Memos From and About Your Stepchild
Posted: Wednesday, November 17, 2010
by Gloria Lintermans
http://www.GloriaLintermans.com
Respect between stepchildren and stepparents, or the lack of, is a hotly problematic topic in step and blended families. Usually addressed from a stepparent's point of view, viewing this problem via the stepchild's perspective can be helpful and will help grow stepparent-stepchild respect and trust over time.
Consider the following memos from and about your stepchild:
Lead me rather than force me. If you force me, I learn that power is what really counts. I'll respond much better to being guided.
Be consistent. If you're not, it confuses me and makes me try harder to get away with everything I can.
Make promises that you can keep, and keep the promises you make. That grows my trust in you and my willingness to cooperate.
Know that I'm just being provocative when I say and do things to upset you. If you fall for my provocations, I'll try for more such excitement and victories.
Say calm when I say "I hate you." I don't really mean it. I just want you to feel upset and sorry for what I feel you've done to me.
Help me feel big rather than small. When I feel little, I need to act like a "big shot" or a whiney cripple.
Let me do the things I can do for myself. Your doing them for me makes me feel like a baby, and I may keep putting you in my service.
Correct me in private. I can hear you better if you talk quietly with me alone, rather than with other people present. Talk about my behavior when our conflict has calmed down. In the heat of battle somehow my listening gets bad and my cooperation is even worse. It's okay for you to take the actions needed, but let's not talk about it until we all calm down.
Talk with me rather than preach at me. You'd be surprised how well I know what's right and wrong. I need to have my feelings and ideas respected, just like you do-so please listen to them.
Tell me of your anger at my actions without name-calling. If you call me "stupid" or "jerk" or "clumsy" too often I'll start to believe that. Help me learn how to handle anger without harming.
Help me feel that my mistakes are not sins.I need to learn from my errors, without feeling that I'm no good.
Talk firmly without nagging. If you nag over and over, I'll protect myself by growing deaf.
Let my wrong behavior go without demanding big explanations. Often, I really don't know why I did it.
Accept as much as you can of what I'm able to tell you. I'm easily scared into lying if my honesty is taxed too much.
When you teach me things, please keep it simple. If you use big words or get into long confusing explanations, my mind goes somewhere else.
Enjoy me! I have a lot to offer you!
Typical kids of divorce and remarriage also need to replace toxic ways of self-soothing (e.g., addictions, reality distortions, and avoidance) with holistically healthy habits and healthy sources of comfort and reassurance, and need to strengthen their ability to form real, versus faked, attachments to healthy people, ideas, and goals.
All children need to believe, without ambivalence, that their lives have intrinsic worth, promise, and real meaning, rather than feeling old pessimism, worthlessness, and inner emptiness.
Gloria Lintermans, Author: THE SECRETS TO STEPFAMILY SUCCESS: Revolutionary Tools to Create a Blended Family of Support and Respect (Llumina Press), http://amzn.to/stepfamily; http://glorialintermans.com/stepfamilies.htm.
Lintermans is also the author of The Healing Power of Grief: The Journey Through Loss to Life and Laughter, The Healing Power of Love: Transcending the Loss of a Spouse to New Love, The Newly Divorced Book of Protocol: How to Be Civil When You Hate Their Guts, and RETCO Chic: A Guide to Fabulous Vintage and Designer Resale Shopping in North America & Online. Her articles have appeared in local and national magazines, and she is a retired newspaper columnist whose column has been syndicated in English and Spanish language newspapers worldwide.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)This article is useful for all parents to keep in mind about raising children. To that end, I agree with everything said. However, these tips do not address how to handle the unique dynamics between a step parent and step child. As such, the title and first paragraph should be removed, IMO. That would make it perfect.Thank you for your input! In fact, I agree that these tips do apply both to biological and step children. In my book, THE SECRETS TO STEFPAMILY SUCCESS: Revolutionary Tools to Create a Blended Family of Support and Respect I address this subject extensively in CHAPTER TWELVE: EFFECTIVE CHILD DISCIPLINE IN STEPFAMILIES, which I believe you will find helpful.
-- Gloria Lintermans
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