Download or read book Stepfamilies written by James H. Bray and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-08-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Stepcoupling written by Susan Wisdom and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Smart Stepfamily written by Ron L. Deal and published by Bethany House. This book was released on 2006 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each member has their own unique place in a family. Ron Deal explores the myth of the "blended" family offering practical, realistic solutions for stepfamilies.
Download or read book Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships written by Patricia L. Papernow and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-07 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships is designed to be useful both to stepfamily members themselves and to a wide variety of practitioners, as well as to educators, judges, mediators, lawyers and medical personnel.
Download or read book Family Rules written by Jeannette Lofas and published by Kensington Publishing Corporation. This book was released on 1998 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lofas incorporates lessons for making house rules work and shows how to establish guidelines and enforce them from the beginning.
Download or read book Help written by Nancy Holyoke and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents letters written to "American Girl" magazine from girls asking for advice about the problems they face in everyday life.
Download or read book Blended Family Advice written by Shirley Cress Dudley MA LPC and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2009-10-26 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blended Family Advice is step-by-step guide to help blended and stepfamilies navigate the rough areas in their marriage and family. The book focuses on three main areas: marriage, kids, and the outside world. Learn how to communicate with your ex-spouse successfully, create a sense of unity in your newly blended family, how to treat stepparents and stepsiblings, and how to create house rules and expectations in your new blended household. Shirley Cress Dudley uses her skills as a licensed professional counselor, and as a stepmom to help blended and step families learn how to become strong and successful. Blended Family Advice contains the keys to a successful blended family along with several bonus reports: a financial planner, creating successful blended family holidays, house hunting for the blended family, and a guide for grandparents. Blended families and stepfamilies will find this book to be a comprehensive resource and one that every stepfamily and blended family will need in their home. Visit The Blended and Step Family Resource Center http://www.TheBlendedandStepFamilyResourceCenter.com and http://www.BlendedFamilyAdvice.com for more information. Shirley Cress Dudley, MA LPC [email protected]
Download or read book Secrets to Stepfamily Success written by Gloria Lintermans and published by Gloria Lintermans. This book was released on 2010-06 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SECRETS TO STEPFAMILY SUCCESS offers tools that can significantly lower the alarming 70% rate of step and blended family divorce, helping families evolve into highly nurturing, reliable refuges of warmth, safety, encouragement, strength, caring, and joy. Step and blended families have a unique dynamic with which couples must cope, along with all the other normal challenges of life and marriage. See how these families differ in up to sixty structural and dynamic ways from typical intact biological families--including consisting of two co-parenting homes and ex-spouses--and learn how to successfully recognize and manage these challenges. For most couples, trying to build a successful remarriage can mysteriously bring out their deepest personal fears, longings, shames, and hopes. The key to not only survival, but living this journey well, begins with discovering opportunities to heal and to succeed; it is not about blame or badness. With the right preparation and resources, a multi-home step or blended family can be a stable and solid foundation for co-parents and children. Gloria Lintermans is the author of THE HEALING POWER OF GRIEF: The Journey Through Loss to Life and Laughter, THE HEALING POWER OF LOVE: Transcending the Loss of a Spouse to New Love, THE NEWLY DIVORCED BOOK OF PROTOCOL: How to Be Civil When You Hate Their Guts, and RETCO CHIC: A Guide to Fabulous Vintage and Designer Resale Shopping in North America & Online. Her articles have appeared in local and national magazines, and she is a retired newspaper columnist whose column has been syndicated in English and Spanish language newspapers worldwide.
Download or read book Becoming A Stepfamily written by Patricia L. Papernow and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-07-17 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Preparing to Blend written by Ron L. Deal and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Strengthening Your Stepfamily written by Elizabeth Einstein and published by Impact Pub. This book was released on 2005-11 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of three Americans is now a stepparent, a stepchild, a stepsibling, or some other member of a stepfamily. Stepfamilies are different. The "old rules" that govern traditional families don't necessarily apply, and each stepfamily must define its own "new rules" that will work for a unique blended family. Einstein and Albert bring to this manual decades of experience as stepfamily counselors and consultants, acclaimed writers, and stepparents themselves. The result is clear, down-to-earth, expert help for couple relationships and parenting in what some call "the jigsaw puzzle family." Among the many challenges dealt with in this comprehensive guidebook: overcoming unrealistic expectations, debunking myths, decision making, building effective communication, establishing sound discipline, handling stepsibling rivalry, working with non-custodial parents... and more.
Download or read book A Step Up for Stepfamilies written by Marcia Watts and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being in a stepfamily from other family types. It just is. Anyone on the journey of becoming or being in a stepfamily knows that stepfamily life is complex. Members can often feel isolated, misunderstood and unrecognised. Who do we talk to about our struggles? Who understands the unique challenges we face and can validate our often very conflicted feelings? Who and where do we turn to for guidance, support and encouragement and a sense of direction when everything feels chaotic and unpredictable? Marcia Watts - step-parent, parent, wife, relationships counsellor and psychotherapist - knows the reality of being in a stepfamily from both personal and professional experience. In A Step UP for Stepfamilies, Marcia shares heartfelt, practical and reassuring research and strategies to empower you to cultivate your own thriving, resilient and loving stepfamily. She shows that being in a stepfamily can be enjoyable and rewarding especially when armed with constructive and helpful tools to confidently step up to challenges. With real-life anecdotes, advice on parenting, grief, ex-factors and looking after yourself, and resources for professionals, A Step up for Stepfamilies is the essential handbook to successfully navigate stepfamily life.
Download or read book Stepfamily Realities written by Margaret Newman and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This practical and supportive handbook breaks down the myths surrounding stepfamily relationships and offers workable tools for solving common problems. Stepfamily "newlyweds" generally face a number of challenges unique to their situation. Many couples are overwhelmed by the unresolved anger they carry from previous marriages and by their children's resentment of "intruders"; family life may be complicated by visiting and resident stepchildren.In this straightforward guide, psychologist Margaret Newman helps readers examine their key relationships, identify potential conflicts, and understand how problems arise, as well as what to do about them. Jealousy, personal boundaries, discipline, communication skills, money issues, sexuality, a new child-these are just a few of the many issues Stepfamily Realities addresses.
Download or read book Stepliving for Teens written by Joel D. Block and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although there are books that may help teens cope with divorce, what about life after divorce? "Stepliving for Teens" explores real questions from real teens living in stepfamilies. In question-and-answer format, the book covers a wide range of actual stepfamily concerns.
Download or read book Help for Stepfamilies written by Winston T. Smith and published by New Growth Press. This book was released on 2008-10-31 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you blend two separate families into one household? Family traditions, values, interests, and parenting styles are often so far apart that simple questions like, "Who takes out the trash?" or "Where shall we go for Christmas?" can quickly become flashpoints of conflict. Winston T. Smith provides a road map to the unique challenges ...
Download or read book Developing Healthy Stepfamilies written by Patricia Kelley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-18 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: View the inner workings of healthy stepfamilies through the stories of twenty families as they discuss how their households operate. This enlightening book takes a deeper look at what adults and children in stepfamilies say about such issues as discipline, money, family roles and relationships with ex-spouses, and the development of new traditions and rituals. Incorporating actual words of family members, Developing Healthy Stepfamilies shows many ways in which stepfamilies function well through adapting new and different “rules” to fit their circumstances. The book concentrates on positive rather than negative aspects of stepfamily life to help dim the image of stepfamilies as problematic and also to instill hope in would-be stepfamilies by normalizing their differences from biologically based families. Written with the intention of disseminating information and increasing understanding about stepfamily functioning, this book is useful for stepfamilies, their friends and relatives, and professionals such as teachers, clergy, physicians, and counselors. Developing Healthy Stepfamilies draws a colorful picture of the creativity and flexibility such families have brought to their lives and relationships. Emphasizing what works in stepfamilies instead of what does not, the book illustrates the process of integrating a stepfamily, the value of humor and patience, and the richness that can unfold for all members of the family. The author, a family therapist and educator, has drawn together information direct from stepfamily members themselves, providing readers with first-hand knowledge of the daily workings of this fast growing family form. A showcase of stepfamilies that are functioning well, Developing Healthy Stepfamilies helps show would-be stepfamilies that “it can be done.” This is not a book of instructions; it illuminates the many ways in which stepfamilies can and do function. Some of the topics covered in the book include: definitions of a stepfamily a historical review demographics suggestions for new stepfamilies from established ones genograms of the families participating in the study As a group, stepfamilies are different from biologically based families in form and function. These differences are important for the families, and for those working with them, to recognize and accept as normal. Although intended to be an informative text for professionals and students in fields such as counseling and social work, this book also serves as a source of hope and encouragement for stepfamilies and prospective stepfamilies themselves.
Download or read book EBOOK Understanding Stepfamilies A practical guide for professionals working with blended families written by Lisa Doodson and published by McGraw-Hill Education (UK). This book was released on 2016-04-16 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the growing number of stepfamilies, and the recognition that they experience unique difficulties related to their complex family dynamics, there is very little support available to them. In this practical, evidence-based guide Lisa Doodson offers a valuable resource for professionals working with stepfamilies, giving insight into their unique nature and guidance on how to provide more effective support and advice. In addition to the wealth of research and knowledge that the book shares, there are a range of case studies which illustrate issues that the different types of stepfamilies frequently face. Each chapter also contains practical tools and exercises that professionals can use with their clients to help facilitate change in the family unit, as well as interventions including mediation and group workshops, and more traditional counselling techniques. Understanding Stepfamilies is a must have resource for counsellors and therapists, social workers, local authorities, charities and teaching professionals working with stepfamilies.
