The Role of the Step Parent

Congratulations, you fell in love and want to get married! Although, the plot thickens as your future spouse has children and you now enter into a new form of identify - the step parent. You may be unfamiliar to kids living in the house and used to the autonomous adult-only life or you could have custody of your own children, but either way the role of a step parent is new and daunting territory.

Here are a few steps to ease you into this new responsibility:

• Take it slow. It’s all about building trust.

You may have heard a lot about them from their spouse, but to them you are still just a vague figure that their parent has been dating. Don’t force them to get somewhere emotionally that they aren’t ready to be. Keep the door open, but don’t push them too fast.

• Make your own path. Don’t try to be the Mother or Father.
• It may take some time to gain your footing in your role - but one thing to keep in mind is to not try to be anything other than yourself. Don’t try to take the place of one of the parents, instead embrace the “step parent” role as one that is a part of the family, yet diverts the authoritarian roles to the biological parents.
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• Take interest in what your step children enjoy
• One great way to bond is to find out what your step children enjoy and learn all you can about it. Ask them questions, research it in your free time, come to conversations with new information to share that they would find interesting and fascinating.
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• Embrace the term “blended family”
• Blending a family is a beautiful thing. If you want to remove the term “step” out of your vocabulary entirely because of its past negative connotation (hello Cinderella’s evil stepmother!) or if you want to reclaim the word on your own terms, you need to do what is best for your family.

Ultimately, it may just take time. If you want someone to talk to as you navigate this journey feel free to reach out to me for an appointment. You can either email me at [email protected] or call my office at (310) 614-0323.