...when counseling blended families by focusing on the family dynamic system. Blended families or step-families are becoming more prevalent in the United States each year. The number of divorces has continued to rise in the United States, which has caused the rate of couples remarrying to increase as well. Blended families usually result from different life circumstances such, as past relationships, divorces, deaths, and separations. At times blended families are faced with many challenges, and these challenges can cause significant problems within the new relationships. Some of the problems are due to different parenting styles. Children are having to readjust to a new lifestyle and getting along with stepparents or siblings can put an obstacle into the new relationship. Family counseling provides blended families with an opportunity and a platform for voicing their feelings and learning ways to accommodate each other within the family. Keywords: Blended families, counseling, divorce, remarriage, children, separation, parenting style, step-siblings, and widowing. Blended Family Counseling Introduction Blended families are becoming accepted in today’s society, and many families are merging together as one. Gonzales (2009) defined blended family as two couples coming together into a new relationship with one or more children from a previous relationship. Customarily, the primary family structure consisted of a two-parent household. The head of the family was led by a husband...
Words: 2755 - Pages: 12
...Mise 1 An Epidemic of Single Household and Blended Families As she prepares for yet another math exam within a 2 week period, she can’t help but to think about the problem facing her at home instead of math. The thought of failing the exam is the least bit of her worries because she’s constantly thinking about how she feels like a stranger in her new home. Since her transfer from California to New York, her life for her and her 10 year old brother has been like a rollercoaster. Their lives have changed drastically in the last four months with trying to adjust to a new state, home and school. She has to cope with her feelings of abandonment, frustration and state of despair. How will she adapt to this sudden change in her life? This is just one of a many instances of how divorce’s and blended families affect our children and will affect the next generation. One of the many problems facing America appears to be either the absence of one parent or blending into another family through adoptions, foster care, and gay relationships. The traditional American family has declined over the years and the divorce rate continues to be on the rise. Why? There is a variety of reasons why married couple divorce. Some due to financial matters, infidelity, unrealistic expectations, lack of communications, mental and physical abuse. One out of two marriages end in divorce. Sixty percent of second marriages fail, according to the U S Census...
Words: 903 - Pages: 4
...Blended families are very common in today’s society. Despite their frequency, a blended family is always a work in progress for any of the members involved. I choose You, by artist Andy Grammer has brought to the surface many emotions for me and my blended family. The song talks of having a choice to pick the people who we spend our life with, and the things in life that we have no say in. I believe that my choice was an easy one that fell into place. My husband and his son, Ian, fit with my daughter, Lillian, and I like a puzzles missing piece. Listening to this song reminds me everyday to be thankful for my ability to choose the love of my life, and the choice him and I made to welcome one another’s children as our own. As I feel Andy...
Words: 295 - Pages: 2
...According to Merriam-Webster, a Blended Family is a family consisting of a couple and their children from past and all previous relationships (2015 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated). A Blended Family is in need of counseling. The presenting issue is the need of acceptance from everyone within the house hold. The key members are as follows; Father, Step mother, two step sisters, and a daughter biologically related to the father. The problems identified that have directed this family to seek counseling are causing the family to fall apart. The family is unhappy and drifting apart due to the lack of communication and love. More importantly, a lot of favoritism has been shown towards the likes and dislikes of the children. In order to restore happiness and a functioning...
Words: 1255 - Pages: 6
...Family refers to two or more individuals who identify themselves as family and manifest some degree of interdependence in interactions with each other and their environment in meeting basic human needs for affection and meaning. In today’s world there is a variation of single-parent, stepfamilies or blended families, dual-career families in which both parents work, married couples without children, cohabitating couples, and gay and lesbian families are more typical of the diverse family patterns today. For this assignment I chose a blended family, this is a family consisting of a couple and their children from this and all previous relationships. In this case, the father and also the step parent is thirty five years old and the mother is thirty two years old. They have an older male child who is the son of the mother from a previous marriage and is ten years old and the smallest child is a girl from this current marriage who is six years old. All four of them are white in race and Hispanic in ethnicity. In the family that...
Words: 1480 - Pages: 6
...establish new rituals (activities) as a “family.” They have discussed the possibility of taking all the children on a “family” vacation as well as would like to take their relationship to the next step and get married. The couple is concerned that their children may feel as if they are being forced to befriend the other children and do not want to cause any conflicts. Both parents would like to establish a relationship with the other’s children but do not want them to feel like they are trying to replace the respectable biological parent. The children like the idea of having additional siblings but the girls are concerned that mom will not have the time for “girl things” and that they will have to share their games with the boys. The boys are concerned that they will no longer get to go on their outings with just their dad and that they are concerned with giving up their personal space to the girls. In my opinion, these are all valid concerns but nothing that cannot be worked through with communication via family meetings and some compromise as well as reassurance from each parent to the children. It is great that the parents have both agreed to take things slowly in introducing the children to each other as well as to the other adult. The parents have also agreed to create new traditions and activities that will help to establish a feeling of togetherness. “All families struggle at times to be happy, but blended families often have bigger obstacles to face...
Words: 689 - Pages: 3
...Chapter 7 4. On a separate piece of paper, write a one paragraph summary of the arguments raised by each of these issues. Euthanasia This topic discusses that euthanasia is forbidden by the laws of God and morally wrong. Because it is God who gives us life and only He can decide when your life should come to an end. However if you apply the Utilitarian approach if you euthanize man to end his suffering because he is dying and the goal to the ultimate happiness can no longer be achieve then euthanasia is morally right. To believe the way Utilitarian way you view God as nothing more than a benevolent by stander. Is it wrong to euthanize animals, God created them should He not chose when it is their time to die as well? Marijuana This is a discussion on the legalization of pot. It amazes me that so much of tax dollars are spent on this rather than more prevalent issues. Legalization of marijuana can be possible in fact laws have been placed on tobacco and alcohol to regulate its usage, they are in fact a drug as well. Instead of fighting marijuana usage, tax the crap out of it, regulate its distribution, and get our country less out of debt. I believe the utilitarian way, if marijuana usage provides greater happiness for the person using it then good for that person. But also we must consider the production of marijuana today. It is no longer produced in its purest form. Today people grow this plant with so many additives that can be harmful to the person smoking it...
Words: 459 - Pages: 2
...customer service is based on reinforcement. Training would be seen as its strategic reward. The company also uses qualitative goals to improve relationships with customers. 2. What applications of learning theory and goal-setting theory do you see in AELN’s leadership development program? It looks like AELN’s leadership program is based on a cognitive approach to learning. In fact, one group was given material to learn and reflect on their own (introverts), while the other group was learning through the process of exchanging ideas and interactions with other people (extroverts). The company also uses quantitative goals to measure responses for the program. 3. Explain why you think the blended learning approach to leadership development turned out to be the superior training venue. I think the blended approach could be better than the other ones because of its ability to suit more personality types. Since it offers both web-based and in classroom learning, it satisfies the needs of more people, whether they are introvert or extrovert, or somewhere in between. 4. Do you agree or disagree with Jeanette Harrison’s learning philosophy that the effects of learning within a business organization should...
Words: 361 - Pages: 2
...Transforming a mishmash of educational technologies into a coherent “blended learning” model is fast becoming the holy grail of modern education. With so much software and hardware already in place, making blended learning work is less about acquiring technology, and more about changing mindsets. Susan O. Moore, supervisor of blended learning at Meriden Public Schools (CT), breaks the implementation of blended learning into five stages: Build the capacity of staff members to support each other in the transition to a blended learning environment. Provide opportunities for staff to visit each other’s classrooms and collaborate. Allow teachers and students the freedom to fail and learn from mistakes. Engage student experts to support each other and their teachers in learning new technologies. “We had students present on technology tools to teachers during one of our professional development days,” Moore said. A student introduced her to Google Keep, which has become one of the apps she uses most. Encourage students and teachers to take charge of their learning. Providing control over “time, place, path and/or pace” comes with responsibility. For example, a student might have access to digital content during the high school pep rally, but is that the best time and place to retain the information? Teachers may need additional training in using rotation models or creating digital content. “They need to model extending learning beyond the classroom,” said Moore. Take the...
Words: 566 - Pages: 3
...Blended Families Kendra Harmon ENG121: English Composition I Elizabeth Myers February 2, 2015 I am the fifth child of seventeen children. This has happened because I have a blended family, my father remarried and my step mother had five children from a previous marriage, and my mother has remarried to my step father who has seven children from his previous marriages. My parents divorced when I was thirteen years old, and have now remarried to spouses who have children of their own from previous marriages. By working as a family unit on both sides, mother and father as well as stepmother and stepfather, the family can stay strong and become a big happy family instead of two separate families. Having a blended family takes a lot of work from both the sides of both the parents and the children because of the hardships on the family when the mother and father divorce, then meeting and getting to know the new family members, and learning to work with the new family members as one whole family unit instead of two separate families. The hardships on the family when the mother and father divorce can hurt the family structure but as long as everyone works together it can be rebuilt to be a healthier relationship for everyone involved. With my family, we had a rough divorce process and we had a lot of hate within the family. My brother, sister, and I grew closer together when the divorce happened and our bond was strengthened as we were unsure of what was to come but with hard work...
Words: 1030 - Pages: 5
...Summary Ron Deal wrote “Dating and the Single Parent”. He starts his book with a foreword, as most books do. However, this is one of the most powerful portions of the book because it gives the reasons for the book. While the content will be summarized, many people (especially the church), have not been dealing or addressing the blended families that are in need of help because the single parent is so prevalent and many people are not going into marriage of blended families with an awareness of how to do this effectively. Here are some shocking, but not unbelievable statistics: 1. “Forty two percent of adults are in a step relationship of some kind. 2. Thirty percent of marriages to attend Family Life’s Weekend to Remember marriage getaways are in blended families. 3. Two-thirds of marriages where one or both partners brings children into the relationship end in divorce” (Deal, 2012). He continues to explain upfront that many of the issues are understanding the difference between “coupleness” and “familyness”, and that the latter is what will create a legacy. The book chapter’s attempts to guide both the single parent and the person interested in dating the parent advice and guidance in the process. The first portion of the book consists of five chapters and it titled “Getting Pas the Butterflies and Warm Fuzzies.” The first chapter “Dating in a crowd: Dating with purpose” (pg. 29) starts off the book with a reminder that when one dates a single parent...
Words: 1636 - Pages: 7
...TERM PAPER Often time life challenges bring a new prospected in society. The one example is stepfamilies that are also known as a blend family or reconstituted family. The definition of a stepfamily or blended family is a married couple where one or both members of the couple have children from a previous relationship and or adopted child is new member of the family. Who the child is not the biological related to the stepfather or the stepmother. This usually brings to families together from different cultures and different sides of the road. There have been numerous step children who became famous that include President Gerald Ford, the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, actresses Priscilla Presley, singer John Lennon and the list goes on. These changes sometimes affect families and relationships. The society prospective about the demographics of stepfamily (age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, geographic location education, occupation, marital status, and the number of divorces), the trends of reconstituted family and the current issues of a blend family. The demographics that you should know about blended families will help one to understand the ramifications of lifestyles, beliefs, and cultural norms within blended families. Demographics The demographics of American society is determine by the number of couples cohabit before marriage. Most people call this shacking up or playing house and with this children are born out of wedlock. The couples may bring in...
Words: 302 - Pages: 2
...Fonda. The story is about a blended family. Frank (Henry Fonda) and Helen (Lucille Ball) are both widows struggling to raise their children. Frank has ten while Helen has eight. After crossing paths in the store, they realized their situations were similar. Of course, they did not think they should begin a relationship, but they did. To their advantage, they married and became a family. Eventually, Frank (Henry) and Helen (Lucille) borne a child. This article, Yours, Mine, and Ours: How Families Change When remarried Parents Have a Child interest me because I too are a part of a blended family. There are many dynamics – pain, confusion, hope, anger and of course love. When my...
Words: 562 - Pages: 3
...Families created out of second marriages often begin with high expectations. Parents hope to avoid or to fix the mistakes made in a previous marriage and to find the love or security that has been missing. Some hopes maybe little more than fantasies, but any that goes unfulfilled cause stress. In a structural-functional approach, the family is viewed as an organization arranged in a structure with a hierarchy that enables it to perform necessary functions. The family is organized into smaller parts, or subsystems. Some concepts relevant to this framework are values, boundaries, roles, hierarchies, and interactional style. (Smith ,Maurer 2009, p.336). Regarding values the couple must put their marriage first. Spend time with your new spouse, and make his or her status in the family clear to your children. For instance, fathers could say something like this to their children even before they remarry: “I love Anna, and she will be my wife. I know you will be polite to her.” For roles each child must be given household chores, a seat at the table, and a space of their own in the home. This includes those who may stay with the new couple only part-time. Each member of the family must know their boundaries. Boundaries represent rules that define participants in a subsystem and regulate their behavior. Families with clear and age-appropriate boundaries are believed to function better than families with rigid or ill-defined boundaries. Parents can avoid creating many rules or changing...
Words: 1907 - Pages: 8
...Maintaining Marriage Quality in Stepfamilies Remarried family numbers are growing. In a nationwide Pew research study released recently, forty-two percent of 2,700 adults polled said that they had at least one step-relative. Three in ten have step-siblings or half-siblings, eighteen percent have a living stepparent, and thirteen percent have at least one stepchild. More of these newly constituted families also come from single adults with children who had previous relationships but never married. About twenty percent of all American families are stepfamilies. “Of every ten couples who remarry, buoyed by love and renewed hope, six divorce yet again (Wisdom and Green 2). In the traditional marriage, much like the song says, “First comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes the baby carriage,” well the exact opposite happens in the stepfamily marriage. Stepfamilies have been re-categorized into two types. One is simple stepfamilies which include children from one parent, and complex stepfamilies which include children from both parents. Research indicates that the more complex blended family structures are the more difficulties and challenges they face. To give yourself the best chance of success, it’s critical to start planning how a stepfamily will function before the marriage even takes place. Now that you and your partner have decided to take the next step to make a life together you will need to include the children from one or both of your previous relationships...
Words: 1574 - Pages: 7
