Young or new stepfamilies are not usually easy, warm or fun places to be. The kids are reeling from the losses in their lives and trying to adjust. So are the adults. Let’s face it – nobody plans on divorce and remarriage!

New stepfamilies are anything but cohesive. There’s little familiarity or trust between the insiders and outsiders - the biologically tied and the “strangers” who are joining in. Everyone feels pretty protective and defensive of what’s theirs and what’s not.

How do you bridge the gap and break down the barriers? How can adults reach out to stepchildren and still maintain the close ties with their biological children? How do you bring people together in stepfamilies?

It’s easier than you think.

Here are some ideas I’ve learned in my own family or from people I’ve seen in my office:

Lighten up - Develop a family sense of humor and LAUGH together. In my family we had one son who had the gift of being able to completely crack us all up with his sense of humor. We’d sit at the dining room table laughing hysterically at one of his one liners. His jokes became our jokes.

Provide ways for the kids to play together - Provide games, musical instruments and space for them to put on talent shows, singing and dance performances, skits, and puppet shows, etc These special memories will last forever. One rainy Sunday, our children spent hours making over my 14 year old son into a very feminine young lady! We got pictures of that one.

Establish and then be consistent with family traditions - Find special ways to celebrate birthdays and holidays. Involve the family in sports activities …or anything you can think of that your family would enjoy in particular. Remember the favorite events and activities so you can repeat them.

Provide food that everyone loves. Nothing does it better than feeding a hungry family.It can range from picking up pizza or spending the whole day in the kitchen cooking.

It’s up to you, the adult stepcouple, to reach out and provide the glue that brings your new stepfamilies together - slowly but surely. Try to include all the children – even the shy and reluctant ones. Over time, you’ll look back and remember the sweet times when good things happened.

What’s the glue in your family?

Susan Wisdom LPC
February 2008

A grandfather and his grandson were talking one afternoon at their favorite spot by the stream. The boy was worried about something that had been bothering him. He turned to his grandfather, and asked “Grandfather, how come I’m happy and sweet sometimes and at other times I can be evil and mean? How can that be when I’m only one person?”

His wise grandfather thought about it…and replied, ”I believe we have two wolves fighting inside of us. One is sweet, compassionate, generous and loving. The other one is mean, angry, and selfish.”

The grandson asked “How do you know which one will win?”

The grandfather said, “It’s simple - the one you feed.”

Indeed stepcoupling can bring out the best and the worst in us. For some stepcouples, mistakes were made in choosing partners prematurely and for the wrong reasons. For others who struggle, it could be the result of sadness and losses carried over from our childhood experiences and disappointments from subsequent relationships. If unaddressed, these issues can have an unhealthy affect on all our important relationships. This can produce FUEL FOR FEEDING THAT MEAN ANGRY WOLF INSIDE.

A typical example:

I remember seeing a woman in my office who was 6 months into her new stepfamily. She had no children: he had one young daughter, who she described as a good kid, sweet, eager to please. Nonetheless, when the stepdaughter visited every other weekend, my client would go into a tirade of anger and resentment.

In counseling she told me she was raised by an alcoholic mother. She felt she was NOT parented as a child. She remembers little about her childhood. However, when she fell in love and married a man who had a daughter, her anger and sadness from her past dramatically prevented her from having a caring relationship with her stepdaughter. She wanted nothing to do with her stepdaughter!

She was able to quickly recognize the problem and understand how her past drove her to act and feel the way she did. Fortunately over time she was able to develop a nice relationship with her stepdaughter based on nothing she experienced in her past.
Her marriage was strong from the beginning. Her husband was patient and supportive. Together, as a stepcouple, they learned to NOT feed the bad wolf, but only the GOOD ONE.

Which wolf are you feeding inside?

Susan Wisdom LPC
February 2008