Q In a recent column, you advised that stepparents have complete disciplinary authority over all children who live in or visit the home. Do you feel the same policy should apply when the stepparent joins the family when the kids are teenagers instead of younger children?
A Your question is of great importance in a parenting culture where so many parents are bringing children into second marriages. It also is important for adults in so-called "stepfamilies" to understand that the majority of mental health professionals are giving decidedly bad advice concerning this issue: to wit, that parents should only discipline their own -- as in, biological or adoptive -- children. As I said in the column to which you refer, this is a recipe for a second divorce.
My authority in this area rests on personal as well as professional experience. My parents divorced early in my life and my mother remarried when I was 7. Before the second marriage took place, she told me that what my stepfather-to-be told me to do, I was to do. Period. Under no circumstances was I to come complaining to her about his rules, instructions or discipline. I did not like it but my mother's policy was clearly in the best interests of our new family, therefore, it was in my best interests as well.
The party line in child and family psychology has it that this arrangement causes resentment in a nonbiological child. Mental health professionals essentially advise, as they generally have for 50 years, that a child's feelings about an issue should rule or at least be of significant consideration.
Two facts should be taken into account: First, children do not know what is in their best interests; second, a child's emotional reactions are often irrational in that they do not reflect either a wide-angle or long-range view. That assessment applies significantly to teenagers.
With that in mind, yes, a stepparent's authority in the home ought to be unequivocal, but that requires a pre-existing condition, which is that the biological parent and the stepparent are on the same page concerning child-rearing. That also requires a pre-existing condition, which is that the primary relationship in the "new" family be between husband and wife. When mom and dad are not on the same page, it means one or both of them values a relationship with their child or children over a relationship with their spouse.
Said another way, when married adults are husband and wife first, mom and dad second, agreement concerning child-rearing will be relatively easy.
On the other hand, if the biological parent "identifies" with her children's emotional reactions to the stepparent's rules, instructions and discipline, and responds protectively -- which is an operational definition of co-dependency -- the new family's integrity is in deep trouble.
The bottom line is that, as my mother did, people should get these issues straightened out before a new marriage with children takes place. In this case, striking while the iron is cold is the best policy.
John Rosemond is a family psychologist and the author of several books on rearing children. Write to him at The Leadership Parenting Institute, 1391-A E. Garrison Blvd., Gastonia, N.C. 28054; or see his website at
rosemond.com
Family on 08/31/2016