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       This is the last of seven Web pages focusing on effective child discipline in multi-home nuclear stepfamilies.

 This Web series on child discipline is included in the guidebook Build a High-nurturance Stepfamily (co-parent Projects 8-12), one of a series

  Guidelines: Effective Child Discipline In Stepfamilies 

       These suggestions build on the basics and general discipline guidelines in the prior two Web pages. Deciding if your discipline is effective depends on how clearly you're aware of what you're trying to achieve with it. 

        1) Expect significant values and loyalty conflicts and associated relationship triangles between you, your spouse, your ex(es), and your children over child discipline issues. They're inevitable and normal. Don't be surprised if some appear soon after your re/wedding, if not before.

        2) Go slow on changing the existing discipline rules. Too much change too fast overwhelms little and big people! Kids need to learn trust and respect for a stepparent before they'll award them the right to discipline. This takes time!

        3) Expect stepkids to test and re-test household and stepfamily rules. That's their job! What may look like defiance and rejection can really be a frightened child needing to re/prove "Somebody really is in charge here: maybe this family won't break up like the last two I was in did. Maybe I'm safe here."

        4) Try viewing co-parents' child-discipline values that clash as different, vs. good-bad or right-wrong. Imposing one adult's style of behavioral limit-setting (consequences) can cause resentment and hostility all around. Success-odds are higher if you experiment with integrating different disciplinary styles and standards, and evolving compromises over time. Also, open disagreement on discipline styles and values is preferable to silent judgments and resentments. These erode respect, and stress your re/marriage. 

        5) Help minor kids understand that their stepparent isn't trying to replace or "become" their same-gender bioparent, but is doing parenting "things" because they care about (vs. love) their stepchild. Adult relatives or the parents of a child's friend may similarly do parenting things (guide, teach, protect, companion, enjoy) without trying to displace or minimize the other bioparent. The closest biofamily role-equivalent to a new stepdad's or stepmom's role is an unfamiliar uncle or aunt.

        6) When a stepparent is the only one available to guide or limit a child, specially early in a re/marriage, it can help if the bioparent/s verbally "authorize" the stepparent to act in their place in front of the child/ren - e.g. "Tammy, if George asks you to do something, it's the same as if I asked you, OK?" 

        7) Where a stepparent has no child-rearing experience, or none with teens, it can help if s/he learns (a) norms on how other kids the ages and genders of their stepkids act, and (b) parenting fundamentals. Help can come informally from friends and relatives, and formally from courses like Parent Effectiveness Training ("P.E.T.") and Systematic Training For Effective Parenting ("S.T.E.P.") Such courses are often available from local schools, adult education programs, churches, community mental health centers, and independent Family Life Educators (FLE's). Co-parents attending such a course together can be a powerful statement to their custodial and visiting kids (and others) that they take their jobs seriously, and that their dependent kids are important and cared about.

        More guidelines for stepfamily child-discipline...

        8) Stepparents, try not to confuse your bioparent's natural tolerance for their child's behaviors with their being "too easy." If you two disagree over this point too intensely, too often, dig down and/or consider counseling to assess if there are deeper issues (like power, inclusion, dislike, distrust, and respect) hidden under the cover of "discipline arguments." Also, re-examine your expectations of yourself in your stepparenting role. Are you using biofamily-based norms and expectations? Perhaps you're trying harder to parent than anyone else needs or wants you to, and you're sacrificing re/marital harmony in the process. Beware of trying to rescue needy stepkids, and "whipping rebellious stepkids into shape"!

        9) Over time, experiment with who sets the child-behavior rules and limits, who sets and enforces consequences, and how. Because typical multi-home stepfamilies are complex, it usually takes many months to find comfortable disciplinary balances among all minor kids and co-parent adults. All three or more co-parents' shooting for "flexible consistency" is usually preferable to rigid right-wrong rules and consequences. Excessive black/white discipline is a sign of probable false-self wounds.

        10) Stepparents and bioparents review and compare their parents' styles (authoritarian vs. democratic, teaching vs. punishing, lenient vs. harsh) and values about child discipline, to get a clearer understanding of which of those rules are still useful, and which may need changing or replacing. If one co-parent came from a patriarchal family and the other from a mother-dominated household, values conflicts may be inevitable. Note that usually, family-of-origin disciplinary styles were not designed with a stepfamily in mind!

        11) If a stepparent resents a stepchild "talking back" disrespectfully to their spouse, say something like "I don't like the way you're talking to my wife (husband). It feels like a put-down, and I need you to stop, now." A child can't dispute your right to say this. They can dispute "I don't like the way you're talking to your mother (father)," as in "It's none of your business how I talk to my own parent, so get lost!"

        12) If kids visit other bioparents periodically, it helps if all three or more co-parents tell each other nonjudgmentally of key disciplinary rules and consequences in their respective homes. If conflicts occur, (which is likely) and OK-compromises don't emerge, then aim for agreeing to disagree rather than criticizing or trying to convert each other. Recall that Project 10 focuses on building an effective co-parenting team, over time.

      Accept that it's often confusing and frustrating to kids who must follow two sets of household rules and consequences - specially if they're contradictory and/or inconsistent (how would that feel to you?) Kids' natural reactions to major rule-differences are frustration, anger, rebellion, depression, and hyper-reactivity on returning from a visitation. Ideally, all co-parents can focus together on "What's best for the child/ren (and our re/marriage)?", rather than striving to prove "We're better parents than they are, because..." 

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       How are you feeling now? "Overwhelmed" or "intimidated" are still OK. If stepfamily child- discipline seems complex - it is! 

The rewards for all your co-parents' working patiently to evolve compatible, effective styles of child discipline over time are high: kids who feel good about themselves and (eventually) their new stepfamily, adults who feel satisfied they're doing a tough, important job well, and a new multi-home stepfamily that bonds and grows, over time, into a safe, warm, nurturing group enjoyed by all.

        See the options on the prior page, and these related articles:

• A worksheet to help co-parents clarify and discuss their child-discipline values;

• 60+ stepfamily myths, and their common realities;

• Learning and using seven communication skills to do effective stepfamily problem solving;

• Identifying and mastering stepfamily loyalty conflicts;

• Spotting and dissolving divisive relationship triangles;

• Special needs of typical minor stepkids and stepteens;

• Making and using effective co-parent job descriptions; and ...

• A co-parent's - or stepchild's - Bill of Personal Rights

 Recap

        An essential aspect of childcare in any family is if, how, and when adult caregivers set behavioral limits and consequences for their child/ren - i.e. provide "child discipline." This Project-10 article (a) proposes six key goals of "child discipline" and uses them to (b) define "effective discipline." It then (c) summarizes 21 differences between discipline in stepfamilies vs. intact biofamilies. The article (d) comments on why conflicts over child discipline can stress typical re/marriages, and (e) suggests general guidelines for effective limit-setting in any family. It closes by (f) expanding those with a dozen suggestions for effective-discipline guidelines in a typical multi-home stepfamily.

        Pause and say out loud why you read this article. Did you get what you needed? If so, what do you want to do with the ideas here? If not - what do you need now?

Options: continue by learning your and your partner's values on child-discipline, and/or reviewing this three-page article on solving common problems with stepchild discipline.

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Updated August 04, 2008