stepparents

I found this great article by Kate Bayless, "8 Boundaries Stepparents Shouldn't Cross"  I read the article and comment.  In this segment, I discuss boundaries 1 through 4.  

They are 1. Trying to take the place of the mother or father. 2. Spanking your stepkids.  3. Assuming a position of authority. & 4. Getting involved in parenting discussions between your partner and the ex.

Listen in as I share the insights.  Article can be found at this link - Click Here.

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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Stepparents important for you to recognize the strengths of your Stepchildren and one of those strengths is that they are trying.  Sometimes we want instantaneous results and you are not going to get them with your Stepchildren.  Nurturing/Loving is a slow process that requires time.  I am starting to see changes in our relationship but I had to change first. Listen as I share my story.

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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As a Stepparent you can make or brake your relationship with your Stepchildren.  It's important for you to recognize what is really going on with your Stepchildren.  You have the power to make changes for the good.  It's all in your perspective and being honest with yourself about where you are.  You should examine your parenting skills and be willing to adapt and adjust to meet the needs of your Stepchildren.  Listen as I share my experiences.

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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As a Stepparent you must learn to recognize the good that is in your Stepchildren.  You have to teach yourself to look for it or you will never find.  I have been in a new place in my relationship with my Stepchildren because I have been able to look at them through a different view point.  This has made our relationship stronger.  Listen at what happened to me.

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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Stepparents:  Learn from me.  Be self-aware about anything that triggers you.  Including your false expectations of what your family is.  You cannot live in a fantasy world when it comes to your family.  You need to accept your family as they are and not place undo burdens upon them.  When you are self-aware about your limitations and weaknesses you can be a better stepparent.

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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Stepparents:  Forgiveness is something that you as a stepparent will have to constantly practice.  You will have many opportunities to be offended at the things that your family does.  Forgiveness is the key to maintaining a healthy relationship with your family.  Listen at my experience with forgiveness.

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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Stepparents, listen at my heart for you.  You can do this.  You can be a good stepparent and be true representation of God.  You have to be self-aware about what you are not, what you cannot do.  It's time to be the best stepparent that you can be.

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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Communication Pt 4, Stepparents you need to understand how important communication is.  I share a story of how miscommunication can cause some hurt feelings.  Words mean something and each time you fail to recognize this you leave yourself at risk for hurting your family.  Be self-aware about your weaknesses in this area.  

Podcast intro and outro from Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/.  476070__jjmarsan__hello-user-bright-cheery-intro-music; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

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Find Melissa at: https://www.facebook.com/CreativeFamilyConnection/

Melissa Price is a mama and grandmother who wanted to empower youth to avoid or recover from addiction, bring families together, and contribute to healthier, more emotionally intelligent humans in the world. Her stroke of genius became a game called Emotion Commotion that utilizes a play-based (most effective) approach to a complex topic with amazing results.

Check out the book:

S.U.R.E. Parenting: Building Blocks to Create Their Best Childhood

bit.ly/sureparentingbook

Schedule a free call:

bit.ly/callsami

IG: @sureparenting

FB Page: @sureparenting

FB Group: facebook.com/groups/empoweringmomstoupliftkids

When parents contact me with a struggle and their comments include "he should be _____ by now" I know we need to first remove "should" from the conversation.

Check out the book:

S.U.R.E. Parenting: Building Blocks to Create Their Best Childhood

bit.ly/sureparentingbook

Schedule a free call:

bit.ly/callsami

IG: @sureparenting

FB Page: @sureparenting

FB Group: facebook.com/groups/empoweringmomstoupliftkids

Fred Campos, @FullCustodyDad, and 20-year custody consultant, discusses the best advice for being a step-parent. He outlines eight points or expectations to be the best parent you can be.  Ranging from "Don't Try to Be the Kids Mother" to "Don't Handle the Discipline" and much, much, more.

(Podcast) Part 3 of 4, Christopher & Kathryn share on the barriers that had to be broken in order to develop a relationship with our children. In the life of a step-parent the biological parents play a key role in integration.  As a step-parent you have to rely upon the biological parents knowledge of your children to learn how to read your kids.  Kathryn shares how she had to learn the kids and each of their responses.  The problems that occurred in our relationship needed to be worked out.   This working out is hard but a necessary component of building a new familial unit.

Listen at Part 4 - Click Here

Listen at Part 1 - Click Here

Listen at Part 2 - Click Here

(Podcast) Part 2 of 4, Christopher & Kathryn share their experiences with their blended family.   Kathryn shares her experiences as a parent and how hard it was to integrate Christopher as a step-parent into their family. Christopher shares how he had the realization that the existing unit didn't need to be broken down but it needed to be added too.  They had shared experiences and traumas that built them.  This is practical experiences that will help you build from my mistakes.  

Step-parenting is a skill that requires a lot of patience and wisdom. You have to be self-aware about your pain, learn about your spouses pain, and then learn about your children's pain.  Learning to recognize this will help you heal your family and bring them together.

Listen at Part 3 - Click Here

Listen at Part 4 - Click Here

Listen at Part 1 - Click Here

(Podcast) Part 1 of 4, Vitally important for your family to work together.  Christopher & Kathryn do a collaboration on parenting. Kathryn shares her experiences with Christopher as he comes into their world.  We share some of the barriers that needed to be overcome.  Kathryn shares on how Christopher divided the family some of the things that he said and did.  We learned and we grew. Communication is the key to creating a happy home.

Listen at Part 2 - Click Here

Listen at Part 3 - Click Here

Listen at Part 4 - Click Here

Special episode! This week we are diving into a new topic, blended families. Nicole and Tate share their journey finding each other and becoming a blended family with their three kiddos! Tate also shares his experience in foster care and with strained family relations. 

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About this Episode:

How do you define your identity? Is it through various life experiences? Hardships and struggles? Successes and accomplishments? The roles you play in your life and others’ lives? You have a choice. You can choose which of these things you want to absorb into your identity and which ones you don’t.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why it’s best to NOT structure your identity around the hard things that happen to you
• How to move away from “victim” mode
• How looking at your own “growth journey” can help you
• How priorities may shift during different seasons of life
• How your cycle coincides with energy and intuition levels
• And much more!

Links From This Episode:

• Vibrant Happy Women Retreat
• Maybe Someday podcast 
• Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert interview about grief 
• Do Less by Kate Northrup
• maybesomedaypodcast.com/vibrant 
• Maybe Someday Episode 2 with Jen
• Jen on Instagram
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• Follow Sarah on Twitter

Join me at the Vibrant Happy Women Retreat!

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We discuss two different powerful quotes in this episode, and what they mean to us in our lives.

"Go and love someone exactly as they are. And then watch how quickly they transform into the greatest, truest version of themselves. When one feels seen and appreciated in their own essence, one is instantly empowered." -Wes Angelozzi

"Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering." -Peter Levine

In this episode we take a journey back, for a bit, to discuss our experiences in the darkest times of our lives. It was difficult to imagine a bright future from the bottom of a "pit", but we want to be a voice of hope for those that are struggling and stuck. We discovered that we had to shut our mouths, put our heads down in determination, and move forward at all costs to climb out of the 'mud" and step into our best lives!

A few quotes that we discuss:

"Heal yourself and you heal your children's children" -unknown

"When you value your opinions more than you value others you lose influence" -John Mckinzie

"You cannot fight someone to seeing things your way" -John Mckinzie

We discuss the idea of gratitude, and how practicing it has changed our lives. Gratitude is the quality of being thankful, and the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. We feel like keeping gratitude at the forefront of our minds can fight off thoughts of self-loathing and negativity. One of the scariest events in our lives is simultaneously something we are most thankful for, and we describe in detail how it occurred. After walking through those moments we learned how to flip trials on their heads, and look at them from entirely different angles. The Lord told us to count it all joy the trials we experience, and it's not something that we learned to embrace fully until the past few years. We want to encourage a change in attitude to an attitude of gratitude, stealing the negative space for something positive. We believe that doing this can enhance your lives in gigantic ways!

It is becoming more and more common to have reconstituted families so today I interview Kari Roberts about how to handle children, step-children and new relationships.

Join us to hear more about this intricate subject...

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