Essential Stepmom

This is about getting to where you feel like you know what you’re doing, where things are starting to come more easily, where you feel relaxed and confident about step-parenting.

Remember how you felt when you learned to ride a bike? 

You probably started off with training wheels, or with someone holding the seat and running along beside you. And then, there was the incredible moment when you took off by yourself and you could do it.

What a feeling!

There’s nothing that boosts your confidence like knowing you can do something that seemed really hard only a few moments ago.

Any challenge worth entertaining deserves enough of the right kind of support to make success possible, and as my friend Christina Providence said in our live interview:

“It’s not your fault if you don’t have enough support, but it IS your responsibility.”

My advice to you about getting to where you know you’re a capable skilled, worthy stepmom is like pretty much all my advice – off the beaten path.

The road to I’ve Got This is the road less travelled. That’s actually a line from a poem by Robert Frost:

“TWO ROADS DIVERGED IN A WOOD AND I – I TOOK THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY AND THAT HAS MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE.”

I can speak to the road less travelled because I’ve not only walked that road in my own stepfamily for 12 years but I’ve spent all my professional career on an alternative path. 

In my day job, I’m an alternative health care professional. I use what works, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks about that. My career rests on thinking outside the box, and my clients are happy because they get better. That’s the only metric I care about. 

So here are my 5 important but unconventional steps on your way to that joyful Fist Pump of Stepmom supremacy.

1. Be bold, don’t follow the crowd.

If you want to be like all the other stepmoms, you’ll likely end up in the ditch because that’s where most of them are headed.

If you didn’t already know that 70% of stepfamilies fail within 5 years, get that figure into your head right now. You don’t want to be joining a cascade of lemmings rushing headlong towards the abyss.

Know that not everyone will agree with the path you’re taking, and that’s OK. Talk to them again in 5 years.

2. Much of this path is walked backwards. 

Learn to back up.

It’s like dancing, or driving a car; backing up is an essential move. Steps that move you backwards or away from your dance partner are an integral part of every dance. If you drive, you have to be able to put the car in reverse to get out of your driveway – and you have to practice doing it. Backing up might feel scary at first, but you’ll get used to it and soon, it will feel natural and easy.

Stepping back is the natural antidote to overstepping and you’re going to do plenty of that. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, but you have to learn to recognize when you’ve done it. Overstepping is the result of following your GPS (see step number 3).

3. Unplug your GPS. 

Your automatic (i.e., unconscious) inner guidance system is being powered by your maternal instinct and it’s sending you in the wrong direction.

Your maternal instinct wouldn’t fire up if you were trying to be a good teacher, or aunt, or fairy godmother, but as a stepmom, it will try to run the whole show.

Instead of allowing yourself to act maternal, try instead just to observe and understand and keep an open heart.  Then you can give what’s really wanted, which is the maximum connection with dad to fill up their tank. If you can do that, you will get to stand on the podium and receive the gold medal in step-parenting.

4. Shine a light.

You need to see where you’re going, and the best way to do that is to shine your own light by continuing to be connected with yourself and your creativity.

Don’t give up what makes your heart sing. Make time for your hobbies, your friends, your interests. Definitely make time for your relationship so you don’t forget why you set off down this path in the first place.

Be all of who you are, and remember that the best thing you can do for your stepfamily is to model the attitudes, values and relationships that you want to rub off on them.

Shine your light.

5. Log the landmarks along the way.

Make note of your wins. Pin them to your heart.

The road to “I’ve Got This!” is long, but the whole journey is actually a lifelong sort of thing, at least that’s the hope!

Hang onto those wins and cherish them. You can use them like a scythe or a hatchet to chop through the thicket when you step off the path and get lost in the bushes.

Seriously, write stuff down in a little book you can look at to remind yourself that you’ve passed enough signposts to know you’re going the right way.

Post your wins in our Facebook group so everyone can help you celebrate. It’s not silly, it’s how you deeply integrate those moments in your being so they form the foundation of your new self-image, the one where you feel accomplished, capable

Ready For More Support?

Stepmom Success Lab

My signature group coaching program starts again Sept. 1!. It’s like training wheels for your stepmom skillset, and you get me running along right beside you in real time to keep you balanced and confident.

Learn More!

Remember the 3 Little Pigs? Of course you do. We all grew up learning why we should mock the one who decides to build his house out of straw, but let’s be honest, it’s totes the easiest, fastest way to put a roof over your head!

Then there’s the little guy who goes for a wooden house, and you know, it seems like a pretty good compromise. I mean, the wolf is coming, right? Who knows how long you have to actually make the walls and a door that locks. I’m probably a Little Pig Number Two at heart. Wood is decently strong, and you can always spray the exterior walls with stucco for that extra air of sturdiness. Every suburb is full of new homes made this way.

And of course, when the big bad wolf comes a-huffin’-an’-puffin’, the first two pigs hi-tail it to their friend who’s probably anal about everything he does. He chose the winning risk/benefit strategy and spent a lot of extra time, money and energy making an impervious house out of bricks, unlike his misguided friends. He saves their bacon, pardon the bad pun.

Why am I writing about a kids’ story? Well, after 3 years of working pretty much full-time with stepmoms and their families, I keep seeing the same pattern playing out over and over and I have a new perspective on what’s going on.

What I keep seeing is stepmom burn-out. Literally, these wives and girlfriends are becoming so exhausted and feeling so hopeless, they don’t know how much longer they can go on. What is it about blended family life that can suck a woman dry in mere months?

I believe that what’s really wearing them out is the effort of trying to hold up the walls of a house that’s made of anything but bricks. I’m knee-deep in this metaphor now, so I’ll stick with it. Walls made of straw or wood just aren’t strong enough to stand up against the hurricane of hi-conflict behaviours. The rain’s coming in and stepmom is running around trying to plug the holes with her bare hands. No wonder she’s burned out!

So, what decides which kind of house you get to live in?

I believe it’s parenting styles. Dad’s parenting style is what creates the structure of your family. Your parenting style isn’t really relevant – I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter how you relate to your step kids, but only dad’s parenting is creating structure.

You might have heard me refer to the 4 types of parenting styles – here’s how they apply to this problem:

Authoritarian parenting (“Because I said so!”) creates the wooden house. It looks pretty solid at first glance, and it’s quicker and easier to put up than a brick house, but the walls can be kicked out from the inside by kids who figure out that they can actually say no. They’re only learning to be afraid of dad, and at some point they realize that they have more power than they knew. They get old enough to either rebel and call his bluff or to just walk away.

Permissive parenting (“We’re buddies, your wish is my command!”) makes a straw house. Literally, the kids don’t even feel safe inside this house because there’s no Alpha dog. Nobody is the boss, there’s no leader.  It might be because dad doesn’t want to come on strong the way his own dad did. In some cases, Dad can’t hold up any boundaries in his own house because he’s afraid his kids won’t want to come over any more.

The Neglectful parent (“You’ll figure it out, you don’t need me for anything”) doesn’t provide a house at all, he just kind of throws his kids a big blue tarp and a piece of rope. He provides the most rudimentary kind of shelter – better than sleeping out in the rain, but not by much.

The brick house is only built by Authoritative parenting, the kind where dad is warm and loving but also shows up as a leader in his family. He says “You’re safe, you’re loved and I see you. And because I love you, I won’t let you get away with that shit.” Even if it’s not  easy, he’s able to make the limits they need and hold them effectively. He understands how difficult it is for his kids to have parents living in different homes who may not agree on how to raise them, but he takes a long view and consistently looks for ways to make the impact he wants to have in their lives.

When the bio parent is authoritative, the stepmom is not left holding the parenting bag. She’s not constantly overstepping because there’s no gaping parenting hole to fill. She’s not being blindsided by expectations that she didn’t know about or sign up for. She can instinctively feel that dad has it under control and she can trust him to pick his own battles, giving him space to try and fail and try again in the process of learning how to raise his kids in this complex family dynamic.

How do you get to be an authoritative parent if it doesn’t come naturally to you? The first step is to recognize your own parenting style and then give yourself a pat on the back. Parenting is some hard shit, even for dads who aren’t divorced.  You’re doing the best with the tools you have.

Next, get out there and get some more tools! You don’t have to make big changes all at once, but little steps in the right direction will become the little bricks that make your house immune to every kind of challenge.

If your family is dealing with exceptional challenges like parental alienation, I have a resource that could get you started repairing your parent-child relationships so that you can make the impact you desire. Grab it here:

RESTORATIVE PARENTING QUICKSTART GUIDE

Wanna be pen pals? I’ll send you an email every Sunday evening. You hit reply whenever you feel like it and tell me what’s up in your world!
SUBSCRIBE TO ESSENTIAL STEPMOM

Hey, dads – listen up.

One of the most common conflicts I hear in second marriages with kids goes like this:

“My husband/boyfriend wants me to be a ‘mother figure’ for his kids. I keep reading that it’s not the right approach but he doesn’t understand and I whenever I try to talk to him about it I feel like a heel.”

Yes, this is the little stepfamily puddle that has a way of turning into a sinkhole right before it swallows your house, man-cave and white picket fence.

Let me just say that I know this dynamic might work for some folks, but in most cases, a stepmom will work her butt off and it’ll never be enough. Wanna know why?

Because your kids already have a mother, and even if she doesn’t do any of the things a mother is supposed to do, most kids would say that the position is filled.

Here’s why:

1. Your kids don’t want another mother

A child with two ‘mothers’ can get stuck at some point in a ‘loyalty bind’ – they want to be able to like your new partner, and maybe even love her, but there’s only room for one mother in their heart. When they have to kick her out of the nest, they get stabbed with a guilty feeling and then they want to punish themselves.

You know what it looks like when a child wants to punish themselves? Yes, Bobbi, you do. Now you know what ‘that’ was all about!

     2. It’s not good for ‘stepmom’ (or whatever you call her – I’ve always hated that word myself!)

She’s going to be activated in her ‘maternal instinct’, which has a way of making a woman run herself ragged to prove that she’s good enough in this like-a-mother role and there’s no way to win this. She’ll never get the affirmation she needs to make it all feel worthwhile. They won’t appreciate her efforts, and you’ll start to slide into expecting her to just do all those motherly things by default. This leads to resentment, and the statistics tell the story after that: 60-70% of second marriages with kids end in divorce. No wonder!

    3. It’s not good for you, dad.

Parenting after divorce is hard a/f.

Hey, it’s hard enough for most people before divorce!

Nobody wants to use up their precious visiting time throwing red cards or sending kids to their room, but I have some bad news for you. There’s no room in a stepfamily to run the trusty “good cop/bad cop” play. You’re gonna have to learn to be both cops, all the time.

And if she starts parenting like you think you want her to, she’s going to start to notice all the things you do differently than she thinks they oughta be done, and she’s going to start complaining about stuff that’s actually none of her business. If you’re gonna make it her business by asking her to be a mother to your kids, you’ll probably be sorry!

You need to figure out how to stand in your boots as a parent and that’s going to take some practice. Yes, you’re gonna fail at it from time to time and it’s my job to remind her to resist the urge to rub your nose in it. These are your kids and that means you get to mess up, and figure it out, and try again as much as you want. 

………………

Now when it comes to learning new tricks, you might need help getting pointed in the right direction. That might include pointing yourself in my direction, because I teach that stuff to the dad who needs help figuring out what’s gonna work for you now that bio-mom is undoing all your parenting faster than she can cash a support cheque!

Join my group over at  One For The Dads  where I answer guys’ parenting questions and share some suggestions. This week I did a livestream video for the dads about how to create a culture of respect in your home, or even between homes. If you’d like to see that video, just reply to this email and I’ll be glad to send you the link!

I also offer coaching for those dads who don’t do social media but still have a strong feeling about how they want their kids to turn out and wish they knew how to make that happen in the 50/50 lifestyle!

Book a call and find out if my Undeletable Dad coaching program would be a good fit for you!

BOOK YOUR FREE, NO-OBLIGATION CALL RIGHT HERE!

What I keep seeing is stepmom burn-out. Literally, these wives and girlfriends are becoming so exhausted and feeling so hopeless, they don’t know how much longer they can go on. What is it about blended family life that can suck a woman dry in mere months?

Tracy Poizner

Remember the 3 Little Pigs? Of course you do. We all grew up learning why we should mock the one who decides to build his house out of straw, but let’s be honest, it’s totes the easiest, fastest way to put a roof over your head!

Then there’s the little guy who goes for a wooden house, and you know, it seems like a pretty good compromise. I mean, the wolf is coming, right? Who knows how long you have to actually make the walls and a door that locks. I’m probably a Little Pig Number Two at heart. Wood is decently strong, and you can always spray the exterior walls with stucco for that extra air of sturdiness. Every suburb is full of new homes made this way.

And of course, when the big bad wolf comes a-huffin’-an’-puffin’, the first two pigs hi-tail it to their friend who’s probably anal about everything he does. He chose the winning risk/benefit strategy and spent a lot of extra time, money and energy making an impervious house out of bricks, unlike his misguided friends. He saves their bacon, pardon the bad pun.

Why am I writing about a kids’ story? Well, after 3 years of working pretty much full-time with stepmoms and their families, I keep seeing the same pattern playing out over and over and I have a new perspective on what’s going on.

What I keep seeing is stepmom burn-out. Literally, these wives and girlfriends are becoming so exhausted and feeling so hopeless, they don’t know how much longer they can go on. What is it about blended family life that can suck a woman dry in mere months?

I believe that what’s really wearing them out is the effort of trying to hold up the walls of a house that’s made of anything but bricks. I’m knee-deep in this metaphor now, so I’ll stick with it. Walls made of straw or wood just aren’t strong enough to stand up against the hurricane of hi-conflict behaviours. The rain’s coming in and stepmom is running around trying to plug the holes with her bare hands. No wonder she’s burned out!

So, what decides which kind of house you get to live in?

I believe it’s parenting styles. Dad’s parenting style is what creates the structure of your family. Your parenting style isn’t really relevant – I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter how you relate to your step kids, but only dad’s parenting is creating structure.

You might have heard me refer to the 4 types of parenting styles – here’s how they apply to this problem:

Authoritarian parenting (“Because I said so!”) creates the wooden house. It looks pretty solid at first glance, and it’s quicker and easier to put up than a brick house, but the walls can be kicked out from the inside by kids who figure out that they can actually say no. They’re only learning to be afraid of dad, and at some point they realize that they have more power than they knew. They get old enough to either rebel and call his bluff or to just walk away.

Permissive parenting (“We’re buddies, your wish is my command!”) makes a straw house. Literally, the kids don’t even feel safe inside this house because there’s no Alpha dog. Nobody is the boss, there’s no leader.  It might be because dad doesn’t want to come on strong the way his own dad did. In some cases, Dad can’t hold up any boundaries in his own house because he’s afraid his kids won’t want to come over any more.

The Neglectful parent (“You’ll figure it out, you don’t need me for anything”) doesn’t provide a house at all, he just kind of throws his kids a big blue tarp and a piece of rope. He provides the most rudimentary kind of shelter – better than sleeping out in the rain, but not by much.

The brick house is only built by Authoritative parenting, the kind where dad is warm and loving but also shows up as a leader in his family. He says “You’re safe, you’re loved and I see you. And because I love you, I won’t let you get away with that shit.” Even if it’s not  easy, he’s able to make the limits they need and hold them effectively. He understands how difficult it is for his kids to have parents living in different homes who may not agree on how to raise them, but he takes a long view and consistently looks for ways to make the impact he wants to have in their lives.

When the bio parent is authoritative, the stepmom is not left holding the parenting bag. She’s not constantly overstepping because there’s no gaping parenting hole to fill. She’s not being blindsided by expectations that she didn’t know about or sign up for. She can instinctively feel that dad has it under control and she can trust him to pick his own battles, giving him space to try and fail and try again in the process of learning how to raise his kids in this complex family dynamic.

How do you get to be an authoritative parent if it doesn’t come naturally to you? The first step is to recognize your own parenting style and then give yourself a pat on the back. Parenting is some hard shit, even for dads who aren’t divorced.  You’re doing the best with the tools you have.

Next, get out there and get some more tools! You don’t have to make big changes all at once, but little steps in the right direction will become the little bricks that make your house immune to every kind of challenge.

If your family is dealing with exceptional challenges like parental alienation, I have a resource that could get you started repairing your parent-child relationships so that you can make the impact you desire. Grab it here:

RESTORATIVE PARENTING QUICKSTART GUIDE

Wanna be pen pals? I’ll send you an email every Sunday evening. You can hit ‘reply’ whenever you feel like it and tell me what’s up in your world!

SUBSCRIBE TO ESSENTIAL STEPMOM

What if your step kids’ mother is deceased, or completely out of the picture for reasons such as mental illness, heavy drug use or prison? What do you have to do differently as a stepmom?

My opinion is that it’s more important to underline what you should be doing that’s just the same as in other stepfamilies.

The absence of the biological mother is probably not affecting the family difficulty on the level of parenting (in the sense of dealing with bad behaviour from the kids), and it’s not likely producing a unique conflict in the marriage. It’s a problem of family dynamics.

What is the best role for a stepmom in such a family? Where does she fit in the overall family scheme? How does she manage boundaries or step back from her involvement with the step kids when they have no mother besides her? When you’re the full-time, live-in mother figure in the home, should you even contemplate stepping back?

My take on this is that you don’t automatically take on a bigger burden of responsibility for kids who don’t have a mother when you get together with their dad. It’s true that your partner might have a heavier job in parenting children who are literally grieving the loss of a parent, but it’s not your job to adjust your role. I think that the best thing you can do for the family dynamic is to find ways to respect the “family of origin”. That’s where you do your stepping back.

The energy of that original family is still intact, just the way it would be if mom were alive or more present in the child’s life. You might have heard me say that it’s important to respect the “family” that your partner has with his children, the one they had together before you came into the picture. The more you respect that family and make space for it, the more they can relax into the new “family” that you and their dad are creating for them.

You shouldn’t ever think of yourself as “fitting in” to their family because that risks activating a Loyalty Bind in a child. They need to keep a place in their heart just for mom, and that’s just as true when she’s in prison, or in heaven. They can eventually feel good about becoming part of your family because we have a long historical tradition of joining a new family when we marry. We can allow ourselves to be a part of two families without loyalty issues and kids can feel good about having two families if you play your cards right.

I believe that it’s both correct and healthy for every stepfamily to have some time where dad and kids do things alone together, without the stepmom. I think that all stepfamilies should make this kind of “family time” a priority – I still do this for my own step kids even though they’re in their 20’s now and we’ve been a family for 14 years.

Families who make time for this find that it pays off big time in better moods and cooperation and even leads to a closer relationship with the stepmom over time. You might have to force yourself to create a space for them to enjoy each other’s company without you. If you’re sensitive to feeling left out, it might challenge you to do some self-growth but it will be a precious gift that they’ll treasure much more than any material objects you might offer.

If there were something else in the personal development sphere to work on here, it would for the stepmom to cultivate a sense of ease around talking with the kids about their mom. It’s OK to say that you wish you could have known her, or that you wish she could see them right now, or that it must be really hard to miss your mom. We have to get past the awkward fear of letting her into the room, energetically speaking.

What all kids really need is a place where it’s safe to love both their mom and dad at the same time. They need a place where it’s safe to be sad, so learn how to hold space for their feelings without being overwhelmed by them. If you can do that, you become an important part of their safety network and that’s a perfect foundation for a long-lasting relationship.

There should never be a moment in a child’s life when they’re expected to have completely gotten over the loss of a parent. It will come up again and again and different phases of development and at various life milestones. Graduations, awards, achievements, marriage and children will stir up grief in unexpected ways. Your ability to make that be OK for them can be the single most important role you have in their lives.

All the rest is the same: let dad do the heavy lifting (discipline) and be sensitive to the idea that a Loyalty Bind exists just as much with a deceased mother as with a living one. Remember that if they like you one day and not the next, it’s probably not about you and it comes with the territory. Make time to talk to your spouse on a regular basis about your expectations of each other and the kids. Consider using family meetings as a vehicle for reducing anxiety in the home and reaching consensus on difficult topics.

It’s really not that different – hope this helps!

Yes, you deserve a posse of girls to stand around you, just like in this image: women who have your back, who give you courage and cheer you on in your toughest times. You might think everyone has a tribe except for you, but most of us create one for ourselves. Let’s talk about how creating one for yourself is going to look.

Back when I was married the first time – well, near the end of when I was married the first time, I was struggling to figure out how to take my life back and separate myself from the father of my child. Getting divorced was something so totally outside my universe, I had no idea where to begin. I had no models – my parents were happily married, as were pretty much all my relatives and the parents of my friends. True to my personality, I was stubbornly determined to do it all on my own.

I didn’t know the first thing about the emotional train-wreck I had become. I didn’t recognize myself, but still I soldiered on according to my philosophy of coping: suck it up or figure it out.

And then one day I literally collapsed onto the ground and dug my hands into the soil near a small tree in my garden, begging the universe to help me out.  I would surrender control, if the universe would just pick up the slack. And my dream team – my tribe – soon materialized.

I say it materialized, but it didn’t happen all by itself.  I had to say out loud: “I don’t know what to do. I can’t do this by myself”.  That was the hardest part, actually. Once I realized I needed a tribe, I could see who I needed to be on it and look for them.

I had friends who were just waiting to help me, as it turned out. I thought they were going to be disappointed in me because I was giving up on my marriage, or because I was outing myself as weak, a phony, a poser – what was that all about? They were literally lined up to help me, they just didn’t know how until I reached out and asked.

First I found a meditation teacher, who offered to teach me at no charge. I found a therapist. One of my friends recommended her divorce mediator – of course I had friends who had gone through this, I just couldn’t connect the dots while I was in “don’t ask don’t tell” mode. 

My parents had a good lady lawyer in their wide circle of acquaintance. My daughter’s friends’ moms and dads helped out with rides and overnights. My neighbours sold me their awesome used car at a great price. (I drove that car for 10 years, by the way). The bank manager who took care of the car loan offered to consolidate all my debt into a new mortgage. A friend taught me to do body sugaring so I could work for her part time and make extra money. I rented a room in my house to a total stranger who turned into a real friend that did free home renovations for me. 

The list goes on and on.

I promise you that you have people in your life who will be part of your dream team if you ask them. Here’s where to look:

1. What do you need help with that you could put out to the universe?

☐ Parenting tips

☐ Babysitting help

☐ Marriage advice

☐ Self confidence

☐ Legal advice

☐ Living space

☐ Scheduling

☐ Organizing or tidying or simplifying

☐ Saving money, or spending better

2. Who do you know already that might help if you asked them?

☐ Your family – parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, grandparents, nieces or nephews

☐ Your partner’s family – your in-laws

☐ Friends

☐ Work colleagues

☐ Neighbours

☐ Parents of the kids’ friends

3.Who could you meet, or get to know better?

☐ Friends of friends

☐ Do you go to the gym, to a group class, to a book club?

☐ Try out a new faith community?

☐ Community centre 

☐ Referrals from friends or family for professionals

☐ Online connections – like online dating, just contact someone and try it out!

☐ Is there a local stepmom group? Can you start one?

4. Finding professionals:

☐ Legal help – find inexpensive unlimited phone advice here: wearelegalshield.com 

☐ Pastoral counselling, local mental health services

☐ Personal trainer, life coach, stepmom mentor

☐ Check out podcasts in whatever interests you – great advice cheap

☐ Group coaching from experts is a cheap way to get help – Nacho kids, susan stiffelman

5. Self-care

☐ Who do you know that meditates? 

☐ Who might join you to walk, jog, bike, do yoga?

☐ What do you love to do? Anything creative? Who would join you in doing that?

☐ Could you share meals with someone? Make stuff to freeze together?

☐ Do you schedule time to be with friends? Book it in, now!

I have some news for you. You don’t have to look far for tribe. Someone has already looked around for them, vetted than and put them on a silver platter for you. Kristen Skiles who blogs at  stepmomming.com . has assembled her own dream team of stepmom supporters, people who have successfully passed her personal bullshit meter for stepmom advice, and I’m super glad to be counted among them! We all agreed to provide a resource for her to include in a bundle of stuff she sells in a flash sale for a few days each year. She calls it The Successful Stepmom’s Toolbelt, but it might as well be called Every Stepmom’s Dream Team.

• I’m there with a course about learning how to do better at discipline for your step kids. 
• Kristen is there herself with a checklist for preparing a custody order or parenting plan, and a 50-page binder of everything you need to get your house de-cluttered and calmly organized. 
• Naja Hall is there with you in her VIP stepmom group for 3 months – if you don’t know her, you have to check her out, this membership program is incredible and you get 3 months free! 
• Erin Careless is there to provide an hour of one on one coaching, not now, but right when you need it. 
• Laura Petherbridge, the Smart Stepmom is there with her guide to starting your own stepmom support group ! 
• Ali Wilks of  stepcoupling.com  is there to help you work on your marriage, and Michael and lynne Pompeo are there to teach you their secrets to better co-parenting with the bio-mom. 

I’m not even half-way through, folks…

THIS is your tribe. We are your stepmom dream-team. 

We’re just waiting for you to ask, and we’ll stick around until you do. You basically have us all in your pocket forever!

This is so worth the $99 bucks, I can’t even begin. You can save this much by skipping your next eyelash fill or cutting back on Starbucks. You can save this in one month on your groceries with the book Dinner for a Dollar that we talked about on a live last year some time – guaranteed. Find a way to give yourself this resource and use it. 

Here’s the link, and it’s ONLY available on this FLASH SALE until midnight, Sunday October 13th so you don’t have time to talk yourself out of getting all the help you need to absolutely rock your stepmom world.

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What I want you and your spouse to know is that guilty parenting is not a crime. If you feel guilty about having caused some suffering, it’s a sign that you’re a good person, it means you have empathy! Guilt is actually a healthy emotion, it’s supposed to help you modify your behaviour. It pushes you to do better.

Shame is another story altogether. Shame shuts you down, makes you want to give up. That’s because guilt is about something you’ve done and shame is about who you are. Nobody should ever be shamed for their parenting fails; it doesn’t lead anyone down the road of a better life.

We all feel like we’ve let our kids down in some way, we feel guilty for the divorce that messed up their lives, we feel guilty that we can’t spend more time with them, that their standard of living has been affected, that you had kids with the wrong person, whatever.

What we don’t want to do is let guilty feelings hold us back from being the kind of parent our kids both need and really want. Guilty feelings should lead us to double down on our commitment to our kids; to make it up to them, (whatever we think “it” is) by being 100% of the dad they need even if  we only get to be with them 50% of the time.

We don’t want to fall into the trap of trying to make it up to them with stuff; believe me, they don’t actually want stuff.  And, they also don’t want to be the boss.  Being the boss of the adults is not a secure place for a kid. They want to be taken care of – to feel taken care of in whatever way they need. They need to see you in all your integrity, and guilt is just the thing to push you to do that, to do it for them.

Nobody else can do what you can do for your child/ren. Think about this: nobody complains to their therapist about how they never felt like they could ever be good enough for their Little League coach, their Boy Scout leader, their third grade teacher or the dad next door. We all spend our lives trying to win the approval of our parents and nobody else; your kids are hardwired to want to please you! You simply need to learn the trick to hacking into that desire and using it! You owe it to them to do that. If you’re a guilty dad, you’re a motivated dad.

I have three easy steps for you that are designed to help get you out of your own way and to renew confidence in your ability to parent the way you really want to, even through the disappointment and challenges of separation or divorce.

STEP ONE

Don’t change a thing! Not yet, at least.

Without changing how you interact with your kids, just start to become aware of what you’re already doing.  Try to notice how you feel when it’s time to correct your kids, when you’re “picking your battles”. The best coaches high-performance athletes and business leaders don’t tell them what to change, they just get them to pay attention to aspects of what they’re already doing.

Here’s a little exercise:

Q: When your child is misbehaving or annoying you, what do you feel in your body?

A:

Q: Which times of day is your child likely to be more co-operative or or more disruptive?

A:

Q: Do you prefer to have some routine and structure in your family life or do you like to just go with the flow?

A:

Maybe you’re a permissive parent by nature. It’s good to learn about the 4 main parenting styles. This  could really help you to figure out how naturally approach parenting and how you might choose to adapt that to get the outcome you’re really after.

STEP TWO

Sit back and let your child do the talking. Just be curious; there’s nothing more seductive than someone asking you questions. Did you know that your chances of getting hired at a job interview increase by asking more questions about the company?  Not only that, but  your chances of getting to a second date with someone are higher if you just ask more questions on your first date! 

If nothing else, just repeat what your kids say back to them with a sort of question mark at the end. Keep them talking and keep asking questions. Kids, like all people, want to be heard and understood.

It’s important to notice whenever you’re “zoning out”. Passive listening is not the same as active listening, and neither of them are effective if you’re looking at your phone. You want them to perceive that you’re interested in them, and the rest will fall into place.

Try and catch yourself zoning out instead of listening or asking questions.

Q: What’s your go-to escape hatch? Your phone? The TV? Work?

A:

Q: How does it feel when you keep yourself present? Bored? Frustrated? Restless? Annoyed? Reminded of your ex?

A:

Be curious about that too – notice how you feel. When you shine a light on something, it has a funny tendency to melt away on its own in time!

STEP THREE 

Stop thinking about punishments; instead, focus on follow through. What’s the difference? It’s subtle, but really important.

There are really only 3 reasons to discipline your kids:

1. for safety,
2. to build confidence, and
3. as a way of giving life guidance.

Everything else is just noise. You don’t have to discipline your kids in the precise way that you were raised, or in a way that satisfies your partner’s style of parenting. Your job as a parent is to keep them safe, whether that’s preventing them from running out into the street without looking both ways, or teaching them how to resist the addictive pull of gaming. It’s your job to help them feel supported so they can confidently challenge themselves – in sports, in academics, in relationships. And of course, it’s your role to point them in the direction of achieving their greatest potential. Discipline, at its best,  keeps pointing them there again and again, the way a good coach keeps you focused on the end result of effort and excellence more than on the instant gratification of winning the next point.

As the parent of a child living in two homes, you’re constantly walking a fine line between holding limits for your kids and going easy on them so they don’t tell their mom they don’t like it at your house. In the case of  teens, there’s a fear that if they don’t like your rules they just won’t want to come over any more. The good news is, discipline is not about enforcing endlessly increasing punishments. It’s about choosing consequences that feel effortless for you to follow through with so you can demonstrate your integrity.

The number one path to superhero parenting is to show your integrity: consistently doing what you say you’re going to do. You don’t have to be an ogre. You can remain open and loving while you hold your ground. Start by offering something small rewards – ideally something involving your time and attention.  If they don’t comply, you’re always ready to try again to help them to do better tomorrow.

If you’d like some quick tips and sample phrases to get you started, you can grab my free cheat sheet called 100% Dad in Half the Time. You can hear my full podcast on this topic at the Essential Stepmom podcast wherever you listen. And there’s a Facebook group just for bio dads in blended families called One For The Dads. Send us a join request, we’d be glad to see you there!

Dear Santa,

Remember, a while back, I asked for someone to share a loving relationship with? At the time, it was the most important thing in the world to me. I thought if I could just have that one thing – a partner – my life would be perfect. Well, you came through, and if I haven’t said it yet, I want to thank you for that one. 

Thanks also for the way you always sneak something I actually need wrapped inside something I want – good one, ol’ fella!

Nobody in their right mind would ever ask for challenges that will stretch them beyond their limits so they can’t do anything but grow. I didn’t ask for a life situation that would oblige me to become a better person in the coming year, but that’s what you sent wrapped up inside the love of my life. I’m doing my best, but I’d appreciate a little magic leg-up to help me on my way to that better version of myself you keep pushing me towards.

Please sprinkle some magic North Pole grace on my blended family. Family is usually bound together with DNA and lifelong memories. Those things make their own magic. We need your help.

Help my step kids to know I’m not their enemy. The best gift you could give them is to see me as a friend, someone just trying to help my partner to be the best parent he or she can possibly be. Help them know that I love them even when I’m deliberately looking the other way.

Gift my spouse the insight to see his/her kids the way I see them and to be able to parent them with confidence and strength as well as with love. If you’re sending books or videos, podcasts or emails to that end, please sprinkle something on them so he or she actually reads, watches or listens to them! (LOL. That means I hope you can tell there is love mixed in with my exasperation).

Help us as to communicate better as a couple and to spend enough time together to remember what we love about each other. If I may be so bold, Santa, some magical arrangement of childcare for this purpose would be most welcome this year!

And me? I need something to get over my habit of taking things so personally. Whether it’s being talked about behind my back or having kids in my house who don’t like to eat whatever I make, please send a fairy to sit on my shoulder repeating the words “It’s not about you, it’s never about you” so I don’t forget. If there’s room for me to add another three words to her vocabulary, let them be “lighten up, girl”.

About my naughty or nice track record, I know I don’t always sound grateful for some of the things that are propelling forward on my journey. Growing is painful work and this stepmom gig is definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done but I hope you’ll be proud of me when you see how far I’ve come this time next year. 

I know what you’ll probably say – you’re proud of me already.

With much love to you and Mrs. Claus,

A stepmom.

Suddenly, you find yourself being the teacher, babysitter, and all around domestic goddess of “pandemic-quarantine central”. No playdates, no playgrounds, no activities and no rest for you. You need to become a ninja of self-care!

Your mental health is more important to how your kids get through this time (and how your marriage thrives through this challenge) than what you put on the dinner table or how clean you keep the house.

Here are 5 incredibly quick and effective ways to dial down your stress level.

1.Essential Oils.  If you’re already a fan of essential oils, just use whichever ones you love. I’ll suggest Lavender as a great go-to, it’s the main oil for releasing tension and anxiety and it also smells just heavenly. You can diffuse it, even if you just put a drop on a tissue in a few places you walk by regularly. My favourite thing is to rub a drop or two between my palms and then run my hands through my hair. I got that trick from a friend and it works great, without making your hair oily or anything.

Besides Lavender, I really love Frankincense, which is an oil that connects you to your own inner wisdom and dispels dense or negative energy. If you want to apply essential oils to your skin, they need to be diluted with a carrier oil, like olive oil or coconut oil. Just add a drop or two to a teaspoon of the carrier oil and then you can rub it on wherever you like. Take 2 minutes in the bathroom to massage your feet or run a few drops through your hair – you’ll feel like a new woman!

2. Breathe. Think about it, breathing is right up there with biting on a bullet when it comes to managing the intense pain of childbirth so it can do wonders for emotional pain if you know what to do.

This particular exercise is one I learned from of my favourite authors, Brené Brown. She does it sitting at her desk with a pencil and paper, and you can do that too, or you can draw with your finger on a steamy bathroom mirror.

Make 4 dots in the shape of a square and slowly trace between the dots, breathing in and out through your nose (very important) while counting slowly to 4 between each dot. The reason to breathe through your nose is that it automatically restricts the flow of oxygen so you don’t hyperventilate, and building up carbon dioxide in our blood actually initiates your body’s relaxation response reflexes. Every little bit helps, right?

3. ESR  (emotional stress release) is a move that comes from the world of Touch for Health and Brain Gym. Think about whatever is  the most stressful feeling for you at this very moment – maybe resentment, frustration, aggravation or disappointment. Rate the intensity of that feeling from 1-10 for yourself and make a note of it somewhere.

Cover your forehead very lightly with one hand, as if you were checking for fever. With that very light touch, close your eyes and play yourself a little movie clip of whatever is making you feel stressed.  Run about 20 seconds of that movie for yourself and really get into the feeling.

Really visualize what’s bothering you in an active scene – the chaos in your home, or people being noisy, maybe disrespectful. Maybe it’s about your step kids coming to visit from their other home where they are not being careful about social distancing.

Now, run that movie again. Just really look at it, see the people involved, feel the feeling as intensely as you can.

When you’ve done that, play the movie again but insert a positive ending; make it all turn out the way you want. See your kitchen all clean and tidied, see the kids quietly doing their  work or playing together without fighting. See a bright white light all around your home protecting you all from viruses. Just watch this part of the movie, the happy, desired outcome, with everything the way you want it to be.

When you’re ready, open your eyes and take your hand away. Check in with yourself – what number would you give your level of intensity around that emotion now? It should definitely be at least a little lower than before. If you want to get it down more, just do another round or two.

4.Thinking Caps /Brain On. This is also from Brain Gym. Use your thumb and forefinger to gently grasp the outside of each ear up near the top and then pull outwards and unroll the cartilage. Move down slightly and do it again,  pulling and unrolling all the way down to your earlobes. When you’ve done the whole ear all the way, go back to the top and do it again. Go around 3 or 4 times.

Your ears are a hologram for your entire body, according to Chinese medicine, so you’re really massaging all the acupressure points of all your organs by doing this. This exercise is amazing for releasing tension in your neck,  where many of us store our stress.

Note: I’ve done this right in front of people many times and nobody has ever noticed so you don’t even need a private place to do it!

5.Meditation. It doesn’t have to be long to be really effective! This exercise I learned from my friend Duda Baldwin, Buddhist teacher and life coach who was a guest in season 2 of my Essential Stepmom podcast.  She does a delightful little meditation that you can do anywhere with your eyes open, alone or in front of anybody.

Just look around you slowly and calmly, and name what you see with a single word, either shape, colour or material:

“Chair “…”red”… “cloth”…”wood”…”phone”…”cup”…”wood”…”black”…”bowl”…”window”…”orange”.

Don’t be fooled by how simple this seems; it really serves to break your pattern of thinking and get you out of your head for just 60 seconds or so, long enough to do a quick ‘refresh’ on whatever tab you have open on the screen of your mind.

The biggest challenge is to actually DO these things when you need them! I suggest keeping a quick reference list on your phone that you can look at when your higher self is trying to get your attention. Even better, experiment with setting alerts to remind yourself to take 2 minutes a few times a day and give yourself the grace of a new start.

Want to watch me demonstrating these techniques? Here’s a link to a quick video demo. Join my email community for weekly advice and inspiration by sending an email to info@essentialstepmom.com or message me @essentialstepmom.

Roger Bannister, a mild-mannered medical student and middle distance runner was the first human being to run a mile in under 4 minutes. This milestone (pardon the pun) was a very, very big deal when it happened on May 6, 1954. Every serious runner in the world had been trying to do it for almost a hundred years when Bannister crossed the finish line with a time of 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

His effort is relevant to us as step-parents because what really helped him break the 4 minute mile was an unconventional approach to the problem. Here’s what I read about him in the Harvard Business Review about him, in an article by Bill Taylor:

“The British press “constantly ran stories criticizing his ‘lone wolf’ approach,” notes John Bryant in his book 3:59.4 and urged him to adopt a more conventional regimen of training and coaching.”

You’d think that everyone would want to try the lone wolf approach, but people are very social creatures; we want more to be like everyone else than to be unlike them. When you do something that goes against the conventional wisdom, you’re sure to get some pushback from the conventional thinkers!

Bannister had to resist a great deal of pressure and I can’t guess how that felt to him at the time. Nobody gets to know in advance how posterity will judge their decisions, but of course he made the right call. The conventional regimen had never helped anyone do what he was trying to do, so he let go of it.

The modern step-family (i.e., with kids being raised by parents in different homes) has never existed as a significant social construct anywhere in the world before now. The first laws pertaining to joint physical custody of children after divorce are barely 40 years old and already there are an estimated 12 million stepfamilies in the U.S. alone. Stepfamily life is a novel situation for humanity;  it’s going to require some adaptation in order for these re-marriages to thrive and for children to flourish.

Statistics reveal that almost 3 out of 4 of step-couples persist in thinking that the tried-and-true parenting traditions still apply to this novel situation. They’ll stick stubbornly to their belief all the way until they hear the long beep of a flatlining marriage and say “we tried everything and nothing worked.” They encourage others to follow the same route or shame them for choosing an alternative path, convinced that theirs is the only sensible approach.

Back to Roger Bannister.  No sooner had he blazed a trail into the history books as the fastest mile-runner alive, someone else was able to repeat his achievement mere weeks later. Soon after, 3 runners cracked the 4-minute barrier in a single race! And on, and on. Once someone showed that it could be done and people believed it was possible, and it actually was possible. The “nay-sayers” were eating their hats!

I believe it’s the adapters of unconventional strategies who are going to cross the finish line of stepfamily satisfaction and here’s why:

•    Adopting unconventional strategies involves personal growth, which by extension benefits children and spouses, even professional or business activities.

•    Children come to respect parents and step-parents for their integrity and for how they model their values instead of simply fearing them for their power.

•    Novel parenting techniques result in compliant behaviour instead of imposed obedience. They heal the wounds of divorce instead of just working around them, allowing parents to raise resilient, confident, emotionally intelligent adults.

To my knowledge, nobody is yet studying the outcomes of unconventional thinking in step-parenting so there is no data available, but anecdotal reports on social media forums that I monitor suggest that alternative approaches are helping thousands of families to live harmonious, happy lives.

I salute the Roger Bannisters of the world, and all the courageous parents and step-parents who are open to trying something new for the sake of their own happiness and for everyone coming along behind them. Show this to your partner and be a solidly unconventional team!