How to Tell a Teenager That You Marry Again

Family unit Life

What Your Child is Experiencing When Yous Remarry

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Remarriage may have many positive aspects, although your child may exist looking frontwards to very different things than you. There are too some difficulties that can arise equally members of two families begin living under the aforementioned roof.

Here are some of the most common concerns for schoolhouse­historic period children:

Loss

• As their parents date, develop serious relationships, and somewhen determine to remarry, children may be reminded of their original family unit and of the life they one time had with their female parent and father. Now, however, with the prospect of this new matrimony, they must confront the reality that their parents actually are never going to reconcile and that they volition never again have their original family unit dorsum. This can exist a source of great sadness.

• Children who have built a particularly close relationship with their own mother or begetter during a menses of unmarried parenthood must now acquire to share that parent with a new spouse and maybe with stepsiblings. Information technology may assistance to have the children gather to get to know each other for an event or two.

• Some children may testify signs of increased zipper to the parent who is getting married. For example, a child might not want to leave a parent's side in certain social situations or may express jealousy when the parent shows attending to the new spouse and his or her children. Your child might even verbalize some of her hurt and anger ("I don't remember he's the right guy for you, Mom").

• Some children wonder to themselves, "Where do I belong?" Every bit they meet their parent starting a new family, they may feel more like an outsider than part of the new family structure. With time, withal, ​most children adapt to their new family unit circumstances. Every bit they become to know their stepparent and stepsiblings meliorate, their level of acceptance volition abound likewise.

Feelings

• Many children feel that if they similar and show love towards their new stepparent, they will exist disrespecting their other parent—the one whom this new stepparent, to some extent, is replacing in their habitation. Some children may worry that if their parent remarries—thus bringing a new father/female parent effigy into the home—they will lose the dear and attending of their other begetter or female parent.

• Your child may feel awkward having to get used to ii fathers or two mothers. Particularly in the beginning, allow him or her to view your new spouse in the most comfortable way—perhaps as a 2d male parent or sometimes just every bit Mommy'due south husband. Say something like, "Your stepfather is different from your daddy, and no 1 volition always supervene upon your own daddy."

• Expect your child to make some comparisons between his or her real parent and stepparent, in both positive and negative means. He or she might blurt out statements like, "You're not as nice as my daddy." Comparisons are normal during this adjustment menstruum. Eventually, your child volition finish making them. However, some children may have more than problems and may demand to go help from a mental health professional.

• If possible, father and stepfather, or mother and stepmother, should make contact with each other to begin working toward being more at ease with talking near your kid. This can begin with a phone call but to say hello and to share thoughts about the kid. Both parties might determine to have lunch or some other informal meeting. Although these 2 adults may encounter each other at special events, such as birthdays and graduations, these occasions may not be the all-time times to exercise much talking. The more than comfy these 2 individuals get with each other, the more reassured the kid will feel that he or she does non have to choose betwixt the honey of the parent and developing a relationship with the stepparent. It will prove the kid that the adults are pulling together on his or her behalf and all care and have his or her interests at heart.

• Practise not wait your child to solve his or her loyalty struggles if you accept non resolved well-nigh of your own issues with your ex­spouse. When remarriages occur, the effect of child custody often comes upwards again. For instance, if a noncustodial father marries a adult female with children, he may return to court, requesting that his own kid now live with him ("I have a wife at domicile now and I can take care of my child"). In the midst of an ongoing custody battle, the children often find it harder to deal with their own loyalty struggles.

New Rules

• As children move from a home with a single parent into i that now includes a stepparent and perhaps stepsiblings, they volition probably have changes in the way their family functions. Routines volition be changed and new chores may exist in identify.

• With more people in the home, privacy issues may go more important. It may be harder for children to find some space they can call their own.

• Everyone—including the children—need to participate in the sort-out and adapt to the way the house runs. Most family unit members adapt, but it may accept some time.

Hopes

• Most all couples desire their new marriages to work out well for everyone. Hopefully, having learned from by experiences, they tin achieve their hopes.

• Within stepfamilies, it is unrealistic to hope that the children will immediately respect and beloved their new stepparents. In the existent earth, relationships develop more slowly. Children need time to actually become to know and feel comfortable with a stepmother or stepfather.

• In general, good relationships develop quicker with younger children. School-age children, who are more set in their means, may rightly feel that their established lifestyles are being disrupted by this new man or adult female entering their life.

Additional Data & Resources:

• Some Communication for Stepparents

• Helping Children Conform to a Motion

• Traps Divorced or Separating Parents Should Avert

• Helping Children and Families Bargain With Divorce and Separation (AAP Clinical Report)

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Article Body

Final Updated

2/6/2017

Source

Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health (Copyright © 2017 American University of Pediatrics)

The information independent on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. At that place may be variations in handling that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

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Source: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/family-dynamics/types-of-families/Pages/What-Your-Child-is-Experiencing-When-You-Remarry.aspx

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