Blended Families Research Paper

There are usually more adults in the lives of children in blended families. These adults can be role models from which the children can choose from. Mom and dad can be a doctor or a teacher. Step mom and step dad can be a dentist or a police officer. All good role models

Divorce is common in the United States; remarriage is just as common. As a result many marriages result in a blended family. A family in which both of the parents have children from previous marriages. Often the blended family shares a permanent residence. Clair Cartwright and Kerry Gibson state in their 2013 report, The effects of co-parenting relationships with ex-spouses on couples in step-families, that in the United States in 2008, around 9% of households and around 12% of cohabiting households were blended families ( Teachman & Tedrow, 2008). A blended family is an excellent place to observe symbolic interaction theory.

Having a new step-family is a big change for some children, this may affect their emotional development, as they

American novelist, Barbara Kingsolver, in her excerpt, “Stone Soup”, taken from, High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, recounts the outrageous view that society has on divorced families/homes. Kingsolver’s purpose is to impress upon readers that it is okay for families to stem away from the traditional, “Dad, Mom, Sis, Junior”, family. She creates a persuasive tone in order to get rid of stereotypes and judgments of marital issues held by her readers and society. Through the effective use of anecdotes, appeals, and passionate diction, Kingsolver establishes her claim that blended families can get through life happy and perfectly fine by themselves or with close friends and family.

The family dynamics in Max Apple’s “Stepdaughters” and Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” displays some of the issues that parents, stepparents and teenagers may or may not experience. A mother’s relationship with her children has a very unique connection, especially when it comes our daughters. Being a mother or stepmother is a problematical and rewarding experience: nevertheless, a mother’s love is unconditional. How do you except someone for his or her choices on being different? Is it easier for a step-parent to see things more clearly that the biological parent? Every family has its issues. When it’s a blended family with mothers, fathers, stepchildren and other family member, those issues can become more complex to understand.

In today’s society, divorce is on the rise and has been for the past few decades. As the rate increases, so does the rate of remarriage. If there is a child whose biological parents divorce and remarry, the increase of stepfamilies occurs as well. This concept is the concept of what the reading this week connects to in the stepfamilies chapter of Floyd and Morman’s (2014) book. This chapter has truly spoken to me as a child of a remarriage by the age of 8 and 14and how difficult it was growing up dealing with two different stepfamilies. Reading this chapter this week gave me some more insight into how I have communicated within my stepfamilies.

Handling a blended family could be very challenging even for step parents who have a great relationship with your stepchildren. I think this week’s movie clip "The Scoop on Blended Families" offers realistic guidance from teens that have experience what it’s like to live in a blended family and how they have adjusted to their new step family. All family sometimes struggles to be happy, but blended families often face greater obstacles than others. For example, the quality of the relationship between stepparents and stepchildren cause a great impact on the level of happiness of a blended family. Loyalty to biological children and know how to discipline also add significant complications. This movie could be very helpful and educational to anyone

Blended families are created from a diverse sets of needs as a result of family life changes, such as divorce or death, and these changes result in situations where both adults and children find themselves living with step-family members stemming from both sides of the no longer intact family structure. Deal (2014), a leading author and marriage therapist, likens the blended family to a 3-D puzzle that a person is trying to complete without the benefit of instructions or even a picture as a point of reference. Each family is different in roles and their structure; however, most members desire healthy outcomes and basic principles for creating well-functioning family units.

Deal (2014) uses his professional clinical experiences as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor combined with his professional experience in local church ministry and family ministry consulting to create the book The smart stepfamily: Seven steps to a healthy family. Deal (2014) purpose of writing this book is to help the blended families understand and learn how to integrate or merge the two families into a healthy successful stepfamily (p 21-22). Deal (2014) is straightforward about integrating a stepfamily is a difficult task for today’s families since it involves merging two distinctive family histories, styles, numerous personalities, preference, traditions, relational past and loyalties. He highlights

More than ten million children live with a biological parent and a stepparent, according to the Census Bureau (Clark, 2008, p.82). In the new normal family, blended families consist of at least one parent bringing in one or more children into a relationship. Many of these couples also have children together. With the increase in numbers of blended families society has had to adapt in order to accept and work with the blended family model. This adaption occurs within the court system, school system and welfare system.

As of 2009, about 16 percent (11.7 million) of all children in the USA lived in blended families.[2] and 42% of all adults have at least one step relative.[3] Here's why:

Work intimately with your accomplice. All the additional worries in step families put strains on the marriage. Set aside a few minutes for relationship-working with your accomplice. As a result of the more unpredictable histories in a stage or mixed family, expect challenges around issues of cash, orderliness, obligations, sex, in-laws, conventions and occasions. There are numerous acclimations to be made. Make sure to expand on and accentuate the qualities you have with your accomplice.

Specific thesis: The blended families and multicultural families become increasingly familiar. Understanding the basics of these families, is, therefore, critical for the family embraces its strengths in working through their differences. According to the research carried out by Michele Martin on the experience of the remarried couples in the blended families, differing loyalties cause various challenges for both biological and step-parents. Just like blended families, the shadow side of multicultural families can loom heavily in the relationships leading to various challenges. Chang and Chin-Chun (page 24, 2014) agrees that it is caused, primarily, by differences in culture and the differences in the cultures makes the parents face difficulties in raising children.

Divorce and remarriage have a profound effect on the parents and can have harmful effects on the future relationships of their children. Marriage is a complicated and an arduous process with many trials. However, remarriage and the concept of a stepfamily is akin to walking barefoot on hot coals. The dynamics of a stepfamily is dictated early by the fantasies and the subsequently the realities of the marriage and stepfamily issues.

A blended family is a family where at least one parent has children that are not genetically related to the other spouse or partner. Either one parent may have children from a previous relationship. Children in a blended family may live with one biological parent, or they may live with each biological parent for a period of time. In addition, visitation rights mean that children in stepfamilies often have contact with both biological parents, even if they permanently live with only one. A child is referred to as the stepchild, stepdaughter or stepson of their biological parent’s new spouse, and that person as the stepparent, stepfather or stepmother of the child. A stepfather is the husband of one’s mother and not one’s biological father. A stepmother is the wife of one’s father and not one’s biological mother. Similarly, a stepbrother is the son of a stepparent who one is not biologically related to. A stepsister is the daughter of a stepparent to whom is not biologically related. A parent’s spouse of the same sex may also count as a stepparent. Alternatively, in Australia Under the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), a ‘stepparent’ in relation to a child, is interpreted as a person who is not a parent of the child; and is, or has been, married to or a de facto partner of, a parent of the child; and treats, or at any time while married to, or a de fact partner of, the parent treated, the child as a member of the family formed with the parent.