Your Mind Matters
Your Mind Matters
Stepfamilies, Making the Most of a Second Chance
Over a million children are affected each year by divorce. According to national statistics, most soon become members of a new family, a stepfamily.
Baylor College of Medicine psychologist, Dr. James H. Bray has done extensive research on stepfamilies. He and coauthor John Kelly, have written a book, StepFamilies: Love, Marriage, and Parenting in the First Decade, summarizing his work over the past two decades.
Dr. Bray and his team discovered that most stepfamilies could be described as being one of three types, which he has named Neotraditional, Romantic and Matriarchal.
In brief, in Neotraditional stepfamilies, the couple comes together in hopes of establishing a renewed sense of family life and marriage. These families have a strong marital bond and a realistic sense of the challenges of being a stepfamily. They cope well with change and dealing with the issues of co-parenting. These families often appear and function like a traditional nuclear family.
The Romantic stepfamily wants it all now, bringing unrealistic expectations about immediate changes in relationship loyalties. Their haste tends to result in alienation between stepparents and children, eventually causing strains on the marriage unit itself.
Romantic families often fail to recognize or accept the differences between step and first marriages. Dr. Bray’s team found these families to be the most divorce prone.
Called Matriarchal stepfamilies, the third type typically has a strong and competent wife who places few demands on her husband to parent her children. These marriages actually tend to work out, but can be subject to strain if the non-parental spouse suddenly decides to take a greater role in parenting. In these marriages, the birth of a new child often signals a good time for more involved parenting.
Research shows that about fifteen percent of children from intact families have emotional problems. That number doubles in children of divorce and those who become part of stepfamilies. The good news, according to Dr. Bray, is that “most kids do fine, but there’s a one hundred percent increased risk of their having more problems.”
How can parents decrease that risk?
Dr. Bray told me, “It partly depends on how long they have been together. In the beginning its important that parents talk about the role that each plays in childrearing.” He advises new stepparents to “not try to be a disciplinarian during the first year or so. Get to know the child and support the biological parent in that role.” With a year or two of success and of real relationship and bonding, then he says, the stepparent can play a more active role. “It’s very important that they talk about and agree on a parenting plan from the start.”
“Another predictor of successful stepfamilies is when stepparents actively monitor the children’s behavior; keeping up with who they’re involved with, where they are supposed to be, and acting as an extra set of eyes and ears for the biological parent.” That works for young children, even adolescents, he says.
It’s very important for the biological parent to support the stepparent in his or her parenting role. “It’s important that they work together, if the biological parent interferes with the stepparent or takes the children’s side then that just wont work,” says Dr. Bray.
The best thing about stepfamilies,” he says, “is that it gives people a second chance to have a happy and successful family life and heal some of the wounds of the first divorce.”
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Copyright © 2011 Allan J. Comeau, Ph.D.
Wednesday, November 6, 2002