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Re-marriage
is becoming increasingly popular, especially when the
death of a spouse, or a divorce leaves children behind
who need to be mothered or fathered.
Children
and teenagers have difficulties adjusting to a step
parent especially if the loss of their own parent has
been recent. They may feel that their parent is being
replaced or erased from memory by the step parent. This
can cause resentment and anger.
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Social
labeling and discrimination towards step parents/step
parenting doesn't help either. Myths like that of
the "wicked stepmother" may create often
unwarranted, hostility and suspicion in children.
We
all tend to believe that a 'normal' family' where
the same two people remain together with their children
"forever" is the perfect home situation. Anything
different from the norm takes time to be accepted
and validated. The child who thought his parents will
be "together forever", has to face the fact that his/her
world has turned upside down. This can lead to feelings
of anger, distress, and pain. All parents can do -
biological and step-parents - is to trust themselves
and to listen to their hearts as a guide to helping
children feel secure and loved.
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The
most important changes in the family structure are due
to death, divorce, separation, and violence, which make
children insecure about love. Such experiences make children
feel like their inner world is as fragmented and terrifying
as a war zone.
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New
family members might include stepbrothers and stepsisters,
and adjusting to them can be challenging. New family members
will have new roles, which might initially seem ambivalent.
Negotiating many new relationships with step-people that
they didn't choose, and may not like or trust can be difficult
and stressful. This includes learning whether they can
like/love-or ignore-some or all of the new step-people
without being (or feeling they will be) rejected by their
biological parent. It also includes resolving any confusion,
conflict and/or guilt about who they prefer, and why.
Adjusting
to new privacy and sexual conditions in their home. This
includes accepting their biological parent's being sensuously
physical with another adult, and displaying affection
toward any stepsiblings.
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Coping
with feelings of isolation, self-doubt, and "weirdness"
because most of their teachers, relatives, friends and
neighbors don't really understand what they experience
in their stepfamily;
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may be new routines, new customs, and new ways of
communicating and interacting when a step-parent enters.
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- Schools
and even physical residences might change. This means
more re-adjustment.
Unresolved
or confused feelings about the loss of a parent or
a former family structure takes time to get over.
Children may have anger, guilt, or confusion towards
the parent they are living with. Time and affection
would have to be shared in new contexts, which requires
good communication and more individual time spending
by the parent with the child.
 
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The
first thing to be done is to make the children accept
the fact that certain changes have taken place and many
more are sure to follow.
It is important to realise that children are very sensitive
and intelligent. They should be made aware of and helped
to accept that changes have occurred. Reassure them of
love, support, and an open communication channel with
you to talk through their experiences and feelings in
private. A child who is taught to incorporate change will
have learned something vital.
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A new, value-neutral space could be provided. It is advisable
to move in to a new home if it is within your budget.
The step-parent and step-siblings moving into a new house
replete with old memories and leaving behind their own
house filled with their old memories may find it hard
to adjust. A new space will allow your two families to
root the new relationship and create new memories together.
This way there is no resentment between step siblings
of one family having to leave its memories and house behind
and another managing to keep theirs.
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The biological and step-parent need
to work out methods and perspectives on discipline in
advance, and then support each other when the rules are
being enforced.
For any family, rules help in organizing the family structure.
Children need disciplining especially at a time of change
and stress when they are likely to be reactive. Children
will exhibit a whole range of behaviors that might seem
rude or irritating, either to get the attention of the
biological parent, or to take out their anger at a sense
of loss of the former family. A step-parent will face
the brunt of this and have to grit his/her teeth through
it. However as parents we need to provide discipline and
guidance and let the child know that whereas feelings
of loss and sadness are inevitable, certain unfair behaviours
will not be tolerated. The cooperation of both the partners
is required in defining what is necessary for the children,
which will also be a way of integrating the family.
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Children
need to talk about the missing biological parent, and
this space should be used to develop close bonds with
the child.
The parent who is missing will always have a special place
in the child's heart because of the intimate memory they
shared. They need to talk about that parent, and express
all that they feel for that parent, including painful
emotions. In fact, it may help if the step parents expressed
their understanding and acceptance towards the other missing
biological parent and also assured the children that they
were not trying to replace their missing biological parent(s).
You need to give your child space not to refer to a step-parent
as 'ma' or 'dad'. Help them evolve ways of referring to
a step-parent and integrating them at their own time and
pace. This space of openness will also help you develop
a friendship with them and they will feel that they can
confide and share their problems with you because they
will clearly see you as someone who is not into taking
sides but is fair and just.
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Don't
take all the responsibility. The children have some, too.
Therefore, if things are less than perfect, don't take
all the guilt.
Being aware that their decisions have led to a lot of
changes in the lives of their children, both the natural
parent who has remarried and the step parent who has just
come into the family, may fall prey to blaming themselves
and feeling guilty for the changes their children have
had to cope with. It is important not to feel that you
are the source of all the misunderstanding and problems
in the new household. It is important to realize that
you do not have to take all the responsibility for whatever
goes wrong. Children also need to understand that they
too are a part of this new family and need to take some
responsibility. It is natural that you being the parent,
who has caused changes in the dynamics of the family will
feel somewhat guilty but do remember that it is not necessary
that everything is your fault. Guilt as an emotion is
generally not helpful because it does not contribute positively
to your or your childrens lives. As long as you are doing
the best you can to understand and help your child cope
with the changes you should feel confident about matters
settling down eventually.
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There is stigma attached to the
idea of remarriage, especially for women.
Second marriages in India are always looked at with suspicion
and curiosity, more so in the case of women. This has
to be dealt with a lot of sensitivity .You, as a new family
will probably face the challenge of the prying eyes and
gossip of the neighbors and society in general. This can
affect children negatively. Prepare your child before
hand for such an eventuality. If you are faced with social
ostracisation etc. don't allow other people's perceptions
to influence and upset your child. Let your child know
that you are aware of what is being said and in disagreement
with it. Teach your child how to respond when facing such
situations. Let your child know that you are not playing
into these prejudices; encourage your child to trust you
and the bonds of love rather than other people's perceptions.
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Children may be uncomfortable with
an overt display of affection between the step parent
and the natural parent.
Initially, it may be difficult for children to see any
display of affection between the natural parent and the
step parent. And care should be taken to not hurt their
sensitivities. While overt displays of affection should
be avoided, children should also gently be made to accept
this affection. A child may also react to their biological
parent showing affection to step-siblings and may feel
threatened. Reassure your children and talk openly about
how the step-siblings may be feeling, how they require
love and support too and how this love and support is
never going to be at the expense of their own child.
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Be as natural as possible. Don't
try too hard. Don't try to be something that you may not
be. It is important to be yourself and not try to fit
into a pre-conceived role.
Motherhood or fatherhood is a challenge for everyone.
It becomes even more difficult when the parents are not
biological. Sometimes, in their eagerness to be accepted,
step parents try too hard. They might try to be someone
they are not. This can have two major fall outs - one,
children are very sensitive to put-ons. They will see
through your pretences and like you less for it, and will
find it harder to accept, respect and trust you. The other
major fall out could be that once you have settled in,
you might find it too cumbersome or annoying to continue
with the charade and might revert to being what is truly
you. This switching back and forth is extremely injurious
to any relationship, especially so in the case of something
as fragile as that between step parents and step children.
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Be patient. It won't be smooth sailing
immediately.
Rome wasn't built in a day and neither are families. A
transition is always difficult. Therefore it is best not
to be impatient and not to lose hope. Blending as a family
takes time and patience.
| Life
is interdependent. Nobody is independent, not for a
single moment can you exist alone. You need the whole
of existence to support you, each moment you are breathing
it in and out. It
is utter interdependence. Remember, I am not saying
it is dependence, because the idea of dependence presumes
that we are independent. If we are independent then
dependence is possible, otherwise both are impossible;
it is interdependent.
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OSHO - |
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What
do you say?
Are
waves independent from the ocean, or are they dependent on
the ocean?
Neither
is true. They are the ocean, neither independent nor dependent.
The ocean cannot exist without
the waves; the waves cannot exist without the ocean. They
are one, it is a unity. And so is our whole life .
That
means love can have three dimensions .One is dependence; that's
what happens to the majority of people. The husband is dependent
on the wife, the wife is dependent on the husband; they exploit
each other, they dominate each other, they posses each other,
they reduce each other to a commodity.
In
99% of cases that is what is happening in the world.
That
is why love, which can open the gates of paradise, only opens
the gate to hell.
The
second possibility is love between two independent people.
That happens once in a while.
That
too brings misery, because there is constant conflict. No
adjustment is possible, both are so independent and nobody
is read to compromise, to adjust to the other.
Poets,
artists, thinkers, scientists, those who live in a kind of
independence, at least in their minds are impossible people
to live with, they give freedom to the other but their freedom
looks more like indifference than like freedom, looks more
as if they don't care, as if it does not matter to them, they
leave each other to their own spaces. The relationship seems
to be only superficial. They are afraid to go deeper into
each other because they are attached more to their freedom
than to love, they don't want to compromise. The third possibility
is of interdependence. That happens very rarely and whenever
that happens the path of paradise falls on earth. Two person
neither independent nor dependent but in a tremendous synchronicity
as if breathing for each other, one soul in two bodies, whenever
that happens, love has happened. Only call this love, the
other two are not really love they are just arrangements-social,
psychological, biological.
Osho,
From the Book of Wisdom, discourse 12
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