389. Q&A: Is it okay to have different rules for different kids in a blended family?

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello. Welcome back to the Securely Attached podcast. This is the Beyond the Session segment where we answer listener questions. And I have Dr. Emily Upshur here. How are you?

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:54):

Hi.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:56):

So I have a parent, Emily, you’re going to like this one because it is a divorce question and I know that you are our resident divorce specialist at Upshur Bren Psychology Group, so I’m excited to be able to give you a question for your expertise.

Dr. Emily Upshur (01:13):

Yay.

Dr. Sarah Bren (01:13):

So this parent writes in, she says, hi, Dr. Sarah, I have a question I’d love for you to answer on your podcast. I’ve been married for about two years and I have a five-year-old son from my previous relationship. He’s with me most of the week because of school and then sees his dad on some weekends. My husband has two kids with his ex-wife, a 10 and 8-year-old, and they do five days on, five days off schedule with their mom. So they’re home with my son a good amount. But now that my son is getting a little older, I’m realizing my husband is a lot stricter with his kids than I am with my son. And it’s starting to create tension. His kids have started saying stuff like, that’s not fair, or How come he’s allowed to do that? And I’m not totally sure what to do. Do you think it’s okay to have different rules for different kids under the same roof or is this going to cause bigger problems over time? So this is like blended families challenges 101. It’s so hard and I know that you work with a lot of families going through this.

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:12):

Yeah, it’s really tricky. I think that it’s just so tricky. I think what we have to do is zoom out a little and figure out what questions we’re answering here because the first question that I hear in this is, is it okay to have different rules for different children under the same roof? And I hear that in intact families and in blended families. And my answer for that, if I’m just to boil it down to very simplified is yes, I think you should parent each child to the way they need to be parented. But I think if we’re asking the question of how do I align with my second husband or my new husband in parenting of children in our home together, are we not aligned and on the same page? It’s a little bit of a different question, not so much are we parenting the children each for their own needs.

(03:09):

It’s much more do we agree on the parenting style for our children even if they’re not our biological children? And I think that requires a much, that’s a bit of a different discussion. That requires a little bit of pulling back to how you formed as a new family and have you talked about these things? Are you disagreeing now on things that you agreed on in the past? Just like any family, you have to bring these things to the table and discuss how they might play out and come together on that. And I think that’s probably the first thing I would recommend.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:48):

I like that. And obviously we don’t have this mom to ask her these questions, but some people really get down to this before they get married in these blended family situations. And obviously there’s all kinds of complexities, like parenting agreements that you have with your previous spouse and those may actually stipulate how you approach other partners, future partners coming into the mix. How does that all play into these sorts of conversations?

Dr. Emily Upshur (04:22):

I mean, they can also stipulate how you parent, right? You might have a stipulation in your parenting agreement with your five-year-old, I believe that she said yes with her five-year-old’s father, biological father that says no screens during the week. And if that is not something that your second marriage where your child is a lot of the time with other children, if that doesn’t jive with what they do, what they do with their primary parent or with their 50% share parent, you have to sort of meld that and negotiate that in with how you’re going to talk with the father of your child and your new spouse. And that’s where these parenting agreements, their guidelines is how I like to talk about them and not so set in stone. We might need to revisit that and figure out how to reform that. I think the question you were asking that I dodged was how do you talk about when parenting plans stipulate a new relationship?

(05:20):

And that can require going back to talking to the biological parent of your child and talking to that spouse about what the rules in the new household will be. See if they’re on board with that and this person is always already married. A lot of those stipulations are like when you introduce somebody new or those types of things. But I think it’s just as equally important what happens in a new household. You might have to go back to your parenting plan and rediscuss that or remediate that if that is how you originally came up with your agreement to figure out something that feels good for all three parents involved because this is a new family system and we need to be able to incorporate multiple voices into this for the best interest of the child. And just keeping that in mind, what is in the best interest of this child and how can we all three sort of to the best of our ability show up to be able to give that to them?

Dr. Sarah Bren (06:19):

And I would imagine the other two kids from this new husband and 8-year-old, the 10 and the 8-year-old, you also, your new husband may also be bound by his agreement with his previous spouse on how strict he is with his kids. And again, this goes back to having different roles for different kids under the same roof. You very well may have and need to have and it’s totally okay to have, and especially with the eight and the 10-year-old from a developmental appropriateness standpoint, I think it’s really okay to start having pretty transparent conversations at that age about how maybe even some enlightened transparency around this is the parenting agreement. I have agreement with my ex-husband and it’s different than what your dad has with your mom. And so that’s what your dad has to honor. And I want to honor to the older kids, your dad and your mom agreed that this was the rule for your family system in this house. And so I’m going to respect that. It’s also not the rule for Bobby Jo, the five-year-old, right? And that’s okay because different families have different rules and we are a family and we also have two other families that are connected to our family. And I think it’s also important. Another thing about divorce, and I know you agree with me on this, is a family system doesn’t end when there’s a divorce.

(08:05):

The family system changes form, and in this case, this family system expanded to include multiple family systems all now in the same family system. And so the health of that family system is still, it’s still one entity. And so we can talk to kids about that and help them understand that actually think that helps them make more sense of what’s going on for them. It helps them process divorce and being in a blended family more healthfully because they can have a language. We’re not skirting around, we’re not talking about stuff, not naming things that aren’t any elephants in the room. We’re just really saying, Hey, this is exactly what’s happening. It makes sense you feel this way and this is why.

Dr. Emily Upshur (08:51):

Yeah, I love that this and it makes sense you feel this way. I also think we can say this might not feel great, and I get that right. I think being able to tolerate the bumpiness and a little bit of the discrepancies in different households is a part of being a new family system and not, I think as parents in these transitions or in these new sort of systems, being able to tolerate those bumps and give that confidence to our kids, yeah, this feels bumpy. I validate that and we’re going to be okay. We can handle this bumpiness. And I think the other thing I was thinking as you were talking is just that maybe this is also an opportunity, maybe that didn’t happen. Maybe there aren’t a lot of stipulations or parenting plans or we don’t know, and this could be an opportunity for this mom to regroup with her second husband and say, you seem to be a little bit stricter.

(09:51):

Let’s talk this out. Because I think having a proactive approach to discussing these things, coming up with collaborative problem solving with your new partner, really troubleshooting some of that and not guessing, playing guessing games and or saying, oh, this is my kid, so I’m just going to, you decided to have confidence in this new relationship and discussing some of these, the new shape and form and some of the complexities that come along with that, I think would also be a fair place to start if they haven’t already. And if you need help doing that, that’s okay too. This is the thing that I always say to people is why would you know how to do blended family life? That’s tricky. I mean, you might’ve grown up with it, maybe you did, but I think it’s okay to get a little bit of a breath of fresh air or a second opinion, or if you’re feeling a little hesitant to approach your partner about this, there are ways that we can help people talk about these things and normalize it a bit and sort of give a little bit of like, well, this is what I’ve seen work and as professionals that can really help you keep your eye on the prize, which again, I always come back to is what’s in the best interest of your kids, all of these kids, all three of these kids.

Dr. Sarah Bren (11:09):

And you as a parent, you as a mom, you as a new spouse, what’s the best interest of your relationship? Ultimately, I think the healthiest thing is to talk about conflict and name it without judgment or getting super reactive, but just saying, Hey, this thing is happening and this is my feeling about it and I’ve noticed this. What do you notice? How do you feel?

Dr. Emily Upshur (11:35):

And it goes back to your point on transparency. Even just naming, I feel like we’re parenting the kids differently and I’m feeling myself get really protective of five-year-old Johnny, and I’m really noticing that and I want to put that out there and see how can we talk about that more clearly and how can I understand where you’re coming from? And I think that really helps pull back the veil of some of these anxieties that we have because obviously this parent is wanting there to be harmony, as much harmony as possible in the home. And I think the best way to do that is to be as developmentally appropriate with transparency, be as appropriate, with transparency with your new partner. And if you need help with figuring that out, that’s also okay too.

Dr. Sarah Bren (12:26):

Yeah, totally. I mean, I think this is sort of something that I don’t know that a lot of people know. You can literally have one-off consultations about this. There are a lot of therapists and mediators and people in the divorce world, like coaches and stuff that literally just do one-off consultations on parenting plans and parenting plan adjustments after post blending a family. You could do ongoing parenting support. You could also just get a one-off consultation in a lot of these things and get support. We do that at our practice. I don’t think people know that you can ask for that. You don’t have to sign up for a long-term family therapy. You certainly could. I don’t dissuade you against it, but I also think sometimes you can also just write into this podcast and get an episode that give 12 minute, 12, 15 minute consult right now. But to really get into the nuance of what’s going on with your family, to really unpack it and come up with a plan. Sometimes that can be done in one to three sessions.

Dr. Emily Upshur (13:41):

I love that. And the other thing that you made me think of is also you can feel kind of alone in this process and you might not know that many blended families and there are places you can go our practice, but other places too where there are support groups or there are more places where you can get ideas from other families going through similar processes. So it can be a group process or it could be an individual consultation. But I think there’s a lot of ways to sort of give you a lot more color to the different ways people handle these things. It just gives more nuance and there’s a lot of creativity that can be done. And I think that’s the most important thing is we have to, this listener wants to do what’s right for their family and that can look so many different ways. And we can be very creative about what that looks like. If we’re transparent and open about the process and it’s a big check mark, it’s a win. If we can get people to sort of express all of the things they want on the table and come up with, create a puzzle, put that puzzle together in a way that feels good to both, all three of these parents involved or all four rather of these parents in this blended family.

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:53):

Yeah, so it’s interesting, right? She writes this very specific question and I feel like we answered 10 layers beneath it, but I really think that is ultimately what this listener is asking. And also, even if you do not have a blended family and you are just curious, is it okay to have different rules for different kids on the same roof? A hundred percent. If you and your partner are parenting in different parenting styles, are there ways to come together and evaluate that that doesn’t feel combative or very conflicting? Yes, there totally is. And I think this is just a truly inherently challenging piece to blended families. But I think it happens in any family when you have different ages and different needs.

Dr. Emily Upshur (15:48):

And I think the way, if you feel more confident in talking about it, right, if we can help, if somebody can help you get to a place that feels a little bit more confident and not as anxious, is this going to cause big problems? Is this going to ruin everything? Is this, if we can help you get to a place where you feel a little bit more confident, then you’re going to be able to talk to your kids about it in a more confident way. You’re going to be able to talk to your spouse about it in a way. You’re going to be able to talk to your potential spouse’s ex in a more confident and positive way. And I think that’s extremely important in being able to feel like we have a path, we have a plan, we know where we’re going with this.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:26):

Yes. Alright, well let us know how this goes. I hope this was helpful. Thanks Em.

Dr. Emily Upshur (16:31):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:31):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.