Successful Stepparenting

10 Top Tips

By Gwen Morrison

It's crucial for parents to listen for the growing pains that are bound to rumble in the home. Be prepared to address the serious issues with a professional, and always be open to communicate a concern with a child or with your spouse.

"Because typical multi-home stepfamilies are far more complex than intact one-home biofamilies and have many additional tasks to negotiate, effective child discipline is often harder to achieve," says Peter K. Gerlach, MSW, from Oak Park, Ill., the founder of Stepfamily Information Program, a research-based educational site to help co-parents build high-nurturance relationships and families. "Over half of U.S. stepfamilies re-divorce legally or psychologically within 10 years."

Jesse Raymond, a mother from Middlebury, Vt., says that the best advice she can give new stepparents is to follow the discipline regime that the biological parent follows, especially in the early days. "Don't institute new rules," she says. "It is imperative that the biological parent establish that everyone respects each other. Everyone tends to feel threatened at first."

Raymond says that at the time she remarried, her husband's children were 5 and 8 years old. "He told them that they had to do what I told them because I was a grown-up in the house," she says. "It's been 10 years, and we have been a family a long time."

April Clay, a chartered psychologist from Alberta, Canada, offers her tips for coping with discipline issues:

1. Work at a relationship first. In the initial stages of the relationship with your stepchild, the operative phrase should be "go slowly."
2. Have frank discussions about discipline styles with your partner. Sit down with your partner and discuss your individual parenting styles.
3. Tolerate and work with differences. Accept that there are times you must agree to disagree.
4. Decide how much discipline responsibility is appropriate to your situation. Most experts advise that the biological parent handle the majority of the disciplining. That said, don't take too much of a "hands-off" approach; this could lead to feelings of powerlessness and resentment.
5. Decide on some key family rules. Choose rules that will be essential to the effective functioning of the stepfamily.
6. Pick your battles. Decide what is really important; know your room for compromise.
7. Seek support. Back each other up.
8. Hold meetings. Conduct regular parent meetings to refine and develop your parenting alliance.
9. Consider taking a parenting course together. This may give both of you common ground to work with.
10. Do assume adult authority. Exercise your role as an adult who is to be respected. There will be times when you will have to cope with confidence.

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