Welcome back to A Better Love, I'm your host, Dr. Greg, today we're diving into step-parent relationships across families with children and just the beginning of the conversation about integrating family systems and doing the best you can.

If you're new to the podcast, I'm Dr. Greg, a board-certified couple and family psychologist, and the full-time content creator @abetterloveproject. Today's episode is sponsored by one of our founding sponsors, Molly. Thank you to Molly for your generosity and for this episode.

Let’s first name the players on stage, the possibilities are endless but may begin with two biological parents and one or two step-parents oh, we're in the words of one of our other donors mentioned, a bonus mom or dad.  I appreciate that sentiment. And then the child or children across these 2-4 adults.

From the vantage point of biological parents introducing new people into the family system, I’d suggest being deliberate, supportive, and nurturing healthy relationships across the system. That can begin with when you first introduce a new woman or man to your kids, deciding for yourself, the pace that happens, the meaning you build around this new emotional connection for your kids, and their involvement with normal daily activities that are involved in parenting for serious relationships.

From the perspective of communication between biological parents and a new step-mom or step-dad, aspirationally we’d love for there to be great communication and support there, particularly if your children are younger. The new person can be seen as a force multiplier, another member of the greater team supporting your kid’s growth.

And from the vantage point of a child, it’s important to see all the adults playing nicely with one another in the sandbox. Where else do our children learn what is possible in adult relationships, if not by watching us live our life? Their developing minds crave consistency, emotional support, a sense of safety, and belongingness, all these things can be nurtured in a new version of the family system with step-parents.

I understand that it’s difficult to make this a reality in our lives. Many families struggle with disagreements around parenting, antagonism between the three primary players, and negative impacts on children’s mental health abound. Let’s talk about three specific tips you can try to start off on the right foot as new adults are joining the family system:

1. Be patient with yourself and your family, creating a new family system that is healthy is more like a marathon, a long-term investment. 
2. Maintain communication with your partner about adjustment challenges, validate and support each other through any growing pains.
3. Parent together, this is an ongoing experiment and dialogue about parenting norms, house rules, etc. that we hope is relatively consistent amongst all adults involved.

If you’re a step-parent who is experiencing ongoing conflict-related to family system adjustment challenges, consider reaching out to a local family therapist or psychologist who can help the entire system do a better job.

We’ll continue to talk about parenting and family systems as we develop our web series later this year. If you have specific relationship science you’d like to help share with the world, I hope you’ll consider joining our current 26 donors as a sponsor of the show.

Go to patreon.com/abetterloveproject to donate $20/month or more and help sustain our full-time content creation at A Better Love Project, Inc. We’re a 501c3 nonprofit media company in California, run by a combat veteran, and committed to 4 years of producing high-quality video content to help millions of families across America.

I’m Dr. Greg, until next time, love each other fiercely.   

New background music added from:
S

Support the show