One
of ~ 60 differences
between typical stepfamilies
and average biofamilies is the possible confusion and conflict over first and last
names, and
in the
former. Typical minor kids need help from co-parents sorting out what to call
each other - and how to refer to the grownups in their sprawling
This
article offers perspective and ideas on how to resolve "name" problems
between minor stepsiblings. Also see the companion articles on...
What's the (Surface) Problem?
As
you know, kids and adults in any group need to know how to identify themselves
and each other, in order to "relate." We also need to know how to
clearly identify the roles (responsibilities), within each group that
we belong to.
In
biofamilies, kids usually have different first names, and the same last names.
There's rarely any confusion at home, school, or church about who's son
"Tommy O'Neil" is, or who's sister "Carmen Gon-zalez" is.
This is often not true in average stepfamilies, specially new ones.
Following mate divorce or death, new love and commitment between unrelated
bioparents can cause strange and wonderful pick-up-sticks combinations of
names. The 15 new extended-
stepfamily
can cause everyone to scratch their heads over titles.
"Is Jack my step-uncle? How am I related to your cousin Mei Ling?
Calling Jeannie my 'half sister' feels too weird - so I won't."
Depending on their age, stepkids can ask or say things like...
-
"You're not my brother, you have a
different last name than me."
-
"Georgie is not my (blood)
sister, so why do you call her that?"
-
"I don't like being called 'Little
Mark' just because my stepbrother is Mark too."
-
"My real Dad is mad because Mom wants
me to call my stepfather 'Dad'."
-
"Mom, if you change your last name to
match (my new stepdad's), does that mean I have to? Will I still be your
daughter? Will (my new stepsister) Sally be your daughter too?"
-
"I hate it when my stepfather
introduces me as his son. I am not his son! I am... uh,..." (Alternative: "I feel kind of good when my stepdad calls me
his son..."); and...
- "I want you to call (my stepbrother
Robert) 'Robbie,' not me. I'm the original Robert!"
There are many variations, including potential disagreements over nicknames
and endearments. "I hate it when Pop calls my stepsister 'Honey.' He never calls me that!"
What's your reaction to these examples? Do they seem trivial, or seem like
they could be real "problems" (significant sources of personal,
household, and family tension)?
All
situations like these have several surface traits in common:
-
one or more stepkids is majorly
"upset" (confused, hurt, irritated, guilty, or ashamed) about what name
- and/or what family role-title they're called by another
stepfamily member, or...
-
a
child is confused over what name or family title to call a stepsister,
stepbrother, or half sibling, or...
-
two or more stepsibs are conflicted over
first or last names, and/or stepfamily titles, and don't know how
to really resolve the conflict; and...
-
the
custodial and non-custodial co-parents involved may or
may not all agree (a) there is a stepfamily problem worth resolving, (b)
what the problem is, and (c) who's problem is it; (d) who's
responsible for resolving the problem; and (e) how; and...
-
the stepsibling conflict over names and
titles may cause two or more stepfamily members to be caught in
stressful
and
conflicts, and
relationship
If so, co-parents know how to resolve
those effectively or they don't - so far.
Situations like these can cause significant inner and stepfamily tension
(unfilled needs). They also are (usually) not the real problems!
Focusing on solving these surface symptoms will rarely bring permanent
peace. What can bring that prize is co-parents patiently...
Identifying and Resolving the
Primary Problems
Reflect on whether some or all of these factors may be secretly contributing
to your kids' squabbles (or nuclear wars) over names and stepfamily
titles...
Problem 1) One or more of your co-parents has significant
false-self
- and doesn't know that,
or what to do about it. Conservatively, I'd say
80% or more of the over 1,000 average divorced-family and stepfamily co-parents I've
met since 1981 are psychologically injured from
childhoods. If this is true in your nuclear stepfamily, the sobering
implications include...
Your co-parents' emotions, perceptions, and key life
decisions have often been made by a well-meaning but unwise
false
self, and you haven't known that;
Each of you adults has tended to choose other wounded
without being aware that you were doing that, and...
You adults have and are unconsciously promoting
false-self growth in your dependent kids, just as your unaware
ancestors did. Neither you nor they know that has been happening.
If a
false self rules you as you read this, you'll probably glaze over,
feel vague anxiety, have sarcastic, critical thoughts ("What a pile of
manure"), feel "nothing," immediately change your mental focus
("Where did I leave my keys?"); or think "Hm - we ought to
look into this" - and then never do. How can you "look into
this"?
Solution option - take the lead and...
-
read these articles comprising co-parent
Project 1
for false-self wounds and start needed
Then...
-
do the 11 checklists honestly and thoroughly, and consider using objective
professional help to guard against protective
(denials). Then...
-
use copies of the 11 checklists to evaluate each of your key nuclear stepfamily kids and adults
for symptoms of false-self dominance, one at a time.
If you find symptoms, it does not mean
any of you are "a mental case" or crazy.
It usually
is a significant cause of personal and family stress...
Ask your other co-parents to study up on the concept of family
nurturance, modular
and
true Selves. Offer
them copies* of these articles. Then work together to see if any of
you need personal recovery from unseen
false-self dominance. There now are many media,
program, and clinical
resources to help you in this vital personal "adult
child" healing!
If
one or more of your co-parenting partners has major false-self
including your
mate, ex-pect reactions of boredom, sarcasm, disinterest, ridicule, procrastination, or
other resistances to your proposing this team project. These are normal
defensive responses to a perceived major threat (con-scious awareness of
inner chaos)!
Have you ever known a
true addict who would fiercely deny that the sky was blue, rather than admit
their lethal compulsion? That's the intensity with which typical false selves will
guard their control over a person they consider to be at high risk of daily
danger. That can safely change, over time, just as recovering addicts
learn to change their values and behavior!
I believe
false-self dominance and related inner wounds are
the single greatest reason for our U.S. divorce epidemic, along with
other factors. I've never seen any other stepfamily reference to
it, in 29 years'
clinical research. I suspect this is partly because public and clinical
awareness of "inner children," "toxic parents," and
only appeared about 1980.
The of books, tapes, and programs aimed at healing the latter
since ~ 1985 suggests how common inner wounding is. I now believe without
question that addictions and co-addictions are stark symptoms of chaotic
run by well-meaning, inept, reactive false selves. I also have seen,
read, and personally experienced that recovery from false-self control really works,
over time!
Image a child in your life. If you were that girl or boy, what would you
want your caregivers to do about guarding you against having your life
dominated by an inept false self without anyone knowing it? You'd be
entirely dependent on your co-parents to protect you from that curse...
Primary Problem 2) You three or more
co-parents aren't yet all (a) fluent and (b) united in (c)
modeling and (d) teaching your kids the seven communication
When used
by your
with
accurate stepfamily knowledge, these
skills empower you
teammates to resolve any stepfamily relation-ship problem. Do you
believe that? Options: try this communication-basics
quiz, and scan these com-mon communication
Then review these
tips, and imagine what
might happen if you all helped each other use them in your family...
Solution options - Adopt "the
(inquisitive) mind of a student," and a long-term (say 15-year) outlook. Then consider the possibility that you co-parents can
learn to communicate far more effectively - both inside your skins, and
between your linked homes and all family members. Imagine what a priceless lifetime
gift you can give to each of your kids and grandkids by modeling and helping
them learn to do consistently effective communication and
Then
patiently study all these articles in co-parent
Project 2. Take months to do this, experimenting with the new skills as you go.
Ask your partner and your other co-parents to join you in
learning fluency with these powerful skills. Then co-operate and teach the
skills to each of your kids. Help each other apply the skills to identifying and
resolving these real problems underneath your "stepsibling name
conflicts."
If you feel
uninterested or resistant to this, or agree it sounds useful but feel like
doing it "later," then see problem 1 above.
Primary
Problem 3) Even if you adults
all are fluent with the seven skills (which is rare!), you may unwittingly
fall into one or both of these conflict-resolution pitfalls:
your
co-parents aren't
separating your multiple home and stepfamily
relationship
and role problems and focusing patiently on one at a time; and/or
they're...
focusing on filling your kids' (and your)
surface
needs, rather than their unexpressed
Solution options - Recall that
personal and social "problems" are really unfilled needs - emotional or physical
discomforts we want to relieve, moment by moment. As complex,
multi-year stepfamily mergers progress, kids' and adults' daily needs are more apt to be
conflicted than peers in healthy intact
biofamilies.
Thus you and your
kids are more apt to have concurrent short and long term
and
mutual conflicts than your typical non-stepfamily peers. That means you may never
have had to grow the self-discipline of
saying "let's help each other identify and work on one or two
family-relationship problems at a time, until everyone involved feels
satisfied enough.
If you're
skeptical that blended stepfamilies like yours really do have more concurrent role
and rela-tionship problems than biofamilies, scan
this
and
this.
Helpful questions
and comments to encourage each other with here are...
-
"What is the specific problem here?"
-
"What does each person involved really need
now?",
-
"What are our options for filling those main needs enough,
and...
-
"How will we know when this problem is solved well
enough in everyone's opinion?"
- "I think we just shifted to a different problem.
Let's go back to the original one."
Read and edit
this overview of ingredients needed for
healthy
relationships, and these core
premises about
solving relationship "problems" effectively. The latter includes
examples of the real needs that underlie your and your kids' daily surface
problems.
Primary
Problem 4) One or more of you co-parents
- and hence one or more minor or grown kids -
are confused or ambivalent about
your
as a normal multi-home stepfamily. This guarantees
personal and mutual doubts and conflicts over stepfamily
which promotes disagreements over at least last names, and stepfamily role
titles.
In over
3,000 calls to the Stepfamily inFormation "warm-line" and in many classes for
remarrying co-parents, I've asked "Do you and your partner openly
describe yourself a stepfamily?" Well over 75% have said
"No," or "Uh,...I don't think so." Even those who
say "Sure, we're a stepfamily" tend to exclude ex mates and their
new partners and stepkids from belonging to "our family." This
promotes confusion and conflicts in adults and kids - including disagreements over names and
role titles.
Solution options - If you haven't
recently...
-
scan these articles comprising co-parent
Project 3 and
Project 4.
Then
-
ask your partner to do the same, and discuss how
their ideas
apply to your stepfamily. Then...
-
ask your other co-parents and key
relatives to read copies of those articles, and see if all of you can agree that you're a
normal multi-home stepfamily. If so, then...
-
try to agree on
to it.
-
use
the communication skills you learned in (2) above to resolve any
you encounter while doing this.
-
teach what you've learned to your minor and grown kids, and any key
outside supporters.
Along the way,
Note with interest whether your doing this together
helps to improve what began as "stepsibling confusion or
conflict over names and family titles."
Another possible root cause of such conflicts is...
Primary Problem
5) One or more of your
conflicted stepsiblings is caught up in a
who's symptom is about family names or titles. If each of your
co-parents can't clearly describe now...
-
what a loyalty conflict is,
-
why they're usually very divisive,
-
how they differ from similar
intact-biofamily
conflicts,
-
how to
resolve them, and...
- how they relate to conflictual
then...
this may be compounding your "name" conflict.
Relative to name disputes, there are lots of
possible loyalty-conflicts. One is: an angry (hurt) non-custodial bioparent (or an
emotional older sib or relative) is coaching or demanding that the
conflicted child refuse to go along with naming conventions requested in the
child's custodial home.
I've
often heard of a frustrated bioparent declaring "We are not a
'stepfamily', and Jennie is not your stepsister. She's just a girl who
lives with you. Marlene is your real sister (see problem 7 below). So I don't want to hear of you
calling Jennie your stepsister - get it?"
This puts the child in the
middle of a lose-lose emotional tug-o'-war between two or more family members.
Another
camouflaged loyalty-conflict here can be a well-meaning but
unaware school teacher, counselor, minister, or friend's parent who authoritatively
instructs
your child on stepfamily names or role titles. For example -
"Now Sally, when a parent dies and the other parent marries again, that
is not a stepfamily. So Jennie really isn't your stepsister, and you
shouldn't have to call her that."
(Wrong!) Again, the
child feels torn between two or more "knowledgeable" adults,
and conflicted about pleasing them both...
Solution options - You co-parent
partners read the series of
articles on values and loyalty conflicts that begins
here.
Then read and discuss this article on spotting and
resolving (persecutor - victim - rescuer) triangles. Help each other to identify such conflicts and
triangles when they happen without blame. Teach your
kids what they are, and how you're trying to solve them. Wait 20
years or more for their appreciation!
Armed with this knowledge, reappraise your "names"
conflict to see if part of the real problem is several of you are ensnared in
a loyalty conflict and a related "triangle." If so, work on
resolving them first - and then see what happens to your stepsibling
"names" conflict.
Note
that when you can't find a compromise acceptable to all involved,
the best
way to solve loyalty conflicts long term is to put your re/marriage
second, behind your personal
and
Many re/wedded
bioparents have major trouble doing this. When they can't, their mate can start to feel second best, hurt, and resentful. Denied or untreated,
this can grow into a serious re/marriage threat.
Primary
Problem 6) One or more of your
name-conflicted stepfamily kids or adults is frozen
in
major
(broken emotional/spiritual bonds).
That can block acceptance of your new stepfamily identity and memberships -
which in turn can cause surface conflicts over names and titles. Blocked grief
appears to be one of
for our tragic American re/divorce
epidemic.
One
potential symptom of blocked grief is being chronically or explosively angry.
If your child (or a co-parent) "blows up" excessively over
names and family titles - and other things about school and/or family
life - this may be part of the primary problem.
Solution options -
Invite your co-parenting partners to join you in doing
together - learn to build and implement a healthy
in your stepfamily homes. Accept that this may feel alien, for our
speed and pleasure-obsessed culture has little patience for the slow healing
needed for deep emotional wounds. Because
all stepfamilies (including
yours) are founded on massive losses from prior biofamily breakup,
remarriage, and cohabiting) - healthy grieving is vital to all your members and
relationships.
Once
you learn the principles of
three-level healthy grieving, assess
each of your adults and kids for
of blocked grief. If you have a
blocked child, it probably means their main caregivers are also blocked,
wounded, and unaware. See (1) above.
Primary
Problem 7) The names or family titles
"causing" your kids' conflict are symptoms of significant
personal insecurity (anxiety) in one or more
kids. An unconscious
terror of emotional abandonment is common in new stepfamilies. That fear is
often amplified by major semi-conscious
Some kids are more fearful of change
than others - and parental divorce or death, and later remarriage, always
bring tangles of significant changes.
Shifts in first
and last names, and family role titles, can symbolize "nothing is
safe," and increase generalized ("free-floating") anxiety in an insecure girl or boy. Typical
kids, specially young ones, can have trouble conceptualizing and articulating
their fears. That means you co-parents must sense and intuit them,
and offer empathic reassurance and comfort. Psychologically-wounded co-parents (1
above) often have trouble with that.
Kids' name
conflicts can also be symptoms of confusion over their personal
- "If you change my name to 'Robbie' or take my stepdad's
last name, I don't know who I am or who I belong to. I feel bad!"
Solution options - Genuinely converting
a child's insecurities (anxieties) and shame over time to solid self confidence and self esteem is
beyond the scope of this article. Parenting sites like
www.parentsplace.com
and local versions of the
S.T.E.P. (systematic training for effective parenting)
program can lead you to meaningful help and resources.
One
thing that can help shrink a common core source of insecurity in kids of
divorce is their seeing (vs.hearing) that this
(step)family won't break up like all their other families have. Another thing
that words can help some with is a child's fright that their custodial
bioparent will like or love a vivacious new stepchild more than them.
provides you with context, perspective, specific suggestions, and tools
for you three or more co-parents to build an effective caregiving
over time.
your true Selves
your
re/marriage well-nourished, and co-parentally
are
key ongoing stepfamily challenges. Co-parents who care enough to
forge a family
and concrete
have the best chance of long-term success at them. "Success"
includes nurturing self-confidence in all your kids.
Do
you co-parents care enough to do Projects 6 and 10 for your minor kids?
Primary Problem
8) Kids (and many co-parents)
often need help choosing the right adjectives in everyday
speech: For instance, "Naomi's my real sister" makes
stepsister Vera "unreal" - i.e. 1-down, or less than. Used with
names and titles, the adjectives normal, natural, and regular
can unwittingly cause similar stepfamily heartache and confusion:
"Billie, I love
you just like a natural son..." carries the stinging unspoken
(implied) message "...but you're not my natural (real) son." That
statement also breeds confusion and mistrust if Billie doesn't feel
loved. That's likely in many new stepfamilies who's
co-parents believe the myth that "stepparents
must love their stepkids, and vice versa."
An insecure or
confused child can feel significant rejection and shame from a simple
statement like that, and never say a word. Kids of parental divorce aren't
famous for feeling confident and secure - and 90% of U.S. stepfamilies follow
a divorce. A well-loved, well-nurtured child can absorb and trust the warmth
intended by the stepparent's comment.
Solution options - Take the initiative
to do a co-parent
attitude survey to see if any of your kids or adults
(including significant relatives) feel that stepkids, stepparents, or
stepfamilies are somehow sub-standard or "second rate." Assessing
this accurately can be tricky, if some or most of you come from
backgrounds. You're at risk of denying unconscious "1-down" biases like these - and
your denials. To do this survey, you'll have to confront
problem 4 above.
Another option here is for you adults to
organize a stepfamily-wide
"adjective treasure hunt." Team up and listen for your kids or adults using the comparative adjectives real,
natural, normal, and regular, to describe family roles
like brother or sister, mother or father, or your whole
stepfamily (as in "my real (bio)family knew how to take a
vacation..." This hunt can be both fun and instructive, for most
people aren't objectively aware of key words and phrases they use in routine conversation.
If
you spot someone saying "Well, my real sister really can play the
flute really great," experiment with using "biosister" or
"co-sister" instead. It will
sound alien and weird, at first. This site uses "co-parent" as a
neutral alternative to the unconscious stigma that the role-title "stepparent"
often carries...
Recap
Strife among stepsiblings over names and family titles is one of many common
stressors in typical new stepfamilies. Such strife gets worse if the
kids' adult relatives are also conflicted over what their stepfamily members
should call each other.
Typically, problems over names and titles have surface symptoms, and
underlying real conflicts (unmet needs). Co-parents who focus on
resolving the surface "problems" are attempting
which rarely work, long term.
This article offers examples of surface problems about "names"
between stepbrothers, stepsisters, and their co-parents. It then proposes
eight probable primary problems causing these symptoms, and viable
solutions for each one.
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