How has your blended family blended? Is there tension between the kids, between you and your spouse, you and your step kids?

The way to success in the blended family is dependant on family in your world view. It’s easy to talk family is the most important thing to you, but do you live it?

During these stressful financial times it’s critical to have family dinners, not as an after thought but as a priority. Because our younger kids spend time between their birth mother and our family I make sure that Continue reading How is Your Blended Family?

Being a parent, otherwise known as how to bankrupt a person one college at a time, has truly been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. Being the father of 4 in a blended family, I thought I would share some thought on, in my view, what makes a good parent.

What makes a good parent starts with realizing you don’t know everything and then conveying this idea to your kids. Once you’ve had this epiphany, the doors are open for you to talk to your kids in a way that really is fun and enriching. Why I say this is an epiphany is because relationships are based on connection.

Connection is based on Continue reading Getting the Most Out of Parenting

Teen parenting success is based on parents being leaders. Being a leader as a parent is most difficult, especially in the blended family because our kids see our mistakes on a regular basis. Out in the world, when we are a leader, our personal foibles are not seen as openly as they are seen in the home.

In addition to our mistakes they see us in situations they often don’t fully understand. They don’t fully understand them because we don’t fully understand them either. One thing I do fully understand is that if my actions don’t reflect what my talk is then my value as a leader is diminished.

The art of teen parenting, is figuring out what to tell about our issues to our teens so it empowers them not to make the same mistakes we have made. In blended families, it is extra complicated because there are 4 parents often. When discussing personal family issues with your teens you need to share some of your weaknesses and then share with them some of the conclusions you have come to.

It is important to be strong because you need to be able to realize that some of your conclusions may not be right and to tell your teens that. The next step is to Continue reading Teen Parenting in the Blended Family: Part 3

So what happened this week? As previously discussed, relationships in the blended family or any family, is based on how big the emotional bank account is. The bank account is the accumulation of the perception of trust or enjoyment built up over time. This week I learned that my father wanted to get back in relation with me through my son. How did he know this? His step father told him this. How did the stepfather know this? Supposedly, my father told him? I haven’t spoken with my father for 8 years. Why? Let’s just leave it that my father didn’t understand or care about the emotional bank account.

Here’s an interesting issue in teen parenting. What should be done with this new information? Just so you know I am human, I will tell you my first reaction to this new revelation had nothing to do with my son. I was struggling with what this situation meant to me. I went home and discussed with my wife what took place. As usual, my wife’s take on this, was only revolving around why the step dad told my son rather than me.

I found myself alone in what was important here. To me, I discovered a long time ago that the worst thing that could happen to me and my kids would be to repeat the pattern of what happened between my father and me. To me, family is everything. I have told my kids this, and besides my divorce from their mother, here was me not talking to my father.

What I realized was Continue reading Teen Parenting in the Blended Family: Part 2

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 Continue reading Teen Parenting in the Blended Family

Step three is making them look at each other and getting them to tell each other one or two things that they admire about the other, then to tell one or two things they are jealous about.

This totally disarms them and amazingly Continue reading Teenage Parenting and Sibling Rivalry: Part 3

Continuing on with teenage parenting and sibling rivalry, let’s talk about the big picture. The big picture is, it’s a tough world out there that we are sending our kids. Why do we want to send our kids out there thinking they are alone, if we don’t have to?

In case you haven’t noticed, in teenage parenting, your teens want to hang out with you less and less and confide in you less and less. This natural and, although, painful thing is inevitable. So how do we create getting them someone they can go to? They are right in your home. Sibling rivalry in an impediment to giving them an ally.

In teenage parenting, how do we teach them to cooperate. As a family we help each other. We take out time in our busy life and prioritize family. We constantly acknowledge successes and stand by each other in down times. We teach our kids that some day the parents won’t be around and all they will have is each other and their family. How can you let sibling rivalry continue with the family as a centerpiece? You can’t.

If sibling rivalry exists in your home exists in your home now, in teenage parenting, how do you fix it? Continue reading Teenage Parenting and Sibling Rivalry: Part 2

Teenage parenting is filled with minefields and sibling rivalry is one of them. In a time where we push our kids to do well in school and achieve, they will inevitably be in rivalries. The one place where we don’t want rivalries is in our home.

In teenage parenting, how do we stop sibling rivalry?

Let’s back track one second and talk about the benefits of competition. Competition, by its very nature, is win – lose. Someone wins and someone loses. The positive side to this is it drives us to be the best we can be. The benefits are huge. Most of our biggest successes come out of outperforming others. It would be a big mistake, in my opinion, when involved in teenage parenting to present competition as a negative.

In the home, however, is not where competition is a great thing. In the home, individual achievement is immensely important, but so is sanity in the family. How do we take individual achievement and make it positive so sibling rivalry doesn’t undermine the family? This is what teenage parenting is all about.

Step One Continue reading Teenage Parenting and Sibling Rivalry

Ok, so now we have discussed patience and taking responsibility in blended families.

Let’s talk about Leadership in blended families.

Leadership, by parents, is the cornerstone of success in blended families. Leadership means that the parents are going to run the family. It means that the parents are going to get past a lot of past baggage from previous relationships and act like adults.

The rules are not set in stone on how to set up the leadership structure of the family, but one thing that is set in stone is that at least one of the parents, in blended families, must be that leader. The children cannot be the leader. This last sentence may sound absolutely ridiculous to many of you but I can tell you I have counseled many families and blended families where that was the case. Its not that the kids Continue reading Patience and Leadership in Blended Families: Part 3

In the last article on “Patience and Leadership in Blended Families” we talked about the need for patience in bringing two families together to become a blended family.

Before we can move on to leadership in blended families, we need to talk about a sensitive area. That being, “What didn’t we do so great in our first marriage”. The worst thing we can do, I believe, when attempting to start a new family, is not look at how we can improve our skill levels as parents prior  to the commencement of it.

Let’s get it out in the open. No matter how much we want to blame the “ex”, ask the question, “Does it help me or my new family any bit to blame the ex”? Of course, it doesn’t! All we can do is keep improving ourselves. Understand, for what ever reason you are starting new blended families, (I say families because we are all in this together), you are taking a bold and risky step. I did it myself. So, I know.

How are you going to prepare yourself to be a better spouse and parent in new blended families?

I like quotes, so I’m going to give you one here. Continue reading Patience and Leadership in Blended Families: Part 2