I’m just wondering if anyone else has a similar problem in their blended family. When asking permission to do anything or when clarifying instructions, my children always look to me even if my partner has been the one talking to them. If he asks them to do something that they are not sure they want to do, they immediately look at me at see if I am also going to say the same thing. It really bothers my partner that they still seem to instinctively seek me out for approval etc especially since our family has now been together for more than 2 years. I do my best to always support him, and rarely have had to disagree with him. I want my children to feel comfortable asking him things too. Any suggestions? We have talked to the kids and told them that he is their parent too but they still rarely go to him for anything.
October 24th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
2 years is a short time for a blended family. We have 6 girls – 4 hers and 2 mine…. a little closer in ages though. There was a trust issue that we had, because their Dad left… and on my side because I left my daughters mother. We found that family meeting did work for us. We used a structure meeting format on a weekly basis. The children did grumble a bit but once they got into the meeting they really enjoyed it and now as adult children they look back on those meetings as one of their best memories.
We also met individually with each child so that they had our undivided attention to talk about whatever they wanted.
If you are interested I can send you our meeting format.
Rick
April 14th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Hey Rick,
Havent been on here for a while. But, yeah, I would be interested in your meeting format. Thanks a lot!
Life certainly is interesting!