The Blended Family Home For the Holidays

The holidays are just around the corner, and time will quickly start flying by. Before you know it, the countdown to Christmas will be in single digits. While everyone else is busy buying gifts and decorating, along with the holidays will come an extraordinary amount of stress for stepparents, stepchildren, and blended families. You may end up spending more time worrying about how to keep the holiday season from becoming a war zone for your family.

This time of year can be a very difficult time for teens in blended families, especially if they feel that they are being made the target of arguments between spouses and ex-spouses concerning who gets more time with the teen or who gets to host Christmas dinner. It seems sometimes that everyone wants to have the perfect holiday so badly that they forget how much the infighting can affect the teens and kids involved.

If you want to make sure the season goes better for your family, try talking to your teens and find out what they want out of the holidays. Let them know how important it is to you that you get to spend some time with them, but make sure that they know that you understand how important it is for them to get to spend time with all of the people they love.

Even if you have divorced, your teen may still value the traditions you had as a family when you were still married to your teen's mom or dad. Respect how important those traditions can be, and allow your teen to honor them. It may be something as simple as attending midnight Mass or going caroling on Christmas Eve. If it is an important aspect of the season for your teen, support it.

Now is the time to start talking to your ex-spouse about how everything will be handled. Work it out with your teen's desires in mind, but keep whatever arguments and struggles you have over the holidays from affecting your teen's life. Be willing to compromise. Remember, no one will be happy during the holidays if it is clouded by fighting.

Stepparents can take an active role in making the season a better experience by being understanding about shared time and custody, and remaining flexible about when and how celebrations happen. They can also help by making sure all the kids in the family, no matter whose they are biologically, are treated fairly when it comes to doling out gifts and treats.

It is not easy to build a new family and get through those first few years of shared custody, and it's ok to be frustrated. It's also ok to have limits and to desire (but not expect) cooperation in return. No matter how hard you try to be equitable and fair, your ex-spouse may not cooperate. All you can do is make your best efforts, communicate to your teen, and let him or her know that your priority is having a happy holiday that includes him or her.

Norbert Georget is an accomplished professional speaker, teen motivator, parenting expert and author of the book, No-Nonsense Parenting For Today's Teenager - How To Feel Like A Good Parent Even When Your Teenager Hates You. You may get a FREE REPORT called No-Nonsense Parenting for the Disrespectful Teenager. All the answers you'll need to deal with your disrespectful teenager.