List the suggestions offered by Berman and Visher and Visher to parents in blended families for increasing the chances of positive relationships between adults and children

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Berman and Visher and Visher offered the following suggestions to parents in blended families for increasing the chances of positive relationships between adults and children.
1. Maintain a courteous relationship with the former spouse or spouses. Children adjust best after a divorce when there is a harmonious relationship between former spouses. Problems are intensified when former spouses continue to insult each other and when the children are used as weapons by angry former spouses to hurt each other.

2. Understand the emotions of children. Although the newlyweds in a recently blended family may be fairly euphoric about their relationship, they need to be perceptive and responsive to the fears, concerns, and resentments of their children.

3. Allow time for loving relationships to develop between stepparents and stepchildren. Stepparents need to be aware that their stepchildren will probably have emotional ties to their absent biological parent and that the stepchildren may resent the breakup of the marriage between their biological parents. Some children may even feel responsible for their biological parents' separation. Others may try to make life difficult for the stepparent so that he or she will leave, with the hope that the biological parents will then reunite. Stepparents need to be perceptive and understanding of such feelings and patiently allow the stepchildren to work out their concerns. Stepparents should take time in bonding with their stepchildren.

4. New rituals, traditions, and ways of doing things need to be developed that seem right and enjoyable for all members of the blended family. Sometimes it is helpful to move to a new residence that does not hold memories of the past. Leisure time should be structured so that the children spend time alone with the biological parent, with the stepparent, with both, and with the absent parent or parents. In addition, the new spouses need to spend some time alone with each other. New rituals should be developed for holidays, birthdays, and other special days.

5. Seek social support. Parents in blended families should seek to share their concerns, feelings, frustrations, experiences, coping strategies, and triumphs with other stepparents and stepchildren. Such sharing allows them to view their own situations more realistically and to learn from the experiences of others.

6. Provide organization for the family. Children need to have their limits defined and consistently upheld. One of the difficulties is that children are faced with a new stepparent attempting to gain control when they have not as yet enjoyed many supportive and positive experiences with their new stepparent. Therefore, it is important for this new stepparent to provide nurturance and positive feedback to stepchildren in addition to making rules and maintaining control.?