Connecting with Teenage Stepchildren.
Often everyone’s adjustment to stepfamily living is easier with an infant or younger child. Younger children are still in the impressionable age of attachment. They tend to be more compliant …
Helpful Help for Stepparents
Resources that capture the complexity of stepfamilies and of stepparenting. Being a stepparent can at times be stressful, daunting and lonely. There are a variety of challenges and obstacles to …
Stepfamily Beginnings – Helping Kids Cope
Changes and challenges are completely unavoidable when stepfamily forms. Here are some things you can do to support your child’s emotional health and wellbeing and help them adjust to their stepfamily reality.
6 ways a biological parent can reduce tension & friction in a stepfamily.
Parenting in stepfamilies is not straight forward – for stepparents or for biological parents. It doesn’t work like parenting in a first-time family. Parenting in stepfamilies is more complex and …
Stepmothers and Mother’s Day, Trials and Tribulations
Mother’s Day is annually observed in Australia and New Zealand on the second Sunday of May. It is an opportunity for everyone to pay tribute to their mothers and to …
Tips and strategies to help stepparents talk with their partner
Research tells us that stepfamilies are at greater risk for divorce and separation than ‘first’ families due to the unavoidable stresses that accompany stepfamily life. The first two years in particular …
When love doesn’t come to town – What to do when you don’t love your stepchildren.
Whoever you are and whatever your circumstances, love is complex. Within stepfamilies however, love can be very complex. Especially when it comes to stepparents and stepchildren. This is thanks, in …
5 tips for managing back to school Stepmum-style
Summer holidays are just about over. Can you hear that school bell ringing in the not-so-distant future? No matter how many times you’ve done it before, crossing the school gates …
Tips For Stepfamily Gift-Giving
It’s that time of the year when it’s easy for coparents, stepparents and children to get caught up in the calendars, traditions, and negotiations for time together and time apart …
18 Lessons I Have Learnt From My Stepson
I have been in my stepson’s life for a number of years now. He was a toddler when I first met his father. He is now fully-fledged teenage man-boy. I …