Step parenting and blended families - what works for you?

[jumpy2012]

Next week DP and I are moving in to a new house together. My girls are nearly 13 and 15 and his DD is 3.5. My girls will be there 4-5 nights a week, he sees his DD EOW near her home, or at our home for 50% of school holidays.

We will all have a bit of adjusting to do when we start living together for the first time. What works for you?

[Readyisknitting]

Consistancy. If one adult says no, the other does. We have very similar parenting styles, meaning our tribe have no room to try anything on.
Household rules, not necessarily in stone, or detailed. A big one in our house is respecting adults, si no back chat, and not deliberatly hurting one another, which also covers leaving playground behavior at school.
We are very lucky, our families blended really smoothly.
Good luck

[purpleroses]

We moved in together a few weeks ago - a bit soon to say what works in the long term but the move itself has gone well. What's helped has been getting the kids involved in choosing new furnture, redecorating, etc. Have also bought DP's kids a few things to keep at this house (eg swimsuits) to help them feel it's still their home (we moved in to DP's house). Talking about house rules, and spending lots of time together first has been good too - so that you get to understand how the other lot live and which things are likley to be sources of tension.

I think as a single parent you get used to setting your own rules in a nice kind of autocratic fashion and it takes some getting used to to start having to consult with someone else on everything. Things that have caused odd bits of friction so far have been DP deciding to give all the kids chocolate bars without consulting me, and me trying to clear out rubbish that turns out DP does not think is rubbish at all.... I think with all our focus on making sure the kids were happy about everything we to some extent forgot the challege it would be for us as adults just getting used to sharing living space again.

But the kids overall have been hugely positive about it all. They seem to enjoy the expanded family.

[theredhen]

Agree with ready. Consistency is really important but also the ability to talk and discuss things with your partner. Don't just agree on basic values but sit down and talk through the little details because like so many things, the devil is in the detail.

For example DP and I in theory share similar parenting values but in reality he doesn't apply those values at all. We both agree that kids should do chores, for example, but DP will quite often do chores himself rather than ask his kids because he is frightened of upsetting them.

And talk about consequences, it's no good agreeing a set of rules only to find they are meaningless because one of you won't give the children any consequences for non compliance.

In some ways you are lucky in that you have such an age gap as you won't really be treating all the children the "same", but it might mean your DP doesn't understand teenager attitudes and he might struggle with that whereas you have already had a 3 year old (although it might seem a long time ago!) so you can apply more understanding.

[brdgrl]

I agree - the top three things I'd say have worked for us are: consistency, house rules, and talking with your DP. And a fourth - being clear about boundaries. Know who it is that gets to make decisions and take the lead in your home. For us, establishing that DH and I are the joint head of the household - that we'd make the big decisions together - was important.

DH and I have spent so much time talking and strategising and discussing our feelings and views on 'blending' our families. To be honest, just figuring it all out has often felt like a part-time job to me.

DH and I agreed on house rules and how they'd be enforced before ever moving in together - obviously we have had to add details and adjust things as we go along, but we got the basis in place right from the beginning, and really tried to be consistent. DH struggles with the consistency but it truly is the key to making it work. My motto from the start became 'begin as we mean to go on'.

We have very similar age gap to you - my DSCs are 17 and 14 now and our DD is 2. Adjusting to living with teenagers was tough for me; like redhen says, your DP may find the adjustment more difficult than you do - it is a lot easier I think to 'blend' with a small child than with teens.

[mrsmopsmissingmojo]

We did this 4 years ago! We are surviving! We have 10 children together! I could write the book!