Projects 7 thru 12 - evolve a high-nurturance stepfamily together 

Inventory: Our Extended
Stepfamily's General Strengths

By Peter K. Gerlach, MSW
Member NSRC Experts Council

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3A) Our General Multi-generational Stepfamily Strengths

1)  All our members often feel unconditional self respect and mutual respect; (in traditional intact biofamilies, this would read "... mutual love and respect"); 

2)  All our homes have consistent, effective adult leadership (e.g. setting family visions, goals, policies, limits, and consequences; negotiating clear roles and rules;  prioritizing, balancing, and delegating tasks; skill and team building; guiding, encouraging, and rewarding all members; effective conflict-resolution; etc.). Alternatives are homes run by strong-willed, needy children, relatives, or no one; 

3)  We all share a basic commitment to clear, common extended-family values and  goals; (can you name them now?) 

4)  Our family roles (who should do what), and their related rules (how, why, and when), are _ clear and _ compatible enough now between all our members and their homes; or we're all working actively and cooperatively now to achieve this together over time; 

5)  Interpersonal communications and conflict resolution are usually effective enough in and between all our members and homes; 

6)  We all now share a clear, stepfamily-wide identity and a related spirit of teamwork, and we all are growing healthy, non-egotistical personal and whole-stepfamily pride;

7)  We all _ value and _ consistently promote each of our stepfamily members' integrity, dignity, and individuality; 

8)  Usually, all our stepfamily members spontaneously _ get and _ give enough appropriate, nurturing (vs. intrusive, painful, scary, or shaming) touching - e.g. hug-ging, stroking, holding, and caressing;

9)  We all _ share a toughness, resilience, and adaptability during family members' hard times; and _ we usually all pull together; 

10)  All our kids and adults often spontaneously encourage, vs. ignore or discourage each other; 

11)  All our adults generally delight in and prize _ themselves, _ each other, and _ each minor and grown biochild and stepchild, as special, valuable, unique persons; 

12)  We all _ prize and _ share compatible-enough non-shaming, non-elitist spiritual faith/s, and _ encourage individual spiritual exploration and growth; 

13)  All our members usually balance work, play, and rest well enough; 

14)  Generally, all our members and homes offer a spontaneous, genuine openness (vs. intolerance) to new _ people, _ ideas, and _ customs now; 

15)  We all have evolved enough nurturing (vs. shaming, boring, phony, or stressful) family rituals and customs, or we're now steadily working toward that together;

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3A) Our General Multi-generational Family Strengths (continued)

16)  We all now share _ clear enough and _ appropriate enough personal, adult couple, and household privacies and boundaries;  

17)  All our adults and kids _ accept and _ validate all human emotions - specially hurt, anger, fear, shame, confusion, and sadness; and _ we all empathically encourage spontaneous, genuine expression of them in our homes and other safe places;

18)  We're all usually motivated to nurture (vs. repress, devalue, or ignore) each of our
_ adults' and _kids' unique personal gifts and talents;

19)  All our adults and kids accept personal conflict as _ normal and _ healthy, and are
_ often able to help each other identify and fill our conflicting primary needs _ in a mutually-respectful, win-win way; 

20)  All our family members _ usually feel safe enough to talk honestly about anything with each other. _ We have few or no great secrets or taboos (e.g. about certain family ancestors, events, or subjects); 

21)  We all spontaneously exchange genuine _ validations, _ appreciations, and
_ forgivenesses often enough; 

22)  We all _ usually hold generally-realistic (vs. idealistic or distorted) optimisms, expectations, and hopes; and _ we use guidelines like these to help do that. 

23)  All our members spontaneously share a strong, non-elitist, non-obsessive, stepfamily bond and loyalty; (this is rarely true in young stepfamilies!) 

24)  We all share _ non-shaming play, humor, and laughter often enough, and _ most of us can enjoy and laugh at ourselves lovingly; 

25)  All our adults and kids deserve, and exchange solid-enough, unambivalent _ Self and _ mutual trusts;  

26)  All our generations _ genuinely value ongoing learning, and _ basically accept life changes and losses (broken bonds) as normal and inevitable; 

27)  Our adults and kids all have age-appropriate, healthy _ sensual and _ sexual  needs, knowledge, values, and limits; 

28)  All (not "most") of our member kids and adults _ have age-appropriate friends and a nurturing social-support network. _ None of our adults depend regularly on a child, teenager, animal, spirit, or thing (like a PC, musical instrument, or vehicle) as their main mentor, companion, confidant, motivator, or comforter; 

29)  All our members generally value, and contribute to ecological care for _ their local world and _ the Earth;

30)  Our family leaders have chosen living sites safe enough from crime, civil unrest, and natural dangers or disasters;

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3A) Our General Multi-generational Family Strengths (continued)