Today’s Great Giveaways!
#1 – THE SENSATIONAL SCENT OF PRAYER By: Rachel Wojnarowski
One year of Bible study.
One summer of Bible teaching.
One ebook: “The Sensational Scent of Prayer.”
#2 - ECCLESIASTES: UNDERSTANDING WHAT MATTERS MOST By: Stephanie Shott
It’s time to stop just thinking about eternity and begin living for it.
Sit at Solomon’s feet for 6 weeks and learn how to live for eternity even when the pile of laundry seems to be blocking your view. Understanding What Matters Most-Making here and now count for then and there.
#3 – Magical Mouse Schoolhouse: Learn While You Play at Disney World Resort By: Jodi Whisenhunt
With MAGICAL MOUSE SCHOOLHOUSE: Learn While You Play at Walt Disney World Resort, children and their parents can think outside the textbook and stretch the walls of the home classroom with Walt Disney entertainment. Have you ever watched Tinker Bell light the nightly fireworks at Magic Kingdom Park? Learn about her magical glow and measure luminescence using glow-in-the-dark objects. Have you ever ridden Dumbo the Flying Elephant? Build a paper airplane with an elephant’s proportions and learn about aviation.
HOW TO ENTER: SUBSCRIBE TO WEBSITE, COMMENT ON BLOG, SHARE FB POSTS, TWEET, RETWEET & COMMENT ON BLOG (NEW SUBSCRIBERS WILL RECEIVE OUR NEW BOOK,FACING OUR FEARS – 31 STORIES FROM M.O.M.)
BLENDED FAMILY
I loved watching The Brady Bunch. Somehow it conjured up my idea of a perfect family. A happily married couple with three boys and three girls. For a little girl whose family remained intact until I was seventeen, I didn’t consider how that cute sitcom may have majorly minimized what really happens behind closed doors in a blended family.
I didn’t have a clue how inharmonious a home can be when trying to blend two completely different families into one. Perhaps The Brady Bunch left us thinking that Alice would make everything better with the help of the local butcher and some fresh-baked brownies. Or maybe it shed some light on the American reality of broken and blended homes.
But is that how the blended family life looks in real life? Does the meshing of two families into one happen as easily as writing ‘happily-ever-after’ into a script?
We all know real life isn’t as neatly laid out as a 30 minute television show. Even reality shows lose the ‘real’ in the midst of the story-line.
Occasionally, the blending of two families is like maneuvering a few puzzle pieces around until they slip into place. It may take a little effort, but it’s a fit.
Unfortunately, that’s not normally the case.
Most blended families find themselves entering uncharted territory without knowing what course to follow, what to expect along the way and without a planned destination. It’s not easy when there is no ‘one’ route that works for every family.
And since we can’t paint every family with the same brush, it’s important to consider the variables, the similarities and the goals.
THE VARIABLES:
Every family is different. The dynamics of each family that comes together to form one is different. Defining some of those differences will help prevent scripted advice to try to solve all blended family woes. Here are some variables to consider when you are entering into a blended family, part of a blended family or trying to encourage a blended family…
- The ages of the children when their mom or dad became a single parent
- How their mom or dad became a single parent (death or divorce)
- What the children went through while both parents were together (was physical, sexual or emotional abuse involved, or was it a long and nasty divorce?)
- How long the parent was single
- How old the children are when the single parent begins dating
- How often the single parent dates and what types of people he/she is dating
- How much exposure the children have to the potential future spouse (and step-parent)
- How focused the single parent is on getting remarried (does remarriage seem more important than parenting)
- How old the children are when the single parent remarries
Each of these are important variables to consider. Each of them explain why, when it comes to “How to Have a Happy Blended Family,” there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. These variables are also helpful for parents entering into the relationship to consider so that they can not only be prepared for some challenges they may face but also to begin undergirding the future relationship of the family with what is necessary for each family member involved.
SIMILARITIES FOR SUCCESSFUL STEP-FAMILIES:
Each family is different and navigating the issues of the past and establishing a solid foundation for the future will look different based on some of the variables mentioned above. We may not be able to paint every family with the same brush, but there are some similarities that can be found in successful blended families. Here are a few:
- The foundation of the family is their faith in God and commitment to live according to His Word
- Respect for all members of the family, including the children’s biological parents
- Their ability to love well (a great help is to use 1 Corinthians 13 as a filter for the way you love)
- Unity – That the parents (all parents) make a decision to be united in parenting
- Patience – Not only in the moment but for the long haul, patience to understand that change takes time, especially when intense emotions are involved
- Reasonable expectations are necessary for the family to begin to mesh well
- Give each other space when needed
- Fun – Be very intentional about having fun together
There are many other similarities that are characteristic of the development of a successful step-family, but these are some essentials.
FAMILY GOALS:
You’ve heard it said that if you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time. Parenting (whether in a blended family or not) should be approached with goals in mind. When a blended family is seeking to homogenize it is important that they set some family goals in order to fortify the unity of the family. Families who dream and plan together tend to remove their focus from their difference and set their attention on doing things together.
- Plan a family vacation together and plan how you all can start earning money for the vacation
- Family movie nights (weekly, biweekly or monthly – gives the family something to look forward to together)
- Family game nights and family days at the park
- Children setting goals to make a specific grade and others in the family helping that child
- Saving money for college (both the parents and the kids)
- Building an addition on the house like a game room or patio
- Remodeling the kids’ rooms
- Gardening as a family
- Raising a service dog
There are a slew of wonderful goals you can set as a family depending on your own personal family dynamics are. But the goal is to set goals together so as you pursue those goals together, togetherness happens.
Being in a blended family is seldom easy. Sometimes it may seem like there are bumps in the road every step of the way. But it is important to remember that when parents enter into a new relationship, the children are pulled into it, ready or not. Parents have the overwhelming task of planting seeds of love and security in the hearts of their children while maintaining respect for their need to maintain a vital relationship with their non-custodial parents.
Sweet mom, your family may not look like The Brady Bunch, but if you’re in a blended family, you are not alone. There is help. Here are a few resources that can help shed light on your journey:
Winning the Heart of Your Stepchild by Bob Barnes
In Step With Your Stepchildren by Karen O’Connor
Are you a blended family struggling to blend? Have you considered some of the things mentioned above? Have you tried some things that have worked to bring unity in your home?
We’re linked up with Time-warped Wife today!
As a step and biological Mom, and the author of a book on stepfamilies which included not only my own experience but research with stepfamily authorities and other stepfamilies, I am aware, all to often, of the high rate of divorce among these families.
One reason is that there are no understood guidelines for these families. Society tends to apply the rules of first marriages, while ignoring the complexities of stepfamilies.
A little clarification: In a stepfamily the child(ren) is of one co-parent; in a blended family, there are children from both co-parents; and, virtually all family members have recently experienced a primary relationship loss.
The Landmines
Three potential problem areas are: Financial burdens, Role ambiguity, and the Children’s Negative Feelings when they don’t want the new family to “work.”
Husbands sometimes feel caught between the often impossible demands of their former family and their present one. Some second wives also feel resentful about the amount of income that goes to the husband’s first wife and family.
Legally, the stepparent has no prescribed rights or duties, which may result in tension, compromise, and role ambiguity.
Another complication of role ambiguity is that society seems to expect acquired parents and children to instantly love each other. In reality, this is often just not the case.
The third reason for a difficult stepparent-child relationship might be that a child does not want this marriage to work, and so, acts out with hostility, since children commonly harbor fantasies that their biological parents will reunite. Stepchildren can prove hostile adversaries, and this is especially true for adolescents.
Stepmother Anxiety
Clinicians say that the role of stepmother is more difficult than that of stepfather, because stepmother families may more often be born of difficult custody battles and/or particularly troubled family relations. Society is also contradictory in expecting loving relationships between stepmothers and children while, at the same time, portraying stepmothers as cruel and even abusive (Snow White, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel are just a few bedtimestories we are all familiar with).
Stepfather Anxiety
Men who marry women with children come to their new responsibilities with a mixed bag of emotions, far different from those that make a man assume responsibility for his biological children. A new husband might react to an “instant” family with feelings which range from admiration to fright to contempt.
The hidden agenda is one of the first difficulties a stepfather runs into: The mother or her children, or both, may have expectations about what he will do, but may not give him a clear picture of what those expectations are. The husband may also have a hidden agenda.
A part of the stepchildren’s hidden agenda is the extent to which they will let the husband play father.
The key is for everyone to work together.
The husband, wife, their stepchildren, and their non-custodial biological parent can all negotiate new ways of doing things by taking to heart and incorporating the information you are about to learn—the most positive alternative for everyone.
One Day at a Time
Now you have a pretty good feel for what everyone is going through. How do you start to make it better — a process that can take years? First you must be very clear about what you want and expect from this marriage and the individuals involved, including yourself. What are you willing to do? In a loving and positive way, now is the time to articulate, negotiate, and come to an agreement on your expectations and about how you and your partner will behave.
The best marriages are flexible marriages, but how can you be flexible if you do not know what everyone needs right now. And, this may change over time, so there must be room for that to happen as well.
In flexible marriages partners are freer to reveal the parts of their changing selves that no longer fit into their old established patterns. You couldn’t possibly have known at the beginning of your new family what you know now and will learn later.
Spouses may feel the “conflict taboo” even more than in a first marriage. It is understandable that you want to make this marriage work. You might feel too “battle-scarred” to open “a can of worms.” And so, you gloss over differences that need airing and resolution—differences over which you may not have hesitated to wage war in your first marriage. Avoiding airing your differences is a serious mistake. It is important for you to understand your own and your partner’s needs because society hasn’t a clue how stepfamilies should work. Unless you talk about your expectations, they are likely to be unrealistic.
Living Well
Since roughly one third of stepfamilies do survive—even thrive—we know that stepfamilies can grow the safety, support, and comfort that only healthy families provide. Consider the following for living your step/blended family life well:
You must assess, as a couple, how well you accept and resolve conflicts with each other and key others. Learn and steadily work to develop verbal skills: listen with empathy, effectively show your needs, and problem-solve together. The emotional highs of new love can disguise deep disagreement on parenting, money, family priorities, and home management, i.e., values that will surface after the wedding.
Together, accept your prospective identity as a normal, unique, multi-home stepfamily. You need to admit and resolve strong disagreements, well enough for positive results.
You must balance and co-manage all of these tasks well enough on a daily basis to: build a solid, high-priority marriage; enjoy your kids; and, to keep growing emotionally and spiritually as individual people.
Know and take comfort in the fact that confidant stepfamily adult teams (not simply couples), can provide the warmth, comfort, inspiration, support, security—and often (not always) the love—that adults and kids long for.
Gloria Lintermans is the author of THE SECRETS TO STEPFAMILY SUCCESS: Revolutionary Tools to Create a Blended Family of Support and Respect.
Wow! Thanks SO much for such in-depth help for blended families! Great stuff!
I’m not in a blended family, but my dad passed on and my husband’s parents divorced so we are dealing with extended blended family all around.
Julia,
Thanks for sharing that! What a strong reminder that almost everyone is in contact by blended families in some way or another. It’s part of our modern day reality.