List the difficulties faced by stepparents.

Describe how you would help a blended family

come to terms with the challenges before it.

The difficulties faced by stepparents can be numerous, whether it is problems regarding

the ex-spouse, the new family or the marriage itself, stepfamilies create their own special

challenges that are unique. The new challenges presented by parents, stepparents, half-

siblings, step-siblings and ex-spouses can create new emotions for all who are involved in

the family. Is the beginning of a marriage supposed to be a honeymoon or the beginning

of a serious of innumerable obstacles?

Stepfamilies have many names, they can be blended, binuclear, combined, integrated,

complicated or merged. What is a stepfamily? ‘A stepfamily is one where there is a child

or children from a previous relationship, either living with the couple permanently or

visiting them on a regular basis’ (Conolly, 1983 p.15) Stepfamilies are becoming

increasingly common and statistics cite anywhere up to 30% of all people are now living

within a stepfamily. (Jones, 2003) Despite these statistics Minuchin comments that many

of us “still think of the nuclear family as the norm- which automatically makes us think

that all other shapes as ‘incorrect’.” (Becvar & Becvar, 1996, p.198)

Understanding stepfamily dynamics can be difficult and our culture has given us both the

‘Brady Bunch’ ideal of stepfamilies, where the stepfamily resembles an intact nuclear

family to the ‘evil stepmother’ model in childhood stories such as Snow White and

Cinderella. Both adults and children have their own expectations of what a stepfamily

will be, and combining and adjusting to the differences in the new family life can cause

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some misunderstandings within the family. (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2004 p. 372)

Neither example is a realistic portrayal of what modern stepfamilies are.

In reality, a “stepfamily is a family born of loss. There must have been a loss …in order

to create a stepfamily” (Conolly, 1983, p.22). This loss must be processed by both the

adults and children in the new family so that the new stepfamily can begin its own

traditions, rituals and language. If this loss hasn’t been dealt with it can cause problems

later on when family members are still mourning the loss of the old relationship when

dealing with the problems of the new one.

One of the difficulties that occur in stepfamilies can be role confusion by all members of

the family. Balswick and Balswick believe that this is due in part because of the

ambiguity of the status of the new family, and that children of stepfamilies can become

confused as to what their status actually is in the new family. This can include loyalty

issues about their other parent (1999, p.317) when the child can feel conflicted about the

new relationship. An important point which may compound this problem is that

stepparents must not try and compete with the natural parent. It is an automatic reflex to

either be the ‘father’ or the ‘mother’ in the family unit. However, this can cause distress

to both the children who feel disloyal liking the new stepparent as well as the adult who

will never be able to compete with who, in the child’s mind is the best mother or father in

the world.

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Other problems that can occur are discipline issues. There may be a set of unspoken rules

that may be not be known throughout the whole family. This can cause confusion and

misunderstanding throughout the family system. There may exist two sets of rules that

have to be interpreted and integrated by all members of the stepfamily. There is also the

issue about who should discipline the children as well, should a stepparent discipline their

stepchild or is that better left to the natural parent? All of these issues have to be sorted

out if the stepfamily is to function properly. A good way to do this is to sit down with the

family and sort out what the ground rules actually are, it opens possibilities for change

and can cut down on misunderstandings. (Conolly, 1983 p.142)

Parents need to keep an open dialogue open with their children about their feelings and

emotions and not to put unrealistic expectations on them, such as asking for the new

stepparent to be called mum or dad or that they have to automatically love the new

members to the family whether its step-siblings, a new child and most importantly the

new other half of the parental coalition in the household. (Goldenberg & Goldenberg,

2004, p.372)

Being in a stepfamily requires good communication skills. Developing good

communication between each of the family members is important step in helping family

members negotiate their place within a new structural framework. In essence, a new

language has to be learnt. As one stepmother wrote, “we were using the same sounding

words, but because of our histories had been so different that the words had evolved into

different meanings” (Conolly, 1983, p.25). The family now has to learn a ‘new language’

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as it were; otherwise jealousy and rivalry due to misunderstandings may become

problematic. If alliances and triangles are allowed to form it may put the marriage in

difficulty as the marriage relationship in a stepfamily is actually the weakest sub-

relationship (Balswick & Balswick, 1999, p. 321) As a result in particular the parents of a

stepfamily need to be able to communicate both with each other and with their ex-spouse

in an adult fashion so that problems with children in the family can be sorted out.

What helps stepparents deal with the challenges that a stepfamily brings is good

communication, flexibility, having realistic expectations and mourning the previous

relationship. In particular it is important to keep the marriage a priority and spend time

nourishing it whenever possible. A stepparent should not expect to be loved immediately

or hated indefinitely. In stepfamilies, the ‘honeymoon’ doesn’t start at the beginning of

the relationship but rather somewhere further along the line when everyone in the family

has sorted out how they fit into the jigsaw puzzle of the two families that become one.

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Balswick, J & Balswick J, 1999, The Family 2nd ed. United States of America, Baker
Books

Becvar, D & Becvar, R, 1996, ‘Family Therapy: A systemic integration 3rd ed.’ United
States of America, Allyn and Bacon

Conolly, J, 1983, Step-families: Towards a clearer understanding, Australia, Corgi Books

Goldenberg, I & Goldenberg, H, 2004, Family Therapy: An overview 6th ed. United States
of America, Brooks/Cole

Jones, A, 2003, ‘Reconstructing the stepfamily: old myths, new stories.’ Social Work,
April 2003 v48 i2 p228(9)