| Blended family/Kids in distress: What to do? |
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Page 1 of 3 Blended family/Kids in distress: What to do? Things were going well. Then one parent remarries, a new family emerges and the kids are in distress. The other parent determines the child needs counseling or that a change in access is necessary to limit the child's exposure to the new family, viewed as the source of distress. The fight is on again. Or need it be?It is safe to assume that most parents will enter into a new relationship post separation/divorce, many resulting in a combination of children. The issue then becomes how to manage the new relationship in view of the kids and how to manage the adjustment process. When children appear significantly distressed in a newly blended family, the other natural parent may take them to counseling as a means to investigate the distress or help them cope. Unfortunately however while this provides a sense that something is being done, often little is accomplished. In fact, counseling only for the child with difficulty adjusting to new blended family can do more harm than good. The issue is akin to arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. While the chairs may look nicely arranged, the ship continues to sink. While chatting with a counselor may help the child feel better in the short run, if the larger issues of parental adjustment, child management, communications and boundaries within and between families are not addressed, the child can fall back to distress shortly after a brief upturn from counseling. A failed counseling experience will cause future counseling efforts to be viewed skeptically and the parent may now rush to the change in access.
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