Step Parent And The Family

By Suparna Chakaraborthy

Friday, October 22, 2010, 16:36

In life, we share different relationships with various people and one of the closest set of people are our family. The two strong pillars of a family are husband and wife. The relationship between them is that of love but in the due course of time, they may drift apart. Sometimes fate takes one away from the other and sometimes love is lost. In any of the cases it is possible that the one left behind finds love in someone else and would like to include him/her into the family and live happily ever after. But life as they say is not that simple.

The worst affected in such a situation are the children. For them the step parent is an intruder in their secured boundaries and for the step parent, the most difficult task is to be an expected part of the family. The term in itself, is not always associated with positivity but it's the task of the step parent to make efforts in being accepted by the children. Here are some best ways to do it -

1.Give Time – You have to be patient. Give children the time to accept the absence of one parent. This might take a year at least. You should try and become their friend and then their parent. Be a friend who soothes their grief, who shares their thoughts and understands their needs. This will make it easy for them to include you in their family.

2.Be Yourself – Be yourself and not like their lost parent. You can never take that place, rather respect it and this will create a good impression. Be yourself and allow them to like you that way. Don't force yourself on them. That is not possible. Give them their space and time to decide. The more you force yourself on them, the more they run away.

3.Have A Family Meeting – Silence is killing. Have a family meeting. Both of you should open up to the children and let them know that you are to be their parent. Tell them the reason and consequences. This will resolve all confusion and misunderstanding.

4.Handel Age – Age of the children are an important factor. Your course of action to be a good step parent depends on this. Younger children are much easier to handle than teenagers. Teenagers, because of all the hormonal changes are already facing mood swings and additional tension of accepting a new person makes them agitated. Thus, your course of action has to be different. For teenagers, you need to be like them. Teenagers generally are out going, like to lead a stress free life etc. Understand it and meet her needs. This will help you being accepted by her.

5.Build Mutual Trust – They should trust that you will be good to them. Take genuine interest in their activities. Be present on their special days and be a part of their ups and down. At an early stage of being a parent, you are judged on everything you do. Thus, do everything they they accept you to do and be a support.

6.Disciplining Children – This is the most difficult task. Children don't want to listen to you just because they don't think you have the right to discipline them. Thus, keep your cool on your their indiscipline but keep incentives for the one who follows the rule of the house. Incentives always attract children.

7.Solve Misunderstanding – The negative association to 'step-parent', generally creates all the misunderstanding. The biggest insecurity among children is the fear that the step parent will be the reason of distance between them and their biological parent. You need to eradicate this misunderstanding. You may as well confined your place to give them enough space with their parent.

A step parent in the course of being part of the family should never compromise with his/her self respect. Only if you respect yourself will the children respect you.