Ever wonder if your/your partner's teen (or you) might actually be not only really into social media, but addicted to it? Today on my psychologytoday.com blog, check out the special guest post by Dr. Stephanie Newman...and leave a comment!
SPECIAL GUEST POST BY MARTY BABITS, LCSW, Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy
I'll be giving a talk called "What Do Women with Stepchildren Want?" at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Thursday March 18th.
"How can I decrease my sense of resentment when it comes to my partner's kids?" you readers keep writing and asking. Or, how to "witness that a stepchild has problems — whether it's that he or she doesn't try in school, is spoiled by mom and dad, is entitled or irresponsible, hasn't developed key and age-appropriate life skills, or acts out in any number of ways — rather than experience it viscerally" and be torn apart by it?
As a follow-up to Kela Price's recent guest post about how to find a therapist to help you and your remarriage/partnership with stepkids, a couple of other things that might interest you as we wend our way toward Top Stepmother Concern #3 in the next few days.
As we're addressing the concerns of you, women with stepchildren, a reality is taking shape. Namely, many of you could benefit from counseling. Either couples work or individual work, but something. But as stepfamily researcher, social psychologist and stepmother Elizabeth Church, Ph.D. notes in her book Understanding Stepmothers, it's possible that a therapist treating a couple in a repartnership with kids will do more harm than good. Church details that many of her patients came to her after being treated by therapists with no training, familiarity, or real experience helping remarried couples with kids. The results were unfortunate: therapists telling women to "treat stepkids just like they're you're own" and otherwise importing a first-family model to address stepfamily or stepcouple reality. Since stepfamilies are different, that doesn't work. These couples understandably became frustrated, discouraged, even hopeless before finding real help.
It seems we have concerns. Big ones. Lots of them.
Over the months, many of you have written me about your concerns as women with stepchildren. I'd like to list and address the top ten — so I need your help. What's on your list of top concerns? Here are some ideas from all of you so far (not in any order)...
I'll be talking to Erin Erickson of The Erin Experiment and Peggy Nolan of The Stepmom's Toolbox on their Stepmom's Toolbox Radio show Monday March 1 at 8 pm. Check out the link — and please tune in!
No, that's not a typo. This post in the Sex, Love, Lust, Romance, Power series as we count down to Valentine's Day is about something every woman with stepkids need to learn: self love.