Becoming a Stepparent

Becoming a parent by blending families or marrying someone with kids can be a rewarding and fulfilling experience. If you've never had kids, you'll get the opportunity to share your life with a younger person and help to shape his or her character. If you have kids, you'll offer them more opportunities to build relationships and establish a special bond that only siblings can have.

In some cases, your new family members may get along without a hitch (remember The Brady Bunch?), but other times you can expect difficulties along the way. Figuring out your role as a parent — aside from the day-to-day responsibilities that come with it — also may lead to confusion or even conflict between you and your partner, your partner's ex-wife or ex-husband, and their kids.

While there is no foolproof formula for creating the"perfect" family (every family has its own dynamics), it's important to approach this new situation with patience and understanding for the feelings of those involved. Suggestions below also may help to make things easier as you adapt to your new role.

Start Slow

The initial role of a stepparent is that of another caring adult in a child's life, similar to a loving family member or mentor. You may desire a closer bond right away, and might wonder what you're doing wrong if your new stepchild doesn't warm up to you or your kids as quickly as you'd like — but relationships need time to grow.

Start out slow and try not to rush into things. Let things develop naturally — kids can tell when adults are being fake or insincere. Over time, you can develop a deeper, more meaningful relationship with your stepchildren, which doesn't necessarily have to resemble the one they share with their birth parents.

Factors That Affect Your Relationship

Children who are mourning the loss of a deceased parent or the separation or divorce of their birth 

parents may need time to heal before they can fully accept you as a new parent.

For those whose birth parents are still alive, remarriage may mean the end of hope that their parents 

will reunite. Even if it has been several years since the separation, kids (even grown ones!) often hang 

onto that hope for a long time. From a child's perspective, this reality can make them feel angry, hurt, 

and confused.

Rewarding bad behavior!!!

How many of us parents tell our children if you don't behave in school/home you won't get anything for Christmas? How many of us actually stick to this? I know I'm guilty of not sticking to it, so are we rewarding bad behavior? What are we teaching our children by going against our own words? So the next time we say it they won't believe us and keep acting the same way because they are gonna get gifts either way... How can we fix this, change the tables, mean what we say and say what we mean?

That's just my babies daddy (lol)

So my daughters father has little involvement in her life and my Fiancé is raising her as his own but you know children don't understand that so every time she  see's her father it's like super dad smh.. She will one day see him for what he really is an irresponsible, man-child who needs to grow up and help take care of his responsibilities!! Did I just vent back there oops I'm sorry lol... Now that the Fiancé and I are getting married she seemed to be acting out more, we sat down and spoke to our pastor and she said that she wished it was just her, myself and her father again.. The pastor asked if she knew that her dad and I didn't get along and she answered yes, but does she really understand or is she just saying that cause thats what she thinks we want to hear? I don't know and every time she gets in trouble she plays the "I don't feel loved" card which is getting old I feel defeated I have no more fight left in me and her father is no help when he says things like "we are over here playing house" and "he doesn't want to hear about no we" when the reality is there is a we that is raising the child he helped make.. Why are some fathers such losers? Can't we just ship them off to some planet? And he never speaks to me directly unless he absolutely has to he relays messages through her and it makes her feel like she is an adult he is apart of the problem not apart of the solution! I don't know what to do anymore... Help me readers to understand...

Why is my toddler such a picky eater? (Thanks Niya)

Eating solid food is still a new experience for your toddler. He/she may need time to get used to the various textures, colors, and tastes of new food. And because young children crave consistency and familiarity (from bedtime routines to afternoon snacks), most of them won't try new foods until you've served them numerous times.

That said, this is a great time to teach your child to try new things, before he/she gets too set in their ways and before he begins to reject new foods as a way of asserting his/her independence (a distinct possibility as he/she nears their second birthday!). Offer a variety of healthy foods often, so he/she has the opportunity to dig in when they are ready — if not at lunch, then maybe during an afternoon snack.


Information given by Babycenter.com

A Mom

I have carried a child within my body, I have comforted a baby on my chest, I have kissed scraped knees, been puked and peed on, woke up in the middle of the night to a feverish child & more. But I wouldn't have it any other way. My body isn't magazine perfect, but when I look in the mirror I see a MoM & there IS No greater honor or blessing. 

Borrowed from a Facebook status

Should you punish your child?

Punishments do they really work? Does the child actually remember what they were punished for? When its over have they learned a lesson? Here's what some professionals think:

Gina Green, Ph.D.

Researcher, New England Center for Children; Past-president, Association for Behavior Analysis

The best way to reduce misbehavior is to provide abundant positive reinforcement for good behavior.Punishment in the form of unpleasant consequences might stop misbehavior, but it often has undesirable side effects. A child whose behavior is punished may react emotionally, strike back or avoid the person delivering the punishment. Instead of punishing misbehavior, try to catch your child being good. Tell her that you appreciate what she's doing, and do so frequently and consistently. At the same time, make sure misbehavior doesn't pay off by enabling your child to avoid homework or chores, for example, or to gain attention.

Norine G. Johnson, Ph.D.

Past-president, American Psychological Association

If you want a loving, respectful, self-disciplined child you won't use punishment. You will use appropriate parenting tools. For young children you will use diversion, structure, limits and withdrawal of attention. For older children, you will set expectations and spell out the rewards or consequences. In junior high, I took corn from a farmer's field. My father saw me with the corn and asked me to tell the truth, otherwise my punishment would have been twice as bad. I told the truth. I had to apologize to the farmer and eat the raw corn. Today, I value the truth and always wonder what my punishment would have been.

I feel that children spend more time thinking about the actual punishment then thinking about why they were put on punishment which defeats the purpose in my opinion. What I make my 7 year old do is actually write down what she did over and over again and then to write down why she will not do it again and the reason why she was told not to do it I.E. it was dangerous, messy, hurtful etc. I like this method and it works for me... What are some of your methods MOMS and let us know if it works for you!

Vacation anyone?

Sometimes I feel I just need a break from it all..... From mom duties, spouse duties, house duties, and any other duties that are required of me.... I feel at times like I wanna yell "NO YOU DO IT" is that so terrible I feel like i'm my families personal maid and it gets to me sometimes. I love my family and wouldn't give them up for the world but I need a vacation away from them something for me!! Me is now last in the equation how do I get myself first sometimes? Is this how it's going to be until my children go off to college?

TO MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER

Then You Grew

When I held you in my arms for the very first time,

I thought I could never love you more. . . . 

but then you grew. 

In those precious baby times-- through your first smile,

your first tooth, your first steps, I thought I could never love you more. . . 

but then you grew.

And in those sweet toddler times-- the endless days of curiosity and adventures and discoveries, I thought I could never love you more. . .

 but then you grew.

And still, always, day by day, you keep growing. . . more and more beautiful. . . nearer and dearer to my heart.

It's okay to cry!

Sometimes we as mother's deal with so much day in and day out and at times we may feel overwhelmed, I'm here to let you all know it is okay to cry.... Sometimes a good cry is cleansing to your soul, it may help you to re-evaluate a situation and give you a clearer view... Take a bathroom break and just cry your heart out you will feel so much better afterwards!! Don't feel bad when you feel overwhelmed as a mother so much is expected of us we don't get sick days, or vacations this is a 24 hour 7 days a week job not everyone is built for this position, but the benefits are well worth it.. I love being a mom and I wouldn't change it for the world, my kids are my breath of fresh air, my sunshine on a cloudy day my all in all.......

IT'S OKAY TO CRY!!!

Why go to the Doctor?

I hate taking the children to the doctor to sit there for hours, only for them to tell me what I already know!!! Like come on make up some stuff just so I can feel like my wait was worth it, instead of saying "Hey your children have a cold" DUH!!! You should just be able to text your doctor the symptoms and they should be able to tell you whats wrong and what it is that they need to get better if a prescription is needed the Doctor should be able to email/fax it to the Pharmacist.... Am I alone here? 

Unloved

What do you do when your older child doesn't feel "loved" anymore once they have a baby brother/sister? How do you divide the attention between the two or how do you explain to the oldest why mommy has to pay more attention to the new baby? I'm going through this now with my 7 year old, every few weeks or months she comes to me or a member of the family and tells them she does not feel loved and she feels I pay more attention to her brother than her. I tried explaining to her that he is growing and iam teaching him things that I have already taught her and that's why I spend a lot of time with him and I tell her that I need her to help me teach him alson, she acts like she understands but then a week or so will go by and I'm having the same convo with her??? I do things with here whereas its just her and myself but it don't seem to be enough I don't know what to do at this point!!

Life after children

Have you ever looked around and wondered where did your social life go? I'm still trying to figure it out, I use to be a social butterfly but now my socializing has been reduced to posts on Facebook or some other social network. I rarely have face to face contact with my friends anymore, I'm doing my thing and they are doing theirs and I feel bad at times especially when the friends without kids want to hang and sometime I just can't, either i'm to tired from dealing with the kids or I just plain ol' don't have nothing to wear to these outings anymore. Is that bad? I try to go out every now and again but I just can't hang like I use to!! My kids and my relationship with my Fiancé consume pretty much all my time how do I find time for myself? How do I get that little part of myself back? Do you feel like this sometimes MOMS?