Blended Families

 

Step families, also called blended families, include children from one or both of the parent’s first households.  Often step families experience stress as they attempt to restructure and redefine the family unit. It takes time for people to establish trust, love, and mutual understanding. 

Bringing two separate families together can be difficult.  Rules and boundaries change.  Expectations need to be realistic, for the adults as well as for the children.

Children often feel a lot of turmoil as they go from one home to another.  A child can feel like a “traitor”.  They may become resentful of their new situation and the blended family begins to suffer.  Sometimes children will rebel and try to do everything possible to break up the new marriage.

 

Children may blame one parent for the breakup of the original marriage, or believe that the parent who remarried did not put them first and did not care enough about them. 

 

Parenting step children may seem an impossible task, particularly when a child shows signs of unhappiness with the new blended family.  Some symptoms children display are:  becoming introverted and pulling away; becoming competitive; they may begin having trouble in school; or not want to be home with the family. They may seem angry, especially with the parent that remarried. 

 

Step families can look chaotic and feel unmanageable.  Parents may begin to resent the step children and each may wonder if they made the right decision, if the effort was worth it.

 

How Therapy Can Help

 

A therapist can help the family understand some of the feelings that have surfaced for each member and develop new ways for communicating and behaving.  Rules and expectations can be explored and realistic goals and boundaries can be developed.

A new couple can find ways to begin to build history with their newly combined family.

This will contribute to the blended family’s perception of itself as a unit and increase children’s awareness of their roles within the new family. 

 

Trust, love, support and understanding can be developed and will help the new family establish trusting relationships that will work. Parents can learn about the needs of each other’s children as well as gain an understanding of their own children’s emotional needs.

 

Therapy can help the family function as a new developing unit. This may involve full family treatment, or couple counseling, and/or interventions for the children.