Step Parent Roles

It's important that you and your spouse decide together the best way for you to be involved as a step parent.

As a stepparent, you may face difficulty fitting into the new family. Since you may be viewed as an "outsider," you may encounter surprisingly stiff resistance to your inclusion in the family, in the form of unexpectedly powerful and negative feelings such as jealousy and resentment, as well as your own confusion and sense of inadequacy. Your role in the family, especially early on, is ill-defined and you may end up trying out several different roles before finding one that "fits." While this lack of definition can be stressful and confusing, it also gives the you the freedom and latitude to determine a role all your own. Blending families can be a trying time, but you can get through it and build a loving relationship with your step-children.

It's important that you and your spouse decide together the best way for you to be involved as a stepparent. In many families, stepparents take on a role that is less "parental." There's no doubt that being a stepparent is one of the most difficult roles any adult will ever assume. So much pain can be avoided if you can agree on some very basic definitions of that role, and be alert to sensitivities with it.

To handle this situation with the utmost efficiency, both the biological parent and the stepparent should begin with an open and candid discussion about the fears and expectations regarding the relationship with the children. Each should know what the other expects concerning the stepparent's involvement in guiding, supervising and disciplining the children. Once you understand what each other's expectations are, you have a place to start shaping what the stepparent role will be.

Here are some suggestions for establishing a relationship with your stepchildren that can be mutually satisfying.

* Give yourself and your stepchildren time to get to know one another. Relationships develop slowly, so allow lots of time for bonds to form. Spend time getting to know each stepchild one-on-one without competition from biological parent-child relationships. It's natural for stepchildren to resist this at first. During that one-on-one time, do things that you both enjoy.

* Hold realistic expectations for yourself. Resist the myth of instant love. Don't expect that you will automatically love your stepchildren or that they will love you. If love develops, super! But aim for mutual respect. You may fall victim to rejection and displaced hostility from your stepchildren. Thus, you may occasionally feel as if your stepchildren don't like you, which may make you hesitant and uncomfortable. Try assuming an "as if" position, where you act toward your stepchildren as if they really cared for you. Try not to take their displaced reactions too personally. Remember that you come into the family after the children are likely to have experienced many losses. It will take time for stepchildren to warm up to someone new. Great care and patience should be taken to allow the child an opportunity to work through those feelings.

* Don't expect stepchildren to call you "Dad" or "Mom." Instead, let the children decide on what to call you. Some children choose to call their stepparent "Father Bill" or "Mother Julie" or some other term that is comfortable for them. However, most children, except those who were very young when the stepparent entered the family, call their stepparent by their first name.

* Share skills and interests you have that might interest your stepchildren. These abilities and aptitudes will distinguish you from the other parents and reduce the likelihood that you will be viewed as competing with the biological parents. For example, in my family my stepfather taught us tennis and entered us in tournaments. We played and watched a lot of tennis together. He was also a master woodworker.

* Leave the disciplining role to the biological parent, and support the parent in this and other areas behind the scenes. Unless you as the stepparent are added to the family when the children are very young, it will most likely be very difficult for you to discipline your spouse's children. Every situation is different, but in most situations, disciplining your non biological children is fraught with danger, since it's likely to create resentment on the part of your spouse. Again, this isn't always the case, and if that's not the circumstance in your family, that's great, because it can give the biological parent an additional resource for handling discipline issues. It's extremely important that the stepparent be an active supporter of the biological parent's disciplinary efforts. Both biological parents and stepparents should discuss the rules of the house and negotiate an agreement for what standards the children will be held to. This element of family life should be subject to the same negotiation and joint ownership as any other family situation.

* Stepparents have little or no legal responsibility for their stepchildren. The biological parent is wise to give you legal permission to act when necessary, especially in the case of an emergency.

* Show interest in and involve yourself in a non intrusive way in step children's activities, interests, and accomplishments. Attend concerts, praise specific achievements, and do other things that show you care and are proud of your stepchildren. Be involved in school, religious, sports, and other activities with the family.

* Look for ways to send messages to stepchildren that you trust them. In relating to all the children, the stepparent should seek to define his or her relationship as that of an ally and supporter. Whether the stepparent is the same or opposite-sexed parent, their presence can play an important balancing role in terms of modeling and information-giving about life from the male or female point of view. The role of ally and supporter is in no way to be construed as an attempt to replace the biological parent.

* If you're the stepparent in a truly blended family, where both you and your spouse have children being merged into a "yours, mine and ours" scenario, you must take great care not to be perceived as playing favorites through a double standard in which your children enjoy a better standard of treatment than your stepchildren. The truth is, however unpopular or politically incorrect it may be to say, you'll very likely have decidedly stronger positive emotional feelings for your biological children than for your stepchildren, at least in the beginning. You'll need to cloak this difference in emotional intensity. As time goes on and you share life experiences with your stepchildren, there will be a leveling of emotions toward all of the children. In the meantime, you should be hypersensitive to the need to deal with each in a like fashion. It can be very helpful in the early stages to actually quantify and balance the time, activities and money spent on biological and non biological children. Treat your stepchildren with the same respect and consideration you show your own children, even though real caring has not yet developed.

* Don't attempt to replace or compete with the absent parent and never badmouth him or her. The stepmother or father should actively support the child's relationship with the biological mother or father no longer in the home. If you are in the role of stepfather, you should make it a priority to nurture a relationship between you and the biological father and to find every possible way you can to support a relationship between him and his children. By taking the high road of facilitation, you'll find it easier to overcome feelings of resentment both on the part of the biological father and the children he no longer has daily access to. This may require some real internal commitment on your part, because supporting your step children's relationship with their biological but absent parent may seem equal to also supporting that parent's relationship with your spouse. Don't let jealousy or envy of the bond they share with their children or the working relationship and history with your current mate cause you to be less than supportive of that relationship.

It's true that it's difficult to see things through someone else's eyes if you haven't walked in their shoes. Whether you're the stepparent or it's your spouse who's in that role, talk frequently about how it's going and what the experience is from the other's point of view. If both of you have good intentions and a loving heart, this can be worked out. The key is to remember that the children are passengers on this train. They didn't get an opportunity to choose whether they wanted a new family member, so great care and patience should be taken to help them adapt to the situation.

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