Blending families can be challenging for all involved. Here’s how to make it work.
Families will be more complicated when the new household includes not just one set of children but two. Each parent-child team has its own history and its own rules; they may be as different as cricket and baseball. You like your children to flop on your bed to watch TV or just talk; your spouse has always declared the bedroom off-limits. You expect your children to show up promptly for dinner each night; your spouse sees no reason why adolescents shouldn’t be permitted to eat what, where, and when they like. You supervise your children’s schoolwork closely; your spouse doesn’t. You have a dog; your spouse has two cats. Now you have to play ball in the same house.
The first step in combining families is for you and your spouse to talk things over, alone, and decide which of your house rules are negotiable and, which are not. Let’s say your new spouse insists on his private space; you feel eating together is part of what it means to be a family.
Open Communication
The next step is to discuss problem areas with your adolescents and see if, together, you can work out solutions. ‘You know how you feel about someone going through your desk? That’s how Bill [your new husband] feels about you coming into our room anytime you like. What do you think we should do?”
You might agree to make one of your teenager’s rooms your family’s late-night gathering place; in exchange, your teenagers might agree to knock before they barge into your room. “Ann and Bob and Susan [your new wife and her children] always have dinner together as a family. I think it’s a nice idea, but what do you think?” You might agree to move the dinner hour from 6:30 to 7:30 on weeknights so that the teenagers don’t have to rush home from practice or interrupt their homework. Or you might decide to make some nights family nights and others free nights, for adults as well as adolescents.
In some areas, negotiation may not be possible or advisable. Siblings do not have the same needs and requirements; neither does stepsiblings. Some teenagers are able to handle a clothing allowance responsibly, for example, while others are not. Older adolescents, who are dating, probably need more allowance than younger children, who are not.
Stepfamilies Need to Respect and Tolerate Individual Differences.
“Sheila and her children go to the temple every Saturday. I’d like to join them now and then, and I hope you’ll come, too. But it’s up to you.” “Alice has put a lot of effort into decorating the house, and her children are as tidy as she is. I won’t ask you to meet her standards in your own room, but I do want you to respect her wishes for the rest of the house.”
In terms of purchases and privileges, however, it’s critical that stepsiblings be treated equally. This doesn’t mean that every time you buy one child a pair of jeans, every other child has to get a pair of jeans the same day. But all should have about the same budget for clothes. If 16-year-old Adam has a midnight curfew on weekends, 14-year-old Josh should know that he will have the same hours when he is Adam’s age. The same rules of fairness apply to siblings, of course. But stepsiblings will be more sensitive to inequalities.
Parents who are merging households often say that their biggest worry is whether their children will get along. What if they hate each other? How stepsiblings get along will depend on their personalities, interests, ages, sex, and other factors. Some do hate each other; others become fast friends; and still others simply coexist more or less peacefully.
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