Single Parent, Divorced, and Blended Families

Question 1

What are some of the advantages of growing up in a non-traditional family form (such as single parents, divorced, or blended families)?

Answer 1

DIVORCED/BLENDED

• more resources for support (& more opportunities for charismatic adult)
• adaptable
• both parents must step up to run own household
• ability to deal with loss -> resilience

SINGLE PARENT

• more responsible (as long as doesn’t become too parentified)
• boys learn respect for women if raised by mother

Question 2

Who Gets Divorced?

Answer 2

• Age is the strongest predictor: couples who are 20 years or younger when they marry
• People with less income and education, except for well-educated (5+ years or more college) women with good incomes
• People in the west have higher divorce rates than northeast
• Divorce rates for African Americans are twice that o whites and Latinos
• Asian Americans have the lowest rates
• Catholics and Jews have lower divorce rates than Protestants

Question 3

Divorce

Answer 3

• Neither disaster nor inconsequential
• Ranks at the top of the list of stressful life events -> resilience
• A transitional crisis that interrupts developmental tasks and requires readjustment of the family
• A traumatic decision to make; the process of disengaging by one partner starts well before the decision is made
• Rarely a completely joint decision
• About a 1.5-3 year transition process
• Can bring out the worst in people
• Results depend on how it is handled

Question 4

The Transitions Framework
Disorganizing Emotional Separation Process

STEP 1: Individual Cognition / The Decision

Answer 4

• A process of leave taking that may go on for years
• May come in for couples treatment to ease guilt or to hand off their partner for caretaking (want to prove it won’t work out)
• The leavee is more vulnerable and angry.
• • Ts should normalize intense emotion, but this should not be expressed in front of kids

Question 5

The Transitions Framework
Disorganizing Emotional Separation Process

STEP 2: Family Meta-Cognition / The Announcement

Answer 5

• Sometimes this shocks the system into taking steps to change
• Betrayal is common
• Vacillation is common and confusing for children
• *Don’t tell kids until you are sure. Trial separations are not suggested when kids are involved
• Loss of idealized family
• T can suggest “trying it out.” Discuss details of how it would happen, who moves out, etc.

Question 6

The Transitions Framework
Disorganizing Emotional Separation Process

STEP 3: Dismantling the Nuclear Family

Answer 6

• Orderly separations are the least destructive (No one storming out, or simply being gone when child returns from school, etc.)
• Clear boundaries are helpful
• keeping things as stable as possible for children

Question 7

Family Reorganization

Answer 7

Systemic Reorganization: The Binuclear Family
- The family remains a family but with a different structure
- Co-parenting (More structure needed as descending..)
Perfect Pals
Cooperative Colleagues
Angry Associates; can’t separate marital & parental issues
Fiery foes: cannot co-parent
Dissolved Duos: one parent takes off

Systemic Redefinition

• The family remains a family
• New rules and rituals that are flexible with life transitions

Question 8

The Binuclear Family

Answer 8

• Establish ground rules for living separately
• Rules within and across the various subsystems
• How rigid or flexible will depend on how the parents cooperate. Greater conflict = more rules & rigidity

Question 9

The Good Divorce

Answer 9

• The family remains a family
• The negative effects on children are minimized
• The ex-spouses integrate the divorce into their lives in a healthy way
• Children need: basic economic and psychological needs met; support for maintaining relationships with all members of extended families; parents who are supportive and cooperative

Question 10

Legal Issues

Answer 10

• Still remains largely adversarial (can’t have a joint lawyer, each has their own who is protecting only one individual’s best interest)
• Deciding as much as possible before legal involvement
• Mediation is a great alternative, T should recommend
• Women in traditional longterm marriages may ned to have their interests protected more (Unprepared to enter the workforce with inadequate education, experience, training; earning potential is much less than ex-husband’s and no retirement or SS benefits)

Question 11

Gender Issues

Answer 11

• Traditionally women have been socialized to invest their identity in the quality of their relationships so divorce = personal failure
• Men have to work harder to not become marginalized parents. They need to take concrete steps to stay connected with their children and a part of their daily lives (i.e. Skype, phone, and email between visits)

Question 12

Emotional Pressure Points

Answer 12

• When the decision is made
• The announcement
• When money and custody/visitation issues are discussed
• The physical separation
• The actual legal divorce
• As each child graduates, marries, has children, or becomes ill
• As each spouse forms a new couple relationship, remarries, has children, moves, becomes ill, or dies

Question 13

Remarriage

Answer 13

• Emotional loyalties can be called into play
• Stepfamilies have no good role models (Cinderella vs Brady Bunch)

Tasks include:

• Giving up the old model of family and accept the complexity of a new form
• Maintain permeable boundaries to permit shifting of household memberships
• Establish and maintain open lines of communication between all parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren

Question 14

Stepparent Relationships with Children

Answer 14

• The biological parents has to be the parent in charge of their own children

Stepparent-child relationships need to develop over time and be what they grow into without expectations

• they are to be treated as the parent’s spouse, deserving of respect
• the younger the children, the more likely the relationship can grow into a parental one
• latency age children may struggle the most with loyalty issues
• with adolescents, a parental relationship may never develop - but a positive relationship can (charismatic adult)

*Stepparents cannot compete with children for attention

Stereotyped gender role expectations can cause big problems

Question 15

3 Sets of Emotional Baggage in Remarriage

Answer 15

• FOO
• The first marriage
• The aftermath of separation, divorce, or death and the period before the second marriage

Question 16

Common Mistakes in Remarriage

Answer 16

• Parents are preoccupied with their own emotional experience and neglect their children’s
• Treating the new marriage as an event rather than a complex process that will take time to transform into a working family
• Trying to get children to resolve multiple loyalties by trying to sabotage or cut-off one of the relationships to create clarity in another

Question 17

Problems for Children

Answer 17

• Emotional issues or acting out
• Psuedomutuality or fusion
• Loyalty conflicts (Children need access to their full range of positive and negative feelings; It is unrealistic to expect the stepparent to love their spouse’s children as much as his/her own)
• Triangulation (Children do best with regular contact with both parents)

Question 18

Family Connection vs. Dysfunction in Blended/Stepfamilies

Answer 18

• Most complicated when both spouses bring children
• Easiest if previous spouse has died
• Hardest if the spouse had never been married
• Developing a sense of belonging takes most families 3-5 years
• Violence and abuse is much more common in stepfamilies
• Finances and childrearing issues are the most common problems
• Remarriage of either spouse tends to decrease contact between fathers and their biological children
• If either spouse tries to pull the other into an attitude that denies or restricts the other spouse’s family life cycle tasks or relationships with children from previous relationships, there will be serious problems
• Need to work to balance the needs of the new couple against the challenges of parenting

Question 19

Roles in Stepfamilies

Answer 19

• Stepfathers may be caught in double-bind of rescuer vs. intruder; should not be asked to take on the role of disciplinarian
• Stepmothers are expected to step into the role of caretaker which is a set up for failure
• Stepmothers and stepdaughters tend to have the most difficulty
• Daughters who are close to their mothers have difficulty with stepfathers
• Divorce appears to be harder on boys, while remarriage is harder on girls

Question 20

Common Triangles in Blended/Stepfamilies

Answer 20

New spouses + the ex
New spouses + ex + children
New spouses + children
Parent + biological children + stepchildren
New spouses + parents of either

Question 21

Clinical Guidelines for Blended/Stepfamilies

Answer 21

• With child-focused problems, be sure you have CONSENT for treatment from all
• Contact with all parents
• Work to establish co-parenting cooperation
• Biological parents in charge of their children
• Email communication can take emotion down and provide documentation
• Working to help families be comfortable with the negative emotions of children
• Keep emphasizing the need for children to have open contact with all family members, including extended family
• Help all parents make visitation plans that are predictable and understandable and non-stressful for children
• FOO work as needed

Question 22

Single-Parent Families

Answer 22

• “Actual” single parents, vs. other parent is out there somewhere, could show up, sometimes does?
• How? - death, abandonment, cut-off
• Poverty plays a major role in terms of the degree of stress that may be involved
• Stigmatization: culture defines them as deficient but offers little formal support
• May provide a better environment for some specific children such as adopted children with disabilities

Question 23

Single Parenthood Tasks

Answer 23

• Provide structure and nurturance, while managing daily tasks and chores alone
• Meet their own needs for intimacy, companionship, and community
• Positive sense of family identity
• Maintain contact with the missing parent when possible and extended family (Idealization of missing parent is common)

Question 24

The Parentified Child

Answer 24

• Older siblings may assume responsibility for younger ones
• Harmful if the child is being asked to sacrifice their own childhood or important developmental tasks
• Both boys and girls may benefit in some ways (Girls mature earlier and develop advanced social skills and relationship abilities; Boys raised by single mothers become especially savvy, generous, and caring communicators)

Question 25

Problems for Single Parent Families

Answer 25

• Lack of resources
• Lack of structure, boundary/hierarchy issues (parent and child easily get enmeshed)
• Parental overload
• Parent over or under-focused on their own needs

Question 26

The Empty Nest in Single Parenthood

Answer 26

• May be more difficult if the parent has been too child-focused
• Search for meaning beyond child-rearing

Question 27

Therapy for Single Parent Families

Answer 27

• RESPECT & Support - may expect judgment and sensitive to criticism
• Many single parents meet criteria for depression. ***Therapy is another demand on precious time so it needs to be useful and include TOOLS + HOMEWORK
• Structural family therapy is helpful
• Hierarchy issues
• Organization around day-to-day tasks