Week 2: Family Therapy Journey / Discussion Week 2: Narrative Therapy and Models for Step Family Development

hi I'm Darcy from core parenting and welcome to the big blend theory

you can love more than one adult and that's one of the things that I try to help step-parents I mean that that word is really tricky that step-parent because essentially you're a mom. They are in a position of caring for, feeding, clothing, emotionally supporting, working through the tricky times, picking up from school, doing all of the things that a parent does, a step-parent does. So when you say, “I don't know my role” but step- parents’ role is the role of parent, and it's just pure and simple as that.

Interviewer: When something has to change…

Darcy: Nothing has to change should change right? I mean so a healthy blended family is one in which the the two parents can come in and find a foundation together right so they start with that foundation just like a biological parents would start with their foundation, so you have your foundation and then the kids build relationships with each other and with you and those relationships are all part of a family and all individual relationships at the same time. Does that make sense?

Interviewer: yeah

Darcy: so while in you’er in your mind and understanding and hearts, as the parents, you understand we're both parenting, we both need to be on the same page as far as you know our parenting style, in our methodology, and what is a consequence, and what are the boundaries, and what are the expectations in our home and we decide that together as a family, and that our expectations are, I always recommend that expectations are there for all the children, the amount of support that you give each child in being able to be successful, in meaning that expectation, is individualized to a child. Essentially high expectations, high support I want to set high expectations for my children and I want to give them enough support so that they can be successful which means I may have an expectation for all the kids in my house that your room has to be made before you leave the house in the morning. My two-year-old, my sixteen-year-old, doesn't matter, everyone's expectation in the same. The two-year-old I'm probably going to make it with them every single morning. The 16-year-old’s on their own they don't need the same level of support, but they may have the same expectation, so as we and obviously there's differences in that, and you know families work around what that means, but whether you're the step-parent or the biological parent, whether you're the stepchild or the biological child in this family, this is how our family works. In this family, this is how dinner works, this is how homework time is, this is how the rhythm of our of our family looks like, within that, both parents have the voice to be able to set boundaries and offer support to every child in the family.

Interviewer: That's great I I really like that everyone has the same expectations but the level of support is adjustable it seems like something like that would make it easier for a child to transition into the other household where the level of expectation may be zero or maybe too high or you know however it is they're able to come in and have hopefully less anxiety about meeting those expectations if they're getting the level of support they need. Like, what an epiphany.

Darcy: We can't control what happens in their other home, right? We can maybe open up dialogue with the other parent, we can maybe try to start to to change the way we think and talk to that other parents, but we can't control what happens just like we can't control the child's school and we can't control what happens at at their friend's house and to some extent, part of growing up is learning how to negotiate role shifts, right? We're different at work than we are home and we're different more with our friends than with our colleagues and those role shifts and how do I manage myself, is one thing that kids are having to negotiate and learn how to do, so our job as parents, whether your kid has another home or not, our job is to say in our home in our family “this is how things look” and we're really consistent in that and it's really clear and it's really safe and we give enough support for you to be successful but you know how it works here and the more that you can create that in your home whatever they go to during their day, whether it's school or you know another part of their family, when they come back, they'll have some transitioning because that's normal, and they'll be able to settle in to the to the rhythm of your home because they understand it and it's predictable and it's safe and supportive in a developmental way that makes sense for them and when you have that you can develop a language that you know they come home from school “in schools unfair” and “there's no time to eat lunch” and whatever their struggles, they're struggling with in those other environments, you can empathize it's really hard it's so challenging to negotiate that you know if it's in the other home how do you know it's so hard when that happens and I could see how that would be really hard on you and or if they're wanting to do something, you know “well it dad's house, I get to have three cookies after dinner” say “that's great it's so exciting that you get to have that with your dad, and your dad is totally capable of taking care of you when you're at his house, and I trust him totally and here we don't have cookies after dinner, how about a piece of fruit?” yeah, so it's just this is how it is and you know I totally am supportive. Now I may call dad later and say, “dude why three cookies? Come on” but I'm not going to say that to the kid, right? because I'm hopefully having that level of communication where I could say “you know that he's gluten-intolerant. why are you giving them three cookies?” We don't have to try to make them get it, we don't have to try to fix their feelings. We can just empathize and let it and let it be.