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The Web address of this article is http://sfhelp.org/03/devel-bf-sf.htm

Clicking links below will open an informational popup or a full window, so please turn off your browser's popup blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit site.                  This is one of over 150 articles focused on building high-nurturance family relationships and preventing divorce. This introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make.         These articles augment, vs. replace, other qualified professional help. The "/" in re/marriage and re/divorce notes that it may be a stepparent's first union. "Co-parents" means both bioparents, or any of the three or more related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear stepfamily.          Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this - what do you need?

        While every family is unique in composition, ancestry, and circumstances, all persons and families pass through common developmental stages or phases over time. Gradually or suddenly, each stage may cause significant life-style, role, and relationship changes; and reevaluations, losses, gains, and conflicts. These may strengthen or weaken family bonds, loyalties, and nurturance levels. 

        In addition, families have random health, financial, relationship, or other crises (by their standards) as these phases unfold - e.g. natural disasters, severe illnesses, accidents or death, loss of income, or divorce. Census estimates suggest that over half of typical U.S. families experience psychological or legal divorce. These times of forced change usually affect the family's current and future life-cycle phases in unique ways.

        The generic summary below shows that a typical nuclear-stepfamily's life cycle has many more phases to negotiate as members age and develop personally. Stepfamilies' extra life-cycle events phases are highlighted.

        The order of some events varies between families, but the events are common to all families. Cease-less personal and environmental change throughout each cycle requires each family adult and child, and the whole family system, to adjust and restabilize its interactive goals, roles, rules, rituals, membership, identity, boundaries, and Another theme common to both cycles is the ceaseless challenge of family members helping each other identify and fill a dynamic array of local and long-term personal and family needs.

        The degree to which your family's leaders succeed at that over time determines your family's nurturance level. That (a) affects how well your kids fill their developmental needs and grieve their many losses (broken bonds) over time, which (b) depends on whether your co-parents are guided by their true or false selves across the years + their awarenesses + how effectively you all think, communicate, and problem-solve together.

        Pause and notice how your subselves are reacting to this comparison. Have they ever seen anything like this before? Has your partner? Your kids? Your parents?

So What?

        This comparison shows that typical stepfamily adults and children have many more life-cycle events to negotiate than peers in average intact biofamilies. Though every family and generation is unique, some universal implications are that average stepfamily members...

Have more changes to adapt to in their life spans. Change promotes local or prolonged stress (anxiety, confusion, frustration, and often grief) in persons and groups - specially if many changes occur close together, and/or people are unable to grieve and adapt well. And typical step-people...

have a higher need to communicate effectively to help each other negotiate their extra development tasks and stages effectively over time. That's why co-parent Project 2 exists here, though all adults and kids need these seven relationship skills!

need to grieve more losses (broken bonds) more often than typical intact-biofamily members. American society tends to minimize the importance of grieving, which is why incomplete grief is one of five common stepfamily stressors. That's why co-parent Project 5 exists in this site; And also...

typical minor stepkids may have a harder time filling their normal developmental needs, because several sets of concurrent family-adjustment needs are imposed on them. That raises the odds that without informed adult and professional help, they may (a) grow up to make unwise marital and child-conception choices and (b) spread their ancestral cycle of low family nurturance and psychological wounding. And...

because these many life-cycle events affect more people (three or more biofamilies linked by co-parent cohabiting and/or re/marriage/s), average stepfamilies have a higher need than intact biofamilies to develop...

• effective, informed leadership with...

• coherent, consensual long-term family goals and...

• effective teamwork among all co-parents and supporters.

        This usually requires all co-parents wanting to make (a) recovery from significant false-self wounds and (b) reducing several divorce-related barriers high shared priorities. Projects 8-12 provide perspective, options, and resources to do this together.

        The guidebooks Build a High-nurturance Stepfamily and Build a Co-parenting Team integrate the key articles in this Web site for these five concurrent projects. They are based on ideas and progress with seven prior Projects - ideally started in courtship.

        Collectively, these implications mean at least two more things:

        It's essential that stepfamily co-parents, relatives, and supporters (a) acknowledge that they are a stepfamily (do Project 3), and then (b) learn what that identity means (do Project 4). Otherwise they risk trying to negotiate these complex extra life-cycle events using unrealistic (biofamily-based) role and relationship expectations. Whether co-parents do this or not, the overarching implication of all the above is...

...typical mates in average stepfamilies and their dependent kids are at higher risk of eventual psy-chological or legal re/divorce and passing on ancestral unawareness and wounds than first-married mates.

        Pause, breathe, and note your reactions to what you just read. Then recall why you read this article. Did you get what you needed? If not, what do you need? Is there anyone you want to discuss this article and its implications with? Who's answering these questions - your wise true Self (capital "S") or "someone else"?

For more awareness, study this companion article about how typical stepfamilies evolve toward one of three possible outcomes.

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Updated  October 22, 2008