Helping Children Adjust Into Their Blended Family

Blended families are complicated and can be particularly hard on the children. While you and your partner are excited to start a new life together, your children may not adjust to the change so well. It is very important to be aware of this and make sure you are attentive to your child's needs and concerns to adjust well.

Some of the emotions your child may feel are as follows:

Uncertainty

1. Your child  may be scared of losing your attention now that there are new family members
2. They could be scared of becoming insignificant in the new set up
3. They may be unsure of how the new parent and children will treat them 

Anger / Jealousy

1. Your child could be jealous of the attention you give your new partner and thus dislike them for coming between you
2. They may dislike the new siblings for having to share your attention, or disrupting the setup that you had already
3. They may dislike having to share space with the new siblings

Excitement

    

    1.   The idea of having new siblings and a new parent could excite your child as they    

          could have been longing for that 

Overwhelmed and unsettled

    1.    With all the changes happening from adjusting to two parents, the wedding, living             with new siblings, finding their new position in the family, your child may feel     

           overwhelmed and lost. They will worry about what other changes will happen and              feel uneasy

The adjustment probably will not be easy, but here are a few tips to try and make it better for you and your child:

1. Talk to your child as much as possible

You can only know how your child feels if you ask them. As much as you are excited to start a new life, you have to remember that your child has not had as much time as you have to think all this through.

You need to reassure your child that you will always be there for them and that your love for them will not change.

Ask them what they expect from the new parent, from the new siblings, and from you the parent. Ask them how they feel with every new change that is happening. It will take a while for many kids to adjust, but communication has to be open between you and your child.

2. Do not force everyone to get along

It would be nice if every member of the family just got along and loved each other from the start, but it doesn't always happen that way, and forcing it does not help. As a parent you naturally feel pressure to want your new partner and your child to get along, but you have to let go and let it happen naturally. Forcing it will only make both sides angry. Let each person develop the relationships on their own and hopefully they will all grow to love each other.

3.Never block out the original parent

Sometimes the new family may make your child miss their other parent, and it is ok. It is a normal reaction and it does not mean that they do not love you, they just miss them and are dealing with accepting the 'new normal'.

4. Do not feel bad and spoil them

Just because you may feel bad, does not mean you should give in to your child's needs and spoil them.  You now have to realise that there are other children to consider and they must be treated equally. The same rules now apply to each child. Try spend quality time with your child, rather than spoil them.

I hope this has helped someone who is considering blending families or has blended families and was not too sure how to handle it.

Till Next Monday

Stay Blessed

Tafi

#beingaparent

Tips On Co-Parenting

The structure of families is changing so much nowadays where children are being raised in two different households because the parents never married, are divorced, separated, or never were together. These dynamics are complicated for both parties, but mostly for the child/children.  When emotions get involved, logic is thrown out the window. People act for their own benefit and not for the child/children, which is very selfish.  In all situations the child must come first! Whatever decision is made should be in the best interest of the child, NOT the adult's best interest.

Co-parenting well is so important to ensure that your child has as much of a balanced life as possible, given the circumstances. It requires MATURITY, to put your differences aside and consider the child's needs.

If you put your child in between your issues, you harm the child in so many ways:

• Emotionally: they feel they have to choose, and they feel the burden of pleasing both of you
• Physically: the back and forth and the arguments can drain a child physically; they could lose their appetite and interest in participating in anything
• Poor performance at school: aside from the fact that they feel inadequate not living with both parents, they have to deal with the 'drama' that both of you bring around the child. What you do and say in front of your child can affect their performance at school
• Withdrawal from school activities or social functions: if your child knows it is too complicated to have you both attend a function with them, or to ask for permission to attend, they will just choose to not participate at all to avoid the stress
• Low self-esteem: while you are fighting each other, no one is considering the child, and they will feel unloved, not worthy of being care for. 

Good co-parenting raises children that are:

• Secure: they know they are loved and cherished and that they can call on both of you to come together to be there for them
• Confident
• Problem-solvers: they learn from you how to compromise, how to come up with the best solution and not be selfish
• Happy and healthy
• Emotionally stable
• Proud of their parents: so many kids I know cannot wait to leave home and be away from their parents because of their behaviour. They are quite embarrassed by how their parents handled the situation in such a selfish manner

So here are a few tips I have put together:

1. Put your child's needs first: forget about your anger or frustration with the other parent, your child needs you both, do what is best for your child
2. Agree on boundaries: you need to have the same parenting approach regardless of who the child is with. If it is bed time at 8 at mum's, it should be the same at dad's. 
3. Agree on what you want to achieve for the child: one parent may want a child to feel independent at a young age, therefore their agenda is one of raising a confident child. The other parent could want to nurture the child for a while until they are settled in the arrangement. Two different agendas, one child; it will not work
4. Never make your child the messenger: you have to be mature enough to discuss directly with the other parent about the issues you are having, and not send the child. They are a child at the end of the day, they love you both, and it is VERY immature in my eyes.
5. Never bad mouth the other parent to the child: it doesn't benefit the child, nor does it doesn't end well in the long run for you. 
6. Choose your battles: there is a lot to fight about, but choose what is a life changer for your child, and always assess if they are emotions or if it is a real issue that is upsetting you.
7. Keep talking to your child: Keep speaking to your child about how they feel about the arrangement and let them know that they should feel free to speak to either of you if they are unhappy with the arrangement.
8. Don't try to out-do the other parent: spoiling the child doesn't help. Some parents tend to spoil to want to be the 'best' or 'the favorite'. All it does is make the child try to get the most out of both of you. It doesn't help the child at all
9. Keep exchanges short and sweet: Try and keep the exchanges short to avoid emotions running and be pleasant to allow the children to see that you can be civil.
10. Be open and flexible with schedules: schedules are good for planning, but your child's programme can change. Be flexible to allow your child to do what they need to do, and sometimes they may want to see the other parent during your time. Allow that change to happen.

Co-parenting is hard, but it can be done well if both of you work together and cooperate. 

Focus on your child and it will make it so much easier

Till Next Monday

Stay Blessed

Tafi

#beingaparent

Understanding The Relationship Between Mothers And Their Sons

Hello readers!! My sincere apologies for 2 weeks of no posts. We did not have a show these last two weeks with elections and end of term, but now we are back!

This week we discuss a very interesting relationship...Mothers and their sons....a very interesting relationship. The relationship between fathers and their daughters is not as strong from what I have read; fathers are able to let go and watch from a distance more than mothers can do with their sons.  I wonder why though? Some articles even say there is a risk of the relationship being unhealthy, meaning boundaries are not set in the relationship and thus mothers still have a major say in their son's life even after marriage.  As a mother of girls, I will declare now that I do not understand it, and I may not be the best person to speak on it, which is why I researched a lot on the relationship.

Having discussed fathers and their daughters, I can see that the attachment points are quite similar, but the relationship dynamics between mother and son are quite different. Does it mean that the father and daughter relationship is not so strong? I do not think so, but I do think biologically the attachment is different, I am still to prove it to understand it.

From what I researched, I noted the following:

• A mother is a son's first love. She is the first person to show him affection, and teach him how to love. Thus is a mother is not as attentive to her son from a young age, he will not be able to show love to his girlfriend or wife as he grows older. It would be his first experience with rejection. A mother loves unconditionally and men grow to know that and appreciate that.

• A mother is the first person a boy trusts. No matter what their sons do, a mother will always stand to defend their son. They learn to trust women from their mothers, which is why they take it hard when a woman breaks their trust, they do not know how to handle it. If their mother is dishonest and unreliable, their sons will believe all women are like that. 

• A mother defines what a man will look for in a wife.  Men tend to marry someone like their mother; the standards in their lives, in their home and in their actions are set by how their mother was. I have heard men say that their wife doesn't clean as well as their mother, or cook as well as their mother. It could be food made by a world famous chef, but they will still say their mother's food is best

• A son's confidence comes from their relationship with their mother. A man who is confident, who believes he is invincible and can do it all, is that way because his mother; she was his first cheerleader. If she can believe he can do it, then no one can tell him he can't. Her opinion is the number one opinion and the one that matters. If she does not believe in him, she can break his self-confidence and ruin his future without knowing it.  A study presented at the American Psychological Association showed that boys who are close to their mothers tend not to buy into hyper-masculine stereotypes. They don’t believe, for instance, that you have to always act tough, go it alone or fight to prove your manhood every time you are challenged. These boys remained more emotionally open. Not only did they have better friendships, but also less anxiety and depression than their more macho peers1.

What mom says is golden, and what mom does is angelic. Men take what their mother says more seriously and to heart more than a daughter and her father.  There is nothing you can say about his mother that could paint her badly. 

But what causes the lack of boundaries in their relationship?

It is not easy for a son to separate from his mother once he is in a relationship; to them it seems like abandonment or they are neglecting her. Some mothers are also to blame as they feel that way too and let their sons know that is how they feel, which puts pressure on the son to keep his mom close and to please her.

What is important as a mother is to know that you could get too close to your son and fail to let them go, to grow and to love someone else. It requires making a conscious decision to see that letting him go is good for him and it is ok. From what I researched, it is definitely not easy, but it can only be changed by the mother. 

It is important to have a great a relationship with your son because it defines how he treats a woman and the man that he becomes. It is also important to not get too close and allow another woman to be able to love him as much as you love him. Set boundaries in your mind mom, for his benefit. 

We learn something new everyday, and the hope is that we become better parents for our children. Parenting is definitely not easy, and the same approach cannot be used with each child.

I hope this article has helped someone

Till Next Monday

Stay Blessed

Tafi

#beingaparent

Source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20120509/NEWS/120509477