Interesting thing happened this week. I recently moved back to my favorite city, San Francisco. Now that my two oldest teens, in our blended family, are finally off to college, my wife and I have decided to move closer to our other two kids. Now that I get to see our other kids much more often, unknown things have come to the surface. I have found teen parenting is an ongoing journey of discovery, whether in a blended family or not.

The first thing I have discovered, on this new journey, is the complexity of reintegrating myself into their regular life. Some of it is great and some of it is also great. Now I get calls at any time of the day to see if I can pick my son up. Very important point about teen parenting and blended families is to cherish any time with your children, even if it is just picking them up. Any opportunity you have with them is gold. Make the most of it. Engage them in questions about their life, your life, life in general. Joke with them. Encourage them to get used to conversing with you about anything. You need to understand teen parenting is a very short time frame relative to the whole life you will have with them. You will know your kids for a very long time. It is the moments of conversation that adds to what Stephen Covey called your emotional bank account with them.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the emotional bank account, I will explain it briefly because it is a brilliant concept that helps you understand teen parenting in your blended family.

It works this way. If you have a good conversation or a good time with any relation in your family, it is like making a deposit in their emotional bank account. If you have a bad time because you misbehaved or were even perceived to misbehave they will make a withdrawal.

You will find that your relationship with your spouse or kids, in teen parenting in or out of a blended family, is equal to their perception to how many emotional deposits and withdrawals you have made. What is important to understand about this dynamic is that people often withdraw huge sums for small negative things and register very small deposits for positive things. In other words, people often remember negative things done to them more than the positive things. The message, then, is spend as much time as you can with your teens, and during those times make it as positive an experience as possible. The future of your relationship with them depends on your bank account.

Please read the second part.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bocknek

The Problem Solving Expert for Parents and Families

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Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families at www.takebackthehome.com and www.keyboard-culture-parenting.com.  He can be reached at bocknek@takebackthehome.com. He is author of the “Take Back the Home course” and the “Learning how to Learn course” which can be seen at www.takebackthehome.com.

     

More on Topics: Blended Family, Emotional Bank Account, Teen Parenting

Tags: Blended Family, Emotional Bank Account, Teen Parenting

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