Kathryn talks with parenting coach and education consultant Joseph Driessen about parenting skills for blended families.

When a marriage or partnership breaks up, many families consist of a recombination of two different families with two sets of children living with parents.

While these families can be happy and thriving, some parents find the situation difficult to navigate with different family cultures, clashing tension between the children and parents, children acting out their grief and anger, and the couple feeling overwhelmed by the stress of children coming and going.

Parenting coach and education consultant Joseph Driessen tells Kathryn Ryan there are strategies parents can employ to help them work towards integration.

Listen to the full interview here

Driessen says there are two major forces at play in second marriages or relationships with children.

On the one hand, parents will have moved on in their life and are happy, which creates a healthy environment to love and nurture children, but on the other hand, children initially will be stressed, he says.

"They've got unresolved grief and sadness and depression and anger about the loss of their family and then they're thrown into a new situation, which is very demanding for them socially and cognitively, when in fact their brains are sort of only operating at half speed and so they can find this whole situation very stressful.

"So, the key to create a blended family is for the couple to realise ... they are the engine of happiness, but their children find it's quite a difficult journey."

Driessen proposes the following strategies for couples to try to be able to eventually integrate as a unit with their children and partner.

First, the parent needs to preserve their relationship with the children and continue doing with them their normal activities.

Secondly, understand the children are hurt and their behaviour is just the tip of the iceberg for all the distress they are experiencing. See it as a journey of healing rather than a fight to get compliance.

Thirdly, parents should try to see themselves as a management team, because the word 'parent' will have a lot of associations that can impede on developing a joint parenting style.

Children can feel uncomfortable and like guests when they're at the stepparent's or partner's place at first, Driessen says.

"The key is to give them space, to just take it easy. Let's not go into blended families at all. Let's just welcome them and say, well, you're very safe here and we want to care for you and give them space, if they want to sit on the couch and blob out with their phones, let them…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details