How Hard Is It To Raise Step Kids?

I made a new friend on Twitter, she is a Step Coach, Claudette Chenevert and it got me thinking about this subject.  I was divorced when my girls were 4 and 5 year old, so I have experienced other people involved in helping me raise my girls.  What I have noticed is that the man in my life who did not pretend to be their father, and just build their own relationship with my kids seems to work the best.  They needed to develop a strong relationship with my girls aside from me.  They needed to be interested in them as much as they were interested in me.  They needed to want to be a father if they weren’t already.

I was involved with a boyfriend when I was first divorced that had difficulties getting my daughters to like him because he was a bit uptight, expected a lot from them and he was jealous of time I spent with my girls.  At that point in my life, being young, I wondered if I would ever find a new partner that fit with my girls.  I always thought that if someone would just love them unconditionally and develop their own relationship with them things could be good.  I believe if the step parent does a good job developing a relationship with the kids, it makes discipline easier.

I now find myself in a relationship with a man that has two 14 years old twins and I’m in the step position for the first time in my life. So, I tried it out: loving them unconditionally as if they were my own, developing my own relationship with them aside from my boyfriend, and I have even had many conversations with them about certain behaviors that aren’t appropriate, sorta  like discipline.  I also view discipline differently than I did when I was younger.  I used to just lay the law, now I have discussions about issues and get their point of view and see if we as a team  can come up with a better way of doing things.  It feels good and I enjoy them and they enjoy me, they also respect and listen to me.  When my boyfriend and I are doing different thing a part from each other and the boys have the choice of who to go with, most often they split and one goes with him and the other wants to go with me, and it could be different ones each time.

I think that step parenting is tricky, and it can depend on all the adults in the party being mature, which sometimes isn’t the case.  I know, I always go back to this but communication is the key. Both sides need to communicate maturely.  If one parent is speaking poorly of the step parent, this makes it hard for that step parent to build a relationship with the kids.  So maturity is so important here.

When I was a single parent I used to think it seemed easy, just love them.  I know it’s not that simple, but I also know that if you remove your ego it can be easier.  Just put the best interest of the kids first and leave your stuff out of it and love them like they are your own, because  all children are our responsibility on some level?