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Stepfamily Living |
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| Have you ever wondered how God feels about you and your stepfamily? How does God feel about people in less than "ideal" family circumstances? |
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Stepfamilies can become a great second chance for family if we as step-people remember just a few things: First, don’t go nuclear – allow stepfamilies to establish their own identities... |
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| Communication in remarriage is a tremendous challenge. Learn some high impact skills from seasoned stepmother and stepfamily educator, Carri Taylor. |
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| Whether you realize it or not, your stepfamily has likely assumed a specific integration style. By that, I mean a set of assumptions about how your stepfamily ‘ought’ to come together. I like to use cooking as an analogy to identify some integration styles that stepfamilies attempt to utilize. |
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| Holidays can be particularly stressful for divorced families. Expectations of family get-togethers when you no longer feel like a family, hectic schedules and visitation agreements, school and religious events where you are likely to come face to face with the other parent all contribute to STRESS... |
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| Traditions are important because they communicate our identity as family and their predictability provides security to our lives. When traditions are broken or changed—even if the change is preferred—something dies inside us. |
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| Stepfamilies take the busy-ness of the holiday season and compound it—times two. Two sets of parents must find a way to be civil at programs and pageants. Mix in all the grandparents, visiting family and friends, and it can be a recipe for stepfamily disaster. There is hope, however. With plenty of planning ahead, putting others first, and preparing the heart, successful stepfamily holidays can be achieved. Consider these steps to avoid additional “step-stress” this holiday season... |
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| As we begin this new stepfamily we occasionally take time to "scrape" away the old paint we thought had already been removed. Through God’s help our "White Picket Fence" is white once again (okay maybe a little "off-white"), but this time protected with a lacquer which only comes from the Blood of Jesus Christ. |
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| Looking for some practical ideas to build relationship with your stepchildren and extended stepfamily? Look no further. |
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| Consider each relationship in your life to be a large ship carrying priceless treasure. The treasure on board your ship is the people in the relationship including your spouse, your natural children, and your stepchildren (new children). Every person in your family is a treasure! |
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Help Wanted! A stepmom who strives to create a home where her husband and children hate to leave in the morning and look forward to coming home at the end of the day. |
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| "Change is good." "The only thing constant is change." |
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Where you live and your specific living arrangements can have a significant impact on your stepfamily. Ideally, you’d move into a home that is new to all. It puts everyone at the same starting point and prevents family members from feeling invaded or like an outsider moving in. But, in most cases, moving into a new home is not feasible or practical. |
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| Cooking for a family is difficult enough, but in a stepfamily it has unique challenges. Even if you’re not a health nut, combining taste buds, food traditions, and eating habits is a tricky area to navigate. Unless the stepfamily was formed when the children were very young, the children have not grown up with the same food customs, rules, or preferences. Even the adults, sometimes more set in their ways than the children, have a difficult time adjusting. |
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| What's Thanksgiving like at your home? We asked, and you responded... |
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| God has a plan to transform how you love and who you are to others. In Christ, all things are made new. The One who made the heavens and earth, the One who was raised from the dead, the One who gives life and hope to the fallen, is the same One who takes our selfish brokenness and transforms it into a sweet gift of sacrifice. |
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| Many hands make the load lighter – and make the house messier too! Stepfamilies usually mean more people in the home. It’s important that all family members are required to pitch in to help around the house. |
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| The stepfamily that plays together stays together. Stepfamily life can be tough, but stepfamilies can also be fun (really!). |
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| Please don't check out on me simply because I used the word, "math" in the title of this post. What I want to do is to illustrate the complexity of stepfamilies mathematically. OK, just follow me here.
R = n(n-1)
R means the # of Relationships in a system from one person to another.
n means the number of people in the system... |
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What exactly does “tradition” mean at Thanksgiving and Christmas? Is it sticking to the same, old way of doing things year after year, or does it mean something entirely different? |
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Stepfamily homes can be places of warmth, love, and belonging. They can also be filled with stress. But for stepfamilies who hold God’s hand, and trust Him to show the way, the journey to the Promised Land is worth the wait. |
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| From our friends at FamilyLife, this article reminds us that a daily dose of grace is just what every family needs. |
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| I keep running into expectations that really set people up for disappointment and frustration--and this one’s a doosy! |
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| Read about one stepfamily’s journey through doubt and discouragement to the confidence that they would do it all over again. |
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| ...“eight years in a blended family feels more like eight dog years.” I made a quick calculation in my head. Seven times eight equals fifty-six. The past eight years of our marriage did feel more like we had lived through fifty-six years. |
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| Brianna Buckman remembers well the day her stepdaughter declared that Brianna was not for sale! |
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| Find out how humor and a smile can help stepfamilies find balance on the tightrope of life. |
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| Have you ever learned an important lesson about life from your kids? Here's a touch of inspiration... |
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| We look forward to vacations with such anticipation and expectation. We want to have a good time, relax, and enjoy something different. Unfortunately, sometimes with a stepfamily vacation, what happens is anything but enjoyable and we end up feeling about as relaxed as an air traffic controller. |
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| Before taking a trip to a far-away country, you might want to make a check-list of key survival tips. Consider the following your survival companion for the early years of stepfamily life. |
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