. Without doing this will put the relationship of them to you or yours to uncomfortable situation which will make it hard to adjust for all of you. If you don’t know how to begin, you can go to The Blended and Step Family Resource Center and obtain the best advice from the website.

Birthdays and Special Holidays Arrangements in Blended Family

You and your ex-spouse may agree to the parenting arrangement that covers your kids in terms of their birthdays and holidays. This is a great decision since you have a plan for your kids and without having such plan will surely results to disappointments from your kids or arguments to your ex-spouse.

Conflict-free celebration is one of the best gifts that you can give to your kids when it comes to celebrating special days with them. You might as well want to consider about adjustments to the plan every time it is needed and not sticking to the old one. In essence, do not take it personally when your kids wanted to celebrate holidays with your ex-spouse. Think about the benefits of the kids from it even if the day is actually scheduled for you. Therefore, it is important to consider celebrating with them at another time that is parallel like such situation.

If you remember the days when living as one family, it is more necessary to perform more planning with step family when you compared. It is essential to communicate often with your kids and to your ex-spouse to avoid disappointments because timetables that are unworkable or misunderstood may cause more problems.

If you want to know more information about blended family and celebrating birthdays or holidays with your kids, you can visit the Blended and Step Family Resource Center. You can also check the advice offered at the website that will surely be useful for your situations.

Getting Blended Family Ready for New Traditions on Holidays

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Blended Family holidays

If you and your new spouse are going to spend the first holiday season together, then congratulations! Normally, this kind of gatherings helps the family to give it a special meaning and to strengthen the bond. It is a good time to consider doing the traditional holiday you’ve been doing before with your new blended family. However, there are some who consider holidays as a conflict and time to hurt feelings. But giving priority to your blended family is a best step to do and makes the step meaningful for you and to them.

Old and new traditions are an important

Being a parent of you own kids, you know how important holidays that are traditionally done by you and them and this is more important when it comes to your new blended family. As their new step parent, you are happy to share your tradition with holidays but you might want to consider also the side of your step kids on their thoughts about holidays. The best way to make it a meaningful and efficient to improve the bonds of the blended family is to let the step kids share their thoughts as well. This will make the holiday celebration not just happy but improves the closeness of your biological kids with their step brothers or step sisters.

Should you need more details about celebrating holidays with blended family, consider asking for advice to The Blended and Step Family Resource Center. This way, your step family and your own family will have a happy time together.

Blended Family is Normal Nowadays

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Possibilities for a blended or step family to be normal

Blended family is becoming more and more usual nowadays. More step parents and new blended family partners as well are looking for helps and information from their challenges that they are undergoing. In the past, blended family relies on the normal nuclear family ways of running the system especially on how well they are doing. Due to the help of website who provide support for blended family, comparing the details between blended family and nuclear family is much easier.

Losses in the blended family

Normally, blended family evolves from a loss family that leads to remarriages. All people involved had experienced the loss of their nuclear family. The feelings they possess now it what will happen to them and why they deserve such situation to happen on them. This is the instability results from their loss.

Gains in your step family

The widowed or divorced parents who normally find someone who they can share their life are somewhat fortunate. There are many possibilities from this kind of situations where they begin again to fall in love and making plans for a future just like the first time they did. A blended family is however involves family combinations from the remarriages of the parents and step parents wherein they consider it as an advantage for their kids.

If you need help for your step kids or looking for information about blended family advice, you can visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Learning How To Parent Your Blended Family

One of the most common things people enter remarriage is to contemplate it especially when they both have children from the previous relationship. They usually needs to compare the parenting styles of both sides to see If there are adjustments needed to be done by them as parents. There might be some time that will came to your mind questioning yourself why mess with something that seems to be working fine.

Different strokes

It makes you wonder how many of the things will work such as disciplines, television permissions, bed times, daily chore and many more when it comes to different family approach. It is better to get things settled sooner with your partner and your new blended family when it comes to the parenting philosophies. While discovering the difference between you and your partner when it comes to parenting, it is important not to judge each other since your goal is to make agreement fair in your new family systems.

Create house rules

It is essential to have or create rules written down in notebook as a rules and guidelines for the new blended family home. This is essential when it comes to the time that step kids need references in order to make suggestions. The share of the children is very important in this kind of situation so meeting both families before moving into one home is really crucial.

Should you need information about step family or blended family, you can go to The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Discipline Standards for Transparency and Reliability in Blended Family

For blended family with step children and step siblings who have been raised, there are different parenting philosophies and clear cut standards together with expectations can be the saving graces. One of the many essential talks you and your new blended family spouse will be the individual styles of parenting in the step family situations being faced.

Blended family guidelines, boundaries and consequences

The new family dynamic is one of the several things of changes that is inherent when forming and managing a blended family. The usual rules and systems in the past implemented by single parent might not work well with the new blended family settings especially when the step kids expects to responds to different parenting styles or when step siblings of different ages, personalities and needs are included. The time for the two of you needs to discuss guidelines and boundaries for your kids and your new step family home, most likely before combining both families. This will help the new step parent an early pass on any blame with changes.

Planning

Planning the time with your new partner to discuss about the important things from both sides as parents makes the blended family works well. Some of the considerations are to know what both family likes and what they don’t. This is important to prevent conflicts between the two families joined together.

If you need advice for blended family especially for your step family, you can visit or contact The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Happily Ever After Never Comes Easy for Blended Family

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The difficulty of stepfamily living is what makes many blended family fall since they are not prepared. Most people believe that lessons learned from your first marriage are enough in order to succeed with the remarriage. If you are already a parent, you assume that figuring out how to be a good step parent would be easy. Well, happily ever after is not given to such relationship easily.

Reality strikes in the step family

Stepfamilies are not very much like first families in the reality for many blended family couples especially if unprepared. The time generally allows the couple to enjoy being together especially to the building process of the relationship, which is normally before the children arrives.

Be prepared in your remarriage

The smart blended family couples normally see the potential of problems and do not get blindsided by the assumptions according to the Brady Bunch reruns on TV. They study the concepts of blended families that are successful and work at their marriages. They also know to overcome problems that may arise to their relationship as well as to their kids and able to surpass it. This is important to them especially to their step kids that expecting the problems will be ideal and make things much easier to resolve.

Should you need more info about blended family, you can do so by heading to the website of The Blended and Step Family Resource Center. Check out the website today and get to know the concepts of remarriage that can help you.

Investing Communication for Relationship of Blended Family

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The odds are against the blended family especially if you and your wife has been married and then divorced with children. In the US, the rates of divorces are about 45 percent for first marriages, which is frightening enough. The divorce rate for a blended family is over 60 percent up to 70 percent for third marriage blended families.

How to avoid being included to those percentages? First you must understand that relationship needs effort and time. It is easy to take your partner but the one you cherish and love for granted. As time goes by, you forget to appreciate the things that were once special. You forget to take effort and time to do the little things he or she loved for you to do. You forgot to have sex as often and even let it become a routine event for both of you. You stop being grateful for everyday that you are both together. Making sure your relationship gets the care it deserves is vital to both of you especially for stressors of blended family life.

Communication is key in a step family

Why there are things that make the relationship fail, without having communications will make the situation more badly. The problem with blended family relationships is that they both believe they have been there and seen the disasters. Therefore, having communication with your spouse is important to make things work well. If you need more advice, you can visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Review, reassess and revise blended family management plan

Stop, look and listen in your stepfamily

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Take time to notice how well your step kids and you are getting along, and how well you know and appreciate each other. Listen. Is there laughter in your step family household? Do you hear conversation that indicates considerate and caring personal interest in other family members? Is there spontaneous group activity or discussion? Is your relationship with your bio kids thriving? Do you spend enough one-on-one time with them?

Blended family meetings

Blended family meetings are a great way to review events of the summer, recognize milestones and celebrate accomplishments. They are also an excellent opportunity to perform a review of the rules of the household and have discussions about how they might be improved. As blended family members grow and develop new interests and obligations, so do needs and expectations.

What is negotiable in a blended family?

Like many issues in our lives, some blended family issues are fixed and not open to discussion; such as your blended family requirement that everyone be treated with consideration and respect. Other issues that remain constant might refer to the parental management partnership which runs each blended family household; step kids are always expected to respond to the advice or reprimands of a step parent in the same way they would respond to their own bio parent. Some values are non-negotiable.

If you need any additional assistance, check out the resources at The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Looking at summer’s end with your blended family

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Before you get entirely focused on returning to a school year schedule for your blended family, take some time to look back on how well the summer visitations went, the growing relationships between step siblings, your progress as a step parent in bonding with your step kids, and on the overall strength of your blended family unit.

Celebrate summer holiday

Let your visiting step kids know that their visit was valued and important to the blended family. If you made videos or took photos of their time with you, schedule a video or photo show of your summer vacation fun. 

Be grateful

Let your kids, both bio kids and step kids, know that your time together was valuable to you personally, to their step siblings, and to the entire blended family unit, and that you enjoyed being with them over the summer.

Get organized

Getting ready for the upcoming school year means shopping trips for clothes and school supplies and preparing visitation schedules. Having one master schedule showing school vacations, visitations, blended family birthdays and other special dates, and social or sporting events for the kids is very helpful in avoiding potential conflicts. 

Where is my book bag?

Your own relationship with the other parent of your children is an important indicator of how well your kids will manage their shift between houses under a visitation schedule. Helping kids and step kids keep track of their things as they travel back and forth between parental homes is easier if you and the other parents maintain a cooperative and collaborative relationship.

Looking forward

Summer vacation behind you at last, take a look at how well you and your spouse did over the summer in the management of your step family, and in the management of your own relationship. Remember, the strength and stability of your relationship is vital to the success of your blended family unit. Why not plan a special night out, just the two of you, to celebrate? Visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center for more information.

You are not the boss of me!

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Many step parents hear this refrain, or another version of it, from time to time: You can’t tell me what to do! You are not the boss of me! Yikes. Such indignation! Such bravado! Such significance!

Preparing for blended family step parenthood

You knew that a child is more likely to accept discipline or consequences from his or her own parent than from a step parent, so you discussed who would take the lead in which circumstances, especially when it came to disciplining your own bio kids.

The best laid plans of mice and men….

You agreed that as a couple, you would be the leaders of your blended family, understanding that without your strong, loving and trusting relationship as its foundation, managing a step family in a way that supports shared goals and mutual respect could be very difficult indeed, if not impossible. Your assertion that step kids dislike being corrected or disciplined by a step parent was right on.

I trust you with my kid

A trusting relationship requires that each parent knows their partner is capable of parenting a step child. Your child. If, for some reason, either of you are afraid the other might not measure up to the needs of a child, it is time to talk about it. Dialogue about such pressing matters need to be undertaken in a serious way, with both partners open to the discussion and able to put the focus where it belongs: on the welfare of the child.

Revisit the house rules

The roles of the children, step kids and bio kids alike, are to grow and to learn. Your roles as parents are to lead by loving example, lead by direction, and lead by consistency. If your combined children do not know beyond any doubt that you two are in charge, together, unified, and indivisible, you need to correct the misunderstanding.

How can you respond the next time your step kid hits you with you are not the boss of me?  Say, well, yes I am. And I am happy to be one of the people in charge in your life because I care about you and because I care about this family. For more information, visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Co-parenting and joint custody in an extended blended family

A blended family has more members than we sometimes acknowledge, so it may be helpful now and then to take a renewed look at your extended family structure. A successful blended family makes accommodations with an ex-spouse and his or her new partner, and understanding how much they impact kids who spend time at their home in a joint custody arrangement.

Making co-parenting and joint custody work

An amicable co-parenting and joint custody partnership with your ex-spouse is one of the most important relationships you can cultivate. When both parents set aside their own personal issues and put them first, children gain a kind of stability and self-worth that is hard to match.

Co-parenting after a divorce and marriage

After your divorce and remarriage, the only relationship you have with your ex-spouse is that of co-parents of your children. It can help to begin thinking of the relationship as something completely new, something quite outside of you and your ex-spouse.

Co-parenting is the best option for your children

When you and your ex-spouse work together in cooperation for their benefit, your kids see that they are more important than whatever conflict ended the marriage. They can understand that your love for them will prevail, no matter what.

If your ex-spouse has also remarried

You deserve and expect consideration and respect for your role as a step parent to the biological children of your new blended family partner. Likewise, your consideration and respect for your ex-spouse’s new partner is called for, as well.

Enlist your partner’s help

Co-parenting with someone you wish you never had to see again is not easy, and it can sometimes take its toll in tension and exasperation. Keep personal issues with your ex-spouse away from your children and never, ever say negative things to them about your ex.

For more information on how to keep and strengthen your blended family, visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Blended family couples struggle against the odds

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Blended family success rates are struggling to keep up with the failure rates. Second marriages end in divorce at an higher rate than first marriages do. How can we avoid repeating the same disillusionment and pain? These tips may help you and your blended family partner keep from falling into those couple traps that lead to poor relationship dynamics.

Give your relationship the respect it deserves. If you think that shifting your main focus away from your spouse and onto the children will help the situation, you do everyone a disservice. Your strong relationship is the glue that keeps your blended family together. Work together in a conscious effort to build a relationship of mutual respect and understanding.

Be safe. No matter what one person says in anger, you both agree that your marriage and your relationship will stay secure. If one of you is hesitant to speak their mind for fear of reaction or threats of divorce, your safety zone has been breached.

Fight fair. The first rule of fair fighting is, of course, no physical violence-ever. The second rule is, fight only about the subject at hand, without dragging out other complaints, too. Keeping things as cool as possible is always a good goal, and throwing new and old issues around like darts is never cool.

Forget about the small stuff. Learn how to distinguish between big problems and little ones. In the category of big problems you will tend to see things like health, financial security, welfare of the children, fidelity, and such.

Life has stress and strains, and so what? If you wish to know more about keeping it together as a blended family couple, contact The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Step parenting roles for step moms and step dads

Being a step mom or a step dad is a hard job, no doubt about it. Chances are you came into this step parent position with little or no training for it. When you come right down to it, few of us looked into the future to see ourselves as step parents!

Suggestions for step parent role limits

Children of divorce and remarriage benefit from close ties to both bio parents, and you can help by encouraging them to work things out for the benefit of the kids while you stand back. Oh, you still hold an important position in your step family, to be sure. You need to be the person who is objective, fair, kind, and accepting of your spouse and of the children, no matter what else is happening. Your step kids have likely been navigating between battling parents for quite some time, and they can probably use a bit of stability and calm from you.

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Their parents probably can, too. You can help with that. You can support your spouse and his or her parenting goals by presenting a united stand with your step kids. You might advocate for a different approach now and then if you feel you must, and not appear to be taking sides if you are open and honest and above all, fair.

If your  step kids have lost their other parents, either through death or by absence, your step parent role increased, buy your main role is to support your spouse as he or she parents her children. Until your step kids have fully accepted you in a parental role, you are relegated to the equally significant and reputable role as partner to their bio parent.

Parenting is difficult. Step parenting is harder. But when step parents approach the role in the same way parents do, by doing what is best for the children  and for the blended family, everyone benefits. For more information on keeping blended family relationships, visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.

Blended family summer bonding activities

Whenever you find something that everyone likes to do together such as going to the beach or the pool, outdoor activities like softball or lawn darts, going for drives , to the movies, theme parks, camping, visiting relatives; any or all of these might be something your family is looking forward to doing this summer.

Family game days

If your blended family ground rules prohibit overuse of electronic equipment, offer alternative activities. You might like to set up a scavenger hunt for the step siblings in your stepfamily. These hunts might be limited to the house and yard, or you may feel comfortable sending off teams or pairs of step siblings to find and carry home the items on their scavenger lists.

You may want to check online for ideas of free family computer games that are appropriate for your step family. It really does not matter whether you and your step family enjoy monopoly, checkers or a fast-action computer game together. What matters is that you enjoy doing something together. Having fun together builds bonds and memories.

Share laughter

Sharing a laugh is among the best bonding activities a blended family can have, so take advantage of every opportunity to share a laugh with your step family members. Building a blended family based on shared laughter and enjoyment of each other makes for bonds that endure.

Step family group projects

The most important project for step family summers is to enjoy being together. Whatever you do as a blended family, make it satisfying for everyone, make it family-focused, and make it fun. Although step kids may not spend their entire summer vacation with you, make time for a project; something that takes planning, execution, and has a definite accomplishment factor so you can celebrate it together. A blended family that plays together stays together. For more information on strengthening blended family relationships, visit The Blended and Step FamilyResource Center.

Step parenting just one crew of kids is not so easy

A blended family consisting of one parent, kids, and a step parent has some advantages over a blended family with two sets of kids, but that is not to say things are easier. 

The outsider

In a perfect world, each new blended family should move into a home entirely new to everyone, but in many cases that is just not feasible. Moving into the home of your marital predecessor can be difficult, but a considerate and empathetic partner can encourage you to make the kinds of changes you need to feel more comfortable. Stepping into former spouse territory will likely be easier, though, than stepping into the space of your step kids’ other parent.

Step moms and other starring roles

Some step moms do consider auditioning for the role of Big Sister, or Best Friend, but luckily are often rebuffed. Luckily, your step kids need your role to be that of step mom, in partnership with their dad.  Put your energy into being the kind of step mom who loves their dad, treats them with loving kindness and consideration, and expects to be treated with respect.

Step dad, Pal, or Captain Obedience?

No matter whether your step kids need a friend, need to show more respect for their mother, or need a splash of reality in their lives, what they need most is that you love and respect their mother and treat them fairly.

Rules and discipline

Mutual respect should always be first and foremost on the list, especially for communications between step kids and their step parents. There may be times when people do not agree, but they can be perfect times to model the skill of disagreeing without being disagreeable.

Love

Love usually takes time, especially if you are met with suspicion or outright hostility. Try not to feel guilty about it, and concentrate on getting to know your step kids, without expectations or judgment. In the beginning, it is enough to know that your partner expects you to try. It may help to think of love as something that is not earned, but something that is given away unreservedly.

If you feel like an outsider in your blended family, give it time. Let your step kids get to know your. Take care that you give credit for something well done, use restraint in advice or correction, and be open to every opportunity. You might be surprised to know that it is worth the effort. For more information regarding step parenting, visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center.