The couple in my office are remarried. Their problem, they both agree, is his former wife who is making their lives miserable, ruining the children, threatening them with financial disaster, or suffering from a serious mental health problem. This is a common dilemma for remarried couples who seek my assistance. Rarely is the "other parent" willing to meet with me or to enter therapy. Often I am limited to the information given to me by the two members of the new couple, and I am sure that their allegations are biased.

Important among the wide variety of stepfamilies are the families formed by the same sex partners with children from a previous marriage or a previous relationship. Gay and lesbian stepfamilies bring to their system both the usual stepfamily issues and the additional challenges faced by homosexual individuals, partners, and parents in a heterosexual, homophobic society. These sources of stress often interact resulting in problems with communication leading to difficulties with roles, identities, and co-parenting alliances.

Parenting Teenager - Getting Your Teen To Listen To You And Your Advice   by Christina Botto

The biggest challenge when parenting a teenager is how to get your teen to listen to you and your advice. You want to protect your teen from bad decisions and choices. Your teen knows it all and does not listen to you.

Between the ages of 13 and 18, your teenager will transform from a child that followed your lead and had everything done for him to a young adult that makes choices and decisions.

Where is your teenager today, and where do you want her to be when she graduates high school? Think for a minute about this tremendous change. Reflect on all the various areas in which she will have to gain experience, and the decisions that she will have to learn to make.

Your ex-spouse is bad-mouthing you to your children, perhaps even trying to turn them against you. If you handle the situation ineffectively, you could lose your children's respect, their affection -- even, in extreme cases, contact with them.

Backed by twenty-five years of experience in helping families, Dr. Richard Warshak presents powerful strategies for dealing with everything from tainted parent-child relationships in which children are disrespectful or reluctant to show their affection to disturbances in which children virtually disown an entire side of the family.

Divorce Poison offers advice on how to:

• Recognize early warning signs of trouble

 

• React if your children refuse to see you

 

• Respond to rude and hateful behavior

 

• Avoid the seven most common errors made by rejected parents

This groundbreaking work gives parents powerful strategies to preserve and rebuild loving relationships with their children and provides legal and mental-health professionals with practical advice to help their clients and ensure the welfare of children.

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