Reply to Help me blend our family

Forum Index » Parenting -- Special Concerns

Reply to "Help me blend our family"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a blended family. It is tough and you can't make kids like each other, but you need to establish ground rules so that everyone experiences the new home as a fair place for them.

1) The ground rules need to be fair and fairly enforced. Try holding monthly "family meetings" to ask everyone for their ground rules. Like my stepson didn't want anyone going into his room without knocking. So we wrote that one down. My son was too young to come up with ground rules, but I wanted everyone to put their dirty dishes into the dishwasher NOT the sink. Including husband. You can probably only have 3-5 of these "house rules." You want them to be realistic and not personal and for all to agree to honor them.

2) You want to be very careful not to replace any special time/rituals that were in place in the pre-blended family. So in our case my son and I were used to having pancake breakfasts on Sat or Sunday and I made sure we kept that going whether or not my stepson is awake or not. If your stepchildren are used to their father driving them to school, absolutely keep doing that. Etc. Put up with the inconvenience because it's about protecting the feelings of love, specialness, and consistency that children like.

3) You can create new rituals that make sense for you as a blended family. In our house, neither of our exes had anything specific that they did on Christmas eve, so I make sure everyone gets a pair of Christmas jammies, we all watch the Grinch, and I make a "roast beast."

You also need to look at the material circumstances in your case. We moved into a new home because we didn't want that bad feeling that someone was coming into someone else's space. If you are moving into someone else's house, this needs it's own attention and care.

And finally I'd encourage you to be very clear that you have ultimate say over your kid(s) and he has ultimate say over his kid(s). I don't discipline my stepson and my husband doesn't discipline my son. We don't hide that from either of our kids. When my son struggled with school, it was a decision between my XH and me to locate a new school for him. We were always very clear with everyone in the family that my husband is a loving and important person, but not a "decider" over my son.[/quote]

I think this is really good advice. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics