Blending Families

Helpful Sites

BlendedFamilyFocus.com. Adele Cornish, BSW, has been part of a step-family for 14 years, facing the struggles that blended families deal with each day. She offers practical advice to help transform family life.

Blending a Family. Moe and Paige are the founders of Blending a Family Ministry. It is their desire to see all blended families find God's plan and God's best for their lives.Their ministry focuses on helping each family to become a true loving family, providing a solid foundation for their children, established through God's love, mercy and grace.

The Center for Marriage and Family Studies provides education and training for stepfamilies and remarried couples. Materials include a popular seminar for remarried couples called "The Remarriage Journey" and a new book (with Harvest House) called "Happily Remarried." The Center also works with divorce recovery, single parents, and marriage enrichment and renewal.

Doing Whatever It Takes Ministries was founded by Dr. Shane Stutzman. After a number of years of work and study in the area of blended family ministry, Dr. Shane has a passion to help blended families CONNECT with the church and more importantly CONNECT with Christ. This site offers help for blending families, as well as churches and individuals who want to minister to blended families.

InStep Ministries is dedicated to serving the community by providing practical, Biblical resources, support and counsel to single, divorced and remarried individuals, their families and the churches who minister to them.

Happily Remarried: Making Decisions Together - Blending Families Successfully - Building a Love That Will Last By David Frisbie & Lisa Frisbie / Harvest House Publishers Successfully blending two families is a challenge and can be fraught with difficulty. In Happily Remarried, David and Lisa Frisbie share insights and advice gained from over 20 years of speaking, teaching, and counseling, and gleaned from speaking with hundreds of couples. Sharing common problems and suggestions for their solutions, they show you what you can expect as you seek to bring two families together and what you can do to prevent and resolve problems as you work toward harmony in your home. David and Lisa Frisbie point to four key strategies to encourage long-term unity: Form a spiritual connection centered on serving God Regard remarriage as permanent and irreversible Forgive everyone, including yourself Use conflict to get better acquainted Additional guidance includes advice on deciding where to live; dealing with finances, ex-spouses, and the deep feelings of children; and blending styles of discipline and control. Also included are questions for thought and discussion to help you think and talk about how to apply the suggestions in this book to your own circumstances. This is a useful book filled with practical counsel and encouraging real-life examples.

Willing to Try Again: Steps Toward Blending a Family By Dick Dunn / Judson Press Whether you are preparing to remarry, already trying to build a step-family, or seeking to counsel families, Willing to Try Again in an invaluable tool. More than half of this book is dedicated to real life situations that illustrate the successes and difficulties of stepfamilies as they deal with such issues as the differing role of stepparents and biological parents; how former spouses, in laws, and grandparents affect the stepfamily; and childrens reactions to stepfamily life.

Winning the Heart of Your Stepchild By Bob Barnes / Zondervan Whether you are presently a stepparent, a dating single parent, or in the courtship stage before marriage, the challenge of blending families is one of the most difficult you will ever face. Winning the Heart of Your Stepchild is a hands-on guidebook for today's men and women who face the special challenge of blending families. Because children must process so many emotions and thoughts, parents must learn to interpret those feelings and behaviors for any new family to succeed. This book shows how to: create an open atmosphere in the home; give reassuring answers to a child's questions; become a strong team with your new spouse; and more. It provides an indispensable road map for new moms and dads who want one vibrant, happy, blended family. Previously titled "You're Not My Daddy."

Stepparent to Stepparent By Margaret Broersma / Kregel Publications After a decade of writing and speaking about stepfamilies, Margaret Broersma, herself a veteran stepparent, has received her fair share of letters on the subject. Parents asking for advice on everything from what their new stepkids should call them (Dad? Mom? first name?) to advice on extreme discipline problems. In this book, Margaret answers fifty such questions with a mixture of practical advice and sound biblical truths. If you are a stepparent or about to become one, you'll benefit from this candid discussion of the issues of blending families.

In Step with Your Stepchildren: Building a Strong One-on-One Relationship By Karen O'Connor / Beacon Hill Press If you're a stepparent, you've been given unique challenges and opportunities to influence the lives of your stepchildren. You're expected to be more than a friend but less than a parent. This book can help you focus on the individual relationship between you and each stepchild; relate to each stepchild as an individual; be a means of grace, mercy, and love to each stepchild; learn what stepchildren really need and want from you; make good memories that matter. This isn't just about blending families; it's about equipping you to build a strong one-on-one relationship with each stepchild.

You're NOT My Mom!: Confessions of a Formerly Wicked Stepmother By Kali Schnieders / Nav Press An estimated ninety million Americans all know one thing: Blending a family is hard work. That's why so many call it quits before they even get a chance to develop a meaningful relationship. If yours is a stepfamily at the breaking point, this book is written for you. Kali and Elizabeth's ten-year continuous journey toward a healthy stepmother/daughter relationship is all at once humorous, heartbreaking, and true to life. Kali and Elizabeth capture the essence of the love-hate relationship know by millions of stepfamilies but in doing so offer a much-needed ray of hope. This book supplies insight, challenge, and the one thing every stepmother and daughter craves: a happy ending.