Blog9-Blended Families
This week’s reading involved discussions about blended families and some of the problems that they face when life styles are changed due to addition of another individual or individuals. Dealing with these blended families is often harder on the children of the individual entering the marriage. Having a new adult in your life and in your home can be really tough. Many children must learn new rules and often wonder if they must really have to listen to the stepparent because they are not your real mom or dad. Often times children will have problems with the stepparent but many times the arguments or hatred from the child has more to do with the fact that someone else is taking away some of the time and attention the child used to receive from their parent. Arguments in blended families can start for little reasons like someone watching TV in the living room when there’s a show on that someone else wanted to watch. Having a new parent in the home is sure to be difficult however if the stepparent has children then it becomes even harder.
Now I have never been part of a blended family as of yet but I am a single father so this was very informative for me as it gave me an insight on what I along with my daughter may face should I ever finish school and remarry. I do however have a very good friend that I was talking to about this yesterday and he advised that he grew up with a stepmom and had lot complications with her. He explained that after two long years his new family implemented several actions that helped them survive the storm. He explained that they would have a weekly family meeting and hash out any problems between any of the family members and whatever was said in these meeting would not be brought back up unless they were once again in their family meetings and this gave everyone a sense of being free to say what they felt they needed. He advised this helped but there were still problems and eventually he and his stepmom grew closer and he and his father grew further apart. He explained that he sat down and had a heart-to-heart with his stepmom and she was the one that would then help him work out the problems between him and his father. His parents are still together today almost 37 years after getting married. I believe that it’s up to the parents to educate the child and try their best in integrate the child little by little into the new life structure.