Discuss blended families, and describe some support options available to them

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: When divorced parents remarry, cohabit, or share a sexual relationship and a residence with a partner outside of marriage, the parent, stepparent, and children form a new family structure called a blended, or reconstituted, family. For some children, this expanded family network is positive, bringing greater adult attention. But children in blended families usually have more adjustment problems—including internalizing and externalizing symptoms and poor school performance—than children in stable, first-marriage families. Switching to stepparents' new rules and expectations can be stressful, and children often view steprelatives as intruders. How well they adapt is, again, related to the quality of family functioning. This depends on which parent forms a new relationship, the child's age and sex, and the complexity of blended-family relationships. Older children and girls seem to have the hardest time.
Parenting education and couples counseling can help parents and children adapt to the complexities of blended families. Effective approaches encourage stepparents to move into their new roles gradually by first building a warm relationship with the child, which makes more active parenting possible. Counselors can offer couples guidance in coparenting to limit loyalty conflicts and provide consistency in child rearing. And tempering parents' unrealistic expectations for children's rapid adjustment—by pointing out that building a unified blended family often takes years—makes it easier for families to endure the transition and succeed.