STEP-MOM 911 | FAMILY COUNSELING CENTER ASSOCIATION

“I am a step-mom. My husband and I got married 1 1/2 years ago and I don’t have any kids of my own, nor do I plan on having any. I really like and love my step-kids. I formed a healthy bond with them when we dated for over a year. I consider us friend and I do ‘step-mom’ things like cook dinner, take them to social events and school, do fun things together, talk, laugh and listen. All that and this is still a very difficult role. My husband and his ex- have been divorced for about eight or nine years. The kids were very young. The divorce was extremely high conflict and very expensive for my husband. There is still tons of dislike between them and there has never been any co-parenting on their parts.

My husband is a “fun dad”. The kids adore him. They’ve never had chores and never picked up after themselves. At least, not at their dad’s, but they do at their mom’s house. He worries so much about them not wanting to come to our house (for no reason except is is a looming possibility in his mind that could lead to more court dates and more $$).

Recently, my 11 year old step-daughter has decided she can’t go to sleep alone. She cries and comes in our bedroom over and over again throughout the night, waking us up. Sometimes my husband will read her to sleep, then fall asleep in her bed. He wakes up in the middle of the night and comes back to our bed. It makes for very interrupted sleep for us both. This is happening on a regular basis and is making for some tired, grumpy adults. We both need sleep!!!

We don’t talk about it because my husband doesn’t “know how much it will help.” I say we have to talk about this. Otherwise, too much resentment builds up. His daughter and her mom sleep together every night when she is with her mom and that just makes it more difficult at our house.

I feel very powerless. I know the step-parent role is more supportive than anything else, but when my husband constantly tries to please and entertain the kids the entire time they are with us, what am I supposed to do? Everything is on hold when the kids are with us. We have to find a way to balance happy kids with a happy marriage.”

Dear Powerless,

As you know, the problem here starts with your husband and you. His daughter is struggling to cope with very different parenting situations and she’s getting the raw end of this deal–as are you.

First off, dad needs to realize that structure, expectations and consequences help kids feel safe with you. If he’s so focused on entertaining them, he’s not giving them a strong, safe haven–they don’t feel secure and this is contributing to your step-daughter’s anxiety issues. Dad needs to help his children get ready for life (and worry less about his bank balance). Kids need to participate in household chores because they’re part of the household. This is part of self-confidence and will help them move forward into a strong adulthood.

But you know a lot of this. You just can’t get your husband to see it. Since he won’t even talk with you about this issue, I recommend you go to therapy yourself, inviting your husband to come with you, if he will. The longer you let this relationship disconnect continue, the more like the marriage will develop even larger problems.

BTW, a good therapist can also help your step-daughter deal with her fears. She needs someone objective on her side.

* * *

Children need both power and security. They deserve both. This means they need the security that comes through consistency and follow-through. Even if they don’t like you insisting they follow certain rules, your doing so helps them to feel than can rely on you. You’re strong enough to stand up to them, so you’re probably strong enough to protect them.

Parents who are weenies with their kids and never want to be the bad guy just conveys to the kids that they’re basically alone–as small as they are–in a big world. Heck, if you can’t stand up to your child, you don’t seem like you’re very tough.

In addition to the safety of having a reliable, consistent system in the home, kids need to experience their own personal power. They need some–not all, but some–things they get to decide about. When my younger daughter was six, she put her hand on her hip and ask why I cared about whether she picked up her room–it was her room. I know from having talked to a lot of parents that this is one area they feel they should have the right to be the most powerful, but what the kid said made sense to me. It was her room.

From that day forward we instituted another system–she was to keep her stuff out of the public areas(living room, kitchen, shared bathroom) because the rest of the family lived there, but she could keep her own room any way she wanted (Power!) The only stipulation on this was that there was to be no food in her room as that would attract bugs which would effect the rest of us.

The kid was absolutely right. I didn’t live in her room, she did. Why did she have to keep it to my specifications? For eight long years, her room was hugely messy. I’m talking shoes and clothes on the floor. Piles of them. I never cleaned it up or insisted she do so. I also never went into the mess, looking for what she lost–if she wanted to live that way, she had to deal with losing things.

When she was fourteen, though, I came home to find her room spotless. She was going off to high school and she felt the need to organize her life some. Good for her.

I don’t advocate letting kids run your life or even their own lives. Although we allowed her to keep her room the way she wanted, we followed through consistently with other issues. When she was doing Vision Therapy to deal with an inherited tendency toward dyslexia, I enforced her doing those activities like I was a Nazi. Her learning to read was a way bigger deal than whether her room was clean.

To this day, sometimes she’s messy. I don’t really care. She’s not messing up my home and she’s reaching an even bigger goal–she’s in medical school.

I strongly advocate that we let our kids find and maintain their own personal power. This can be done without compromising their health or their welfare and it’s massively important to help them realize their own strength.