Your Strange Child. Living In A New Marriage With Children - Relationships, Society

2023 Author: Oswald Adamson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 20:18

“People meet, people fall in love, get married” - words from a once popular song. But today people get married, then separate, and then form new families. They enter this new life with a "dowry" - children from previous marriages. And now we need to adapt to each other, learn to live together

Relationship network

If we imagine a family created by people who were once married and their children, then such a family will in its structure resemble a molecule, where the child (children) occupies a central place, which is connected by invisible threads with other family members:

• with the parent with whom he stayed;
• with an ex-husband / wife, who at the same time does not cease to be a parent for the child;
• with stepfather / stepmother.

At the same time, adults form their connections-relationships:

• stepfather / stepmother and wife / husband (new family);
• former husband and wife among themselves;
• ex-spouse and stepfather / stepmother.

Sometimes, if adults did not have enough resources to leave the relationship painlessly, these connections can poison the new nascent family and negatively affect the child. Below are the moments of toxic interaction in these ligaments and the consequences for the child.

Parent + "new parent"

Uniting partners to influence children without taking into account the interests of children. →

The child's feelings: he is superfluous, now unwanted, his biological parent becomes a shape-shifter - not the same as he was before, changes his views. The feeling that the familiar and comfortable world is collapsing like a house of cards.

Parent + "ex-parent"

The use of the child in order to resolve their own ambitions, an attempt to win over to their side, the desire to "wipe the nose" of the ex / ex, blackmail. →

Child: he is faced with a choice that he cannot make. This can lead to neuroses, breaking the will. Cultivating negative feelings in a child. Separating it from the roots.

"Former parent" + "new parent"

Competition, jealousy. Using a child to obtain information, a child is a battlefield. →

The child feels his uselessness, lack of value of his personality, use.

To an outsider in

Adults should be careful with children. There are at least two reasons for this:

1. Adults are capable of analyzing situations, of control / self-control due to social and life experience that children do not yet have. Let's not forget, they even already have experience, albeit not very successful, of creating and living in a family!
2. Creation of a new “social unit” is a choice and decision of adults, but not children. Children are in a dependent, vulnerable position. And this fact alone gives children the privilege of being heard and understood. At least - a chance for increased tolerance on the part of adults.

Do you understand mine?

1. An ineffective way of establishing contact is to try to play the role of a kind stepmother / kind stepfather: when a new adult, emphasizing his dissimilarity from the heroes of the folk epic, is artificially too soft, which does not correspond to the essence of his character. And the child certainly feels this falsehood.
2. Some “new parents” take on the role of a substitute parent and begin to “tighten the screws” in an attempt to “fill in the gaps” in parenting. That also does not contribute to the emergence of a trusting relationship between the child and adults.
3. Not the best way for a family to become a whole organism is for a newly-made parent to withdraw from the upbringing of "other people's" children for the sake of a comfortable coexistence under one roof.
4. The most disastrous way of building a relationship between a child and a new "parent" is the requirement from the child of unconditional acceptance and submission to the stepfather / stepmother both on the part of the newest relative and on the part of the biological parent. In this context, riots, sabotage or even escapes can hardly be avoided.

“May there always be a mother! May I always be! "

It happens that children do not make contact with their parents' spouses, even when they show miracles of tolerance. This happens in a situation where children are still hoping for a reunification of their parents and see in the stepfather / stepmother a stumbling block and a cause of contention. Here it is worth building bridges directly with the ex-spouse in order to convey from both sides to the child's consciousness the unambiguity of the decision. It must be explained that mom and dad will always remain that way for the child, they just stop being a family in relation to each other.

Adults need not demand unconditional acceptance of their decisions from children, but create conditions for fostering understanding and acceptance. Moreover, adults have an advantage over children: they have like-minded people - their partners.

Try not to fantasize about how to replace the child's father / mother, or how you will become best friends: if you do not build an air staircase, you will not have to fall painfully from it. However, benevolence and consistency will surely bear fruit.

Do not give up if one day you hear: "You are not my father (not my mother)!" You can always answer honestly: “Yes, it is! But this absolutely does not prevent me from worrying about you, taking care of you! " Remember the wise words from the movie "Stepmother"? “When a plant is transplanted, what does it need? Time and warmth. To get accustomed. And here is a living child …”If you succeed in becoming kindred spirits (perhaps you have similar interests, hobbies) - well, if you manage to become relatives - great, you can make friends - great. But even if that doesn't happen, you always have a chance to just be a significant adult in a child's life.