Five Tips for Stepparents

    When Michelle McLean was 24 she married a man who had two pre-teen children from a previous marriage. For several years the children would visit every other weekend. Michelle’s stepson was accepting and polite but her stepdaughter was another story. “My stepdaughter would sulk, give me dirty looks, [and] mutter horrible things,” said Michelle, a writer from Utah.

After three years of animosity matters got out of hand. “When she was 15 she came to stay with us for a couple months in the summer. I left for a week to visit my family and when I came back, I discovered that she had carved "I Hate Michelle" into all of the candles in my bathroom.”  

There’s no doubt about it: being a stepparent is tough. What other family title is – fictionally or otherwise – constantly introduced with the word “wicked”? Stepparents face an uphill battle finding stability with their spouse’s children. From gift-giving to disciplinary action, the role of a stepparent is murky for many. For others, it is a nightmare.  

Stepparents need to take a deep breath and realize that building healthy relationships with their spouse’s children will be slow. Rules need to be hammered out, family discussions must be clear, and children must be provided with a supportive environment. Stepparents must never feel that these tasks are solely their burden; parents need to work as a team.  

“Put a lot of thought into setting up a new home and how the home is run,” says Brenda Rodstrom, a licensed therapist from New York and the founder of Stepfamily Dynamics and Coaching. Rodstrom cautions that in many families “new rules and new ways of doing things are not thought out well.  Confusion runs rampant. People want to know who is in charge and what the game plan is. So, the couple needs to sit down and discuss, alone, how the household will function, who does what chores, do cell phones come to the dinner table, etc. These then need to be communicated to everyone - preferably at the same time.”  

Boston-based writer Sean Connell’s parents divorced when he was two. By the time he was in first grade, both parents had remarried. “Both my step-parents turned out to be wonderful people,” he says, noting that good parenting skills were present right from the beginning. “Neither of my new step-parents ever insisted on being called "mom" or "dad" but the rules were clear: when in their house, in terms of authority and such, that's the role they had.”  

Stepparents should not shy away from becoming an authority figure for fear of gaining the stigma of the wicked stepmother. Susan Newman, stepparent, social psychologist and author of "The Book of NO: 250 Ways to Say It — and Mean It and Stop People-Pleasing Forever" is confident that strong, authoritative stepparents can build healthy relationships in their new families.  

“Nobody likes new rules particularly when they require more effort than you’ve been used to: more baths, more helping, fewer food choices at meals and so forth.  As soon as possible is the time to begin making the changes.”  

“How much and what a stepparent does will be dependent of course on the children’s ages. With younger children, a stepparent will need to have authority as if s/he were the parent.”  

For most stepparents this is significant: only about 8 percent of children in the U.S. are younger than 6 at the time of their parents remarriage; the bulk, about two-thirds, are older than 12. Younger children are more likely to accept a stepparent while older or adolescent children who have tasted independence are likely to challenge efforts to their routines.  

“The child-rearing guidelines that most people learn growing up with two biological parents often do not apply in stepfamilies. This is especially true in the case of adolescents,” says Michael D. Zentman, director of the Postgraduate Program in Marriage & Couple Therapy at Adelphi University. Dr. Zentman urges stepparents not to assume the disciplinary powers or abilities of a biological parent and warns that attempts to do so will fail. 

“Teenagers do not, and should not be expected to, honor parental authority from a stepmother or stepfather that came onto the scene after they already reached adolescence. The best advice is to have the biological parent assume all disciplinary responsibilities. The stepparent should support the biological parent's decisions but cannot set the rules nor mete out the punishment.”