Building Healthy Blended Families

The transition to a blended family is one that is full of excitement. You have found a partner you love and are excited to take the next step of introducing them to your children, meeting their children, moving in together, or getting married. In all that excitement, you are also probably feeling some nerves. Here are a few questions to answer for yourself and discuss with your partner as you start to blend your new family to help smooth the transition and build a foundation for a strong future for your family.

1. What does the role of a stepparent look like in your family? What are your parenting styles? How will you handle differences in your parenting styles?

Stepparents can take on a lot of different roles, and there is not an exact right or wrong way to be a stepparent, but different types of stepparents will work better in different families. Similarly, you might have different parenting styles than your partner. It is important to be clear about your expectations and to have conversations to negotiate and get on the same page with your partner about what parenting will look like in your blended family. Having a strong basis of clear expectations between the parental unit can help to provide clarity and consistency for children, which is important in helping transitions feel smooth.

2. What is your relationship like with your children’s other parents? What do you need to help the co-parenting relationship work?

Starting a new relationship or blending families with a new partner can be a stressor in a co-parenting relationship. Being able to reflect for yourself on what you are currently doing (or could be doing) to support a functioning co-parenting relationship can be helpful in creating a smooth transition for your blended family.

For co-parenting relationships that are more conflictual, it is still beneficial to explore the behaviors that you are doing to contribute to the co-parenting dynamic and how blending a family with a new partner may influence these dynamics. Additionally, communicating the dynamics of your co-parenting relationship with your new partner can help to create clear expectations. This could include describing how communication works, how your new partner might or might not be involved, or any agreements in a co-parenting agreement that might exist that need to be honored.

In cases where the other parent has passed away, it can be important to discuss what needs to occur to help keep the relationship with that parent alive. Are there certain rituals or traditions that feel important to continue to honor? In what ways can you support your children in maintaining a relationship with their deceased parent while building space for a relationship with a new adult?

3. What do you need to do to work on prioritizing your relationship as you transition from a couple into a blended family?

The foundation of any family is a strong relationship between the parental unit. During the transition to a blended family, often, a lot of attention is given to the overall family unit. It is also important not to lose focus on investing in your relationship to help it be strong. Discussing the strengths of your relationship, as well as areas in which you could continue to grow, can help to ensure that your relationship is a grounded center for your family. Often, couples will choose to engage in pre-marital counseling (even if they are not planning on getting married) or similar preventative-type work with a therapist to help create and maintain a strong foundation of their relationship, addressing any difficulties that come up before they become big problems.

4. Honor both the excitement and the loss for all members of the family.

All transitions, even ones that we are excited about, include an element of loss. This is OK. Perhaps you are excited about the chance to spend more time with your partner and starting to feel like a family, but you will miss some of the alone time that you had. Maybe your child will benefit from having another adult in the home but will miss some of the alone time with just you they were used to.

Honoring the loss that each family member may experience does not mean that the change is not positive. Instead, honoring the difficult parts of the transition can help everyone to feel more heard and understood, sometimes making it easier to see the positive parts of the change as well.

5. How do each of your children feel supported?

This is a big change that happens in the life of your children, and it is a change that they do not get to decide for themselves. Everyone feels supported in different ways, and it can be helpful to brainstorm ahead of time what each child would need to be supported. For example, maybe one child needs to still have special time with just you, whether that is for bedtime stories or an afternoon adventure. Or maybe another child benefits from still getting to snuggle during movie time or having you continue to coach their soccer team. Identifying what each child might need to be supported during the transition can allow you to be prepared to help meet their needs as you enter this time of transition.