Surviving And Thriving In Stepfamily Relationships
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Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships by Patricia L. Papernow Pdf
Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships draws on current research, a wide variety of clinical modalities, and thirty years of clinical work with stepfamily members to describe the special challenges stepfamilies face. The book presents the concept of "stepfamily architecture" and the five challenges it creates, and delineates three different levels of strategies—psychoeducation, building interpersonal skills, and intrapsychic work—for meeting those challenges in dozens of different settings. The model is designed to be useful both to stepfamily members themselves and to a wide variety of practitioners, from a highly trained clinician who needs to know how and when to work on all three levels, to a school counselor or clergy person who may work on the first two levels but refer out for level three. It will also be useful to educators, judges, mediators, lawyers and medical personnel who will practice on the first level, but need to understand the other two to guide their work.
What determines whether stepfamilies remain together? What helps stepfamilies overcomes the difficulties of remarriage and become mutually supportive family units? How can mental health professionals better support this development? This book brings both clarity and depth to the unique and complex dynamics of remarried families. Patricia Papernow draws on interviews with over 100 stepfamily members, up-to-date research, a solid theoretical framework, and an empathic clinical sensibility to present an insightful model of stepfamily development, the Stepfamily Cycle. This details account of the sages of forming a lasting, cohesive group is richly illustrated by stepfamily members' own stories. Becoming a Stepfamily describes the developmental challenges involved in building nourishing, reliable relationships between stepparents and stepchildren, in the newly married couple, and between different family groups who must learn to live together in a remarried family. Papernow discusses the factors that influence the pace and ease of development, and she provides four full length case studies illustrating the varied paths through the stepfamily cycle to the successful remarried life. The author offers therapists, clergy, school personnel, and others involved with stepfamilies a range of effective interventions, including preventive, educational, and clinical approaches. She provides practical guidance for helping family members deal constructively with the differing attachments of children to their biological parents and stepparents, assisting stepparents as they cope with feeling excluded from the powerful biological parent-child bond, and guiding biological parents torn between their spouse's need for intimacy and privacy and their children's needs for support and attention.
One in three people today in the UK are involved in some sort of stepfamily. The traditional image of a couple who marry, have 2.4 children and stay together forever is now far from typical. Families are increasingly diverse and by 2010 the vast majority will consist of adults living in a married or unmarried relationship with children living with them or visiting, who may or may not be related to both those adults. Remarkably, it has been estimated that around 72 different forms of stepfamily exist. Suzie Hayman, a Relate-trained counsellor and a leading expert on stepfamilies, knows that many of the difficulties stepfamilies face are common to all families. Using real life examples, she helps the reader through such problems and suggests a variety of exercises and techniques to help family members understand what is happening, and so bring the new family together. STEPFAMILIES is the definitive guide for parents, children and members of extended families who may each need support in new and challenging roles.
Love Him, Love His Kids by Stan Wenck,Connie J. Hansen Pdf
He loves her. She loves him. But his kids hate her. Or bait her. Or ignore her altogether. She's the stepmother, and sometimes she feels as if she's never played a more thankless role. It doesn't have to be that way. With this book, the stepmother will find the advice she needs to win over even the most resistant children. This honest, practical guide written by a therapist and stepmother who's been there shows stepmothers the best ways to handle the most challenging situations, including how to: Get off on the right foot from "hello" Build a relationship with each child Share Daddy with his children Define boundaries as a couple Negotiate issues with Dad as well as the kids Deal with their "real" mom Survive holidays, birthdays, and school vacations Create family rituals With this book, millions of stepmothers find the strategies they need to safeguard their new marriage and establish a happy, peaceful new blended family.
A Premarital Guide for Blended Family Couples If you want to enter a blended family marriage well, this is the book for you. Aimed at engaged or pre-engaged couples who have at least one child from a previous relationship, Preparing to Blend offers wise counsel on parenting, finances, establishing family identity, and daily routines for your new life together. Within these pages you will learn how to: · predict common issues · define expectations · create solutions You, your soon-to-be-spouse, and your children will benefit from exercises designed to accelerate family bonding and help you better understand each other. There is even a chapter to help you plan your wedding with your children in mind, so you can build a strong future together. Preparing to Blend is also an ideal premarital counseling tool for marriage coaches, mentors, and pastors wanting to prepare couples for complex blended family dynamics. If you are considering forming a blended family, Preparing to Blend is the resource you've been looking for.
A New York Times bestselling relationship expert shares stories of seven remarried couples—and explains the unique challenges these families face and how anyone can bypass roadblocks to lasting intimacy and enjoy a happy home life: “A compelling book that can serve anyone looking to tie the knot once more” (Kirkus Reviews). It’s estimated that 40 percent of new marriages in the US are remarriages, but the survival rate of second marriages is alarmingly low. Many remarrying couples set out with a sense of optimism, a belief that this marriage will usher in a life of happiness and unity—but complicated family dynamics can often strain new partnerships to the breaking point. The challenges of remarriage are pervasive, but little guidance has existed until now. Based on more than a decade of candid, revelatory interviews, The Remarriage Blueprint provides a crucial explanation of the obstacles to remarriage and the secrets to overcoming them. Author Maggie Scarf, a consummate relationship expert, plumbs the everyday workings of shared life to illuminate the emotional preconceptions, social pressures, and perpetuated fantasies that confound remarriage. Through cautionary tales and stories of hope, Scarf offers guidance for handling everything from children who reject the new family dynamic to the thorny issue of money. Loaded with practical wisdom and searing accounts, The Remarriage Blueprint is “an extremely helpful book on a topic that receives too little attention” (Peter D. Kramer, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University and author of Listening to Prozac).
Love may be sweeter the second time around, but once the bliss of a newfound relationship wears off a little, the reality of being part of a stepfamily sets in. If you are one of the millions of remarried Americans facing the challenge of blending two existing families into one cohesive whole, you are part of a stepcouple—and you know all too well how hard it can be to make your marriage work in sometimes tough terrain. Different parenting styles, finances, relationships with ex-spouses, legal matters, and even seemingly simple issues such as the kinds of chores assigned to children can chisel away at your union if you don’t always make your marriage a priority. Stepcoupling offers advice for stepcouples on how to do just that—all the while strengthening their blended family with a healthy marriage. Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green provide tips and strategies on dealing with the issues remarried couples face, with a wealth of advice from real-life stepcouples, such as: * Learning to tailor your expectations of your spouse or children and remembering that no family is perfect * Knowing where your boundaries are, whether involving a hostile ex-spouse or a stepchild who demands too much attention * Realizing that traits like flexibility, tolerance, forgiveness, and openness are especially essential in a stepfamily situation * Making “us” time for talking, problem-solving, weekends away, and enjoying your marriage to constantly renew and strengthen your bond as a couple Let this invaluable remarriage manual help you make your stepcouple the foundation of a strong, happy, and successful stepfamily.
Improving Father-Daughter Relationships by Linda Nielsen Pdf
Improving Father-Daughter Relationships: A Guide for Women and Their Dads is essential reading for daughters and their fathers, as well as for their families and for therapists. This friendly, no-nonsense book by father-daughter relationships expert, Dr. Linda Nielsen, offers women and their dads a step-by-step guide to improve their relationships and to understand the impact this will have on their well-being. Nielsen encourages us to get to the root of problems, instead of dealing with fallout, and helps us resolve the conflicts that commonly strain relationships from late adolescence throughout a daughter’s adult years. Showing how we can strengthen bonds by settling issues that divide us, her book explores a range of difficult issues from conflicts over money, to the daughter’s lifestyle or sexual orientation, to her parents’ divorce and dad’s remarriage. With quizzes and real-life examples to encourage us to examine beliefs that are limiting or complicating the connection between fathers and daughters, this guide helps us feel less isolated and enables us to create more joyful, honest, enriching relationships.
Families And How To Survive Them by John Cleese,Robin Skynner Pdf
What makes a family happy? Why do some marriages 'succeed' and others end in divorce? How can we free ourselves from the legacy of past mistakes and bring about positive change? Love, sex and marriage and parenthood, depression and sadness, independence and experience are just a few of the many issues explored in conversation by family therapist Robin Skynner and his former patient and comedian, John Cleese. Guiding us through the daily issues that confront us all, FAMILIES AND HOW TO SURVIVE THEM offers vital advice in helping each of us to maintain a happy, healthy family life. Looking candidly at everything from our relationships with our parents to why and how we choose our partners, no emotional stone is left unturned: jealousy, rage, fear, envy, love, obsession, hope and despair - all are featured-with practical advice on how to turn round a negative situation and bring about change for the better.
Based on a landmark longitudinal study, the nation's leading expert on stepfamilies reveals his breakthrough findings and offers the first detailed guide to easing the conflicts of stepfamily life and healing the scars of divorce. There are more than twenty million stepfamilies in America. For most of them, the simple, daily issues that challenge every family are even more anxiety-provoking. After conducting a comprehensive nine-year-long study funded by the National Institutes of Health, Dr. James H. Bray has written an invaluable book that explains why over half of all stepfamilies fail and reveals the strategies that help the others succeed. A stepfamily is assaulted on all sides by difficult and often divisive questions. How much control should a stepparent have over a stepchild? How much authority should a nonresidential parent exert over a child? How should a difficult former spouse be handled? How does an "ours" baby change the emotional dynamic in a stepfamily? Why is there a lack of "honeymoon effect" during the first years of stepfamily life? The purpose of Stepfamilies is to answer all the important questions of stepfamily life--to fill in the knowledge gaps that undermine so many stepfamilies today and, crucially, to learn the effect of stepfamily life on children. Based on one of the largest and longest studies of stepfamily life ever conducted, Stepfamilies interweaves the stories of real families to illustrate such study findings as how: a stepfamily has its own natural life cycle a stepfamily takes several years to develop into a family unit a stepfamily is at greatest risk during the first two years a stepfamily ultimately coalesces into one of three forms a stepfamily must solve four basic tasks in order to succeed a stepfamily can help heal the scars of divorce Filled with emotional, gripping stories, Bray's findings pinpoint the three major transitions in stepfamily life and identify the riskiest issues that can throw a family into crisis. Bray is the first to identify the several distinct forms that stepfamilies take and to explore which types of stepfamilies are more vulnerable than others and why. He also describes the natural life cycle of stepfamilies and basic tasks all stepfamilies must undertake to succeed. With a wealth of insight into the positive effects of remarriage, Bray shows how a loving, well-functioning stepfamily can lessen the trauma of divorce and restore a child's and family's sense of security. Most stepparents remarry with the highest hopes and new resolutions for a better life. Never before have their unique needs been addressed in depth. Through insightful case studies and practical advice, Stepfamilies reveals how a strong, stable stepfamily is as capable as a nuclear family of nurturing healthy development, of imbuing values, of setting limits and boundaries, and of providing a structure in which rules for living a moral and productive life are transmitted, tested, rebelled against, and ultimately affirmed. Bray's positive message and fascinating findings--many of which defy intuition--will put stepfamilies on the road to lifelong harmony.
Stepfamily Relationships by Lawrence Ganong,Marilyn Coleman Pdf
This second edition synthesizes the emerging knowledge base on the diversity of stepfamilies, their inherent concerns, and why so relatively little is still known about them. Its extensive findings shed needed light on family arrangements relatively new to the literature (e.g., cohabitating stepparents), the effects of these relationships on different family members (e.g., stepsiblings, stepgrandparents), the experiences of gay and lesbian stepfamilies, and the stigma against non-nuclear families. Coverage reviews effective therapeutic and counseling interventions for emotional, familial, and social challenges of stepfamilies, as well as the merits of family education and self-help programs. The authors explore prevailing myths about marriage, divorce, and stepfamily life while expanding the limits of stepfamily research. Among the topics included: • The cultural context of stepfamilies.• Couple dynamics in stepfamilies.• Gay and lesbian couples in stepfamilies. • The dynamics of stepparenting. • Siblings, half-siblings, and stepsiblings. • Effects of stepfamily living on children.• Clinical perspectives on stepfamily dynamics. For researchers and clinicians who work with families, it enriches the literature as it offers insights and guidelines for effective practice as well as possible avenues for future research.
Thoroughly revised and updated for a new generation, the essential guide for men and women to help them weather the turmoil of divorce and build rich, rewarding lives There is nothing easy about the breakup of a marriage, from coping with loss and failure to dealing with the uncertainty of the future. In this intelligent and insightful book, Abigail Trafford charts this emotional journey, identifying the common phases in the evolution from marriage to separation to divorce and eventually to a new life. Based upon her personal experience, extensive research, and interviews with hundreds of divorced men and women, Trafford offers individuals a better understanding of their own experiences and the message that they are not alone in their pain and confusion. Crazy Time is also an investment in the future—Trafford reveals the telltale signs of a marriage in crisis and discusses what determines whether a relationship will survive over time. This revised edition includes the most up-to-date research on the effects of divorce in adults' and children's lives, addresses the special challenges of becoming single again in the age of the Internet, and broadens the experience of divorce to include the breakup of all committed relationships. For anyone who has divorced, or is considering taking that step, Crazy Time offers a sense of hope and confidence that this transition is not only an ending but can also be a valuable beginning.
Home Will Never Be the Same Again by Carol R. Hughes,Bruce R. Fredenburg Pdf
Adult children are often overlooked and forgotten when their parents divorce later in life, but in these pages they will find comfort and understanding for the many feelings, frustrations, and challenges they face. For more than two decades, a silent revolution has been occurring and creating a seismic shift in the American family and families in other countries. It has been unfolding without much comment, and its effects are being felt across three to four generations: more couples are divorcing later in life. Called the “gray divorce revolution,” the cultural phenomenon describes couples who divorce after the age of 50. Overlooked in the issues that affect couples divorcing later in in life are the adult children of divorcing parents. Their voices open this book, and they are the voices of men and women, 18 to 50 years old. Some of them are single; some are married. Some have children of their own. All of them are in different stages of shock, fear, and sudden, dramatic change. In Home Will Never Be the Same: A Guide for Adult Children of Gray Divorce, Carol Hughes and Bruce Fredenburg share their deep understanding gained during the innumerable hours they have spent with these women and men in their clinical practices. The result is a valuable resource for these too often forgotten adult children, many of whom find that, whenever they express their feelings and experiences, the most important people in their lives frequently ignore and dismiss them. As the divorce rate for older adults soars, so too does the number of adult children who are experiencing parental divorce. Yet, these adult children frequently say that they are the only ones who are aware of what they are going through, no one understands what they are experiencing, and they feel painfully alone.
Building Love Together in Blended Families by Gary Chapman,Ron L Deal Pdf
Create a Loving and Safe Environment for Your Blended Family Blended families face unique challenges, and sadly, good intentions aren’t always enough. With so many complex relationships involved, all the normal rules for family life change, even how you apply something as simple as the five love languages. That’s why Gary Chapman, the bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages® andnational expert on stepfamilies, Ron Deal, join together in this book to teach you how the five love languages can help your blended family. They’ll teach you: About the unique dynamics of stepfamilies How to overcome fear and trust issues in marriage How to develop healthy parenting and step-parenting practices How the love languages should—and should not—be applied You’re going to face many challenges, but with the right strategies and smart work, your family can be stronger and healthier together.
