Steps to Step Parenting Success: How to Integrate Yourself into Your New Family

By: Betty K. Autumn

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

These days it can often feel like a 'normal' nuclear family is something of a rarity; that most families are varied, broken up or diverse. Children find themselves with step-parents, half-siblings, or living in single-parent households - even having same-sex parents. It's a time when the family unit is a much more flexible arrangement, rather than the biological 'Mom, Dad and their biological children' which was the old configuration of the past. The most common structure away from the traditional is that of two families coming together, creating step-parents and step or half-siblings and therefore a whole new family; and this book looks at how parents can build a step-family successfully and also gives you the guidance and support to overcome much of the difficulties with a mixed family. Having step-parents and siblings can be a fulfilling and rewarding experience, creating a loving and thriving family home. Hundreds of thousands of diverse family structures exist successfully, offering support and happiness to children and parents alike. But it's not always easy - there can be many challenges along the way and it's fair to say that often, making a step-family work requires a fair bit of effort. It can be fraught with difficulties; with resentment, resistance, incompatibility. There can be arguments about money and issues with other parents. This new arrangement can offer be complicated. All families take work, and step-families are no different. It's just a more complex set of problems. What you read here may not directly address your own situation, but we have tried to give a broad overview, and this book should help you understand some of the challenges associated with blended families, and developing new coping mechanisms and strategies to deal with them.