Stepfamily stuff II
Parenting dysfunction the stepfamily way:
Parenting differences in intact families can impede upon the process itself. In intact families, you have two different parenting styles. This can cause conflict when one parent may be more lenient or uses different consequences. It is often difficult to agree on how to handle children.
Stepfamilies often differ in more emotionally charged ways for a number of reasons. One is my child vs. your child. It is only human to protect and provide for our own children. When another person's child comes into the picture on a permanent basis, there is a difference in how we treat another's child. We may expect more from our own children. We have rules that have existed before the blending that work for our family. This other child and parent may not feel these rules should apply to them. It is new. It is different. Perhaps Dad only sees his child every other weekend. He doesn't think that his child should have to be involved in the Saturday morning cleaning routine. He doesn't want his child to hate coming, so perhaps this child is excluded from the chores aspect of family life. He says his child didn't contribute to the mess, so shouldn't have to clean it up. This child is spending Saturday mornings watching cartoons while Mom's children are doing the cleaning and resenting Dad's child for living the good life. Friction between the children = friction between the parents.
Bedtime:
When Jessica came into our family, she had no set bedtime. Whenever she fell asleep in front of the t.v. was her bedtime. My children who were older had set bedtimes. During the week it was 9 pm and on the weekends, it was 10. This posed a problem. Do we change my children's bedtimes or hers? Since she was younger, to me it made sense to change hers. Brian, on the other hand felt I was too strict. It was difficult for my children to be in bed knowing that this younger child was up late. Although we discussed this issue between us, it took quite some time to resolve it. I think Brian began to recognize the benefits of having time without the children before we went to bed and began to require her to have a set bedtime as well. Prior to that, I had to ask him to require her to leave the boys alone when it was their bedtime.
The sense of belonging:
If rules are different for one child than the others, it impedes upon a child's sense of belonging. Although kids will not naturally ask to have chores like everyone else, it does give them the sense that they are part of the organism of family at that residence.
There is no denying the guilt of the parent who has visitation. Brian went from being the primary caregiver of his daughter to being the part-time father. This was devastating. To top it off, Jessica's mother was telling her that her dad had a new family and didn't care about her anymore. The courts are slow in recognizing the impact of emotional and psychological abuse. They are also slow in recognizing that not all mothers are maternal or primary caregivers.
4 comments:
A child would have a hard time feeling comfortable in the home of Dad and his new family. From day one she or he would think, "This isn't mine, not my TV, not my living room, not my kitchen, not my Mom, not my junk.
Does the child need to have an anchor in the new environment? In your opinion, where do you start your intervention? How do you analyze the situation in which you plan to intervene?
Lots of questions. This is fascinating because it is an area where I have never found solid direction.
Good points. A child should have his/her own space complete with creature comforts. The parents and stepsiblings should respect that space, just as if a child were moving to a new house. Initially it is all unfamiliar. When the child's environment changes, it will take awhile to build this comfort and sense of "ownership". If children have to share a room, allow them each to decorate his/her own space.
Having moved a lot as a child, I had to cope with this unfamiliarity. I was grieving the old, and the new was strange. When I went to school, I didn't know anyone. I didn't know the culture of the school. I did not know what was appropriate in various situations. I didn't know where to find things. I felt very insecure. All the kids looked strange. The teachers, too. I was very afraid. I had nice teachers and mean teachers. I never knew what to expect.
One thing that really helps is having siblings or stepsiblings to talk to. It is important to have check-ins with the biological parent to validate the child and encourage open communication.
I think the beginning of the intervention is in validating the parents by acknowledging that this is a different kind of family. They cannot fit their "square" family into the "round" hole of the nuclear family. That is okay. They don't have to live up to the norms of the family structure. They have the wonderful opportunity of creating their own story. Education from that point would focus on problem scenarios. Above all, the parents need to work on their relationship. By doing so, they are teaching their own children how to have a healthy relationship.
Ideally, the parents would seek out information about combining families before doing so. In most cases, this doesn't happen. The misty fog of the new relationship provides something of a honeymoon period where everything seems to be fine. The parents need to step out of this fog to realize the difficulties that will ensue.
Moving as often as we did wasn't always great. The people were always different, but it gave one a chance to reinvent ones self (though I never knew how to do this, I knew it was an opportunity).
The part that held things together for me was family. There must have been some cause for concern because I recall mom telling me that I should make some friends when we were in Evansville. I was reluctant to follow her suggestion merely because she suggested it. I did make friends eventually.
I got to the point of not wanting to make friends because it just meant losing them.
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