- Hello and welcome to this month's Maggie Moment.
In this one I wanna have a little chat
and I mean a little chat,
I cannot possibly cover the whole area and gamut
of being a step parent
but I wanna just launch in
at the first one of those chats
and I wanna be able to limit it
to kind of condense it into
if you are joining a family
as a step parent
and the parent you are stepping into the shoes of,
whether it's a mum or dad,
they are actually a good parent
it was just that the relationship
wasn't something that was working,
so does that make sense?
That they're still co-parenting really well
and you've been blessed to have a relationship
with that other parent.
Now, first thing I'm going to make a suggestion,
this is a journey I have walked
and so I do know that early on
again the first thing that happens to your children
is they feel incredibly threatened
that the new step parent is going to come
between you and them.
So, if you can keep reassuring them
that they've come into your life
as your partner to help you be a better parent
and they won't come between you,
you will need to reassure them many times.
Secondly, what they absolutely already have
is that mother or father figure,
so the best way I found in that journey
was saying this is not your extra dad
or extra mum initially,
this is someone who has come in
and they will be an extra like an aunt or an uncle
kind of figure, not a father or mother.
Kids kind of get that a bit
and the fastest way for them
to be able to not feel threatened
and put out by that extra person
is how respectful you are
when you're speaking about the other parent
and I can say that and I was blessed
with a good man that came into my life
and early on he kept saying
to my lads, I'm not your dad,
you've got a dad
but I am gonna support your dad
to be the best dad he can be.
While I'm here, I'm here for your mum
and there were times when the boys came home with stuff
and you know boys aren't very good at remembering things
and something good had happened at school,
he made them get straight on the phone
and ring their dad
to make sure they didn't forget to tell him.
Now, there were times that made me love him a little more
but what it did for my boys
was realise that he was valuing and respecting
their dad, their first dad, their real dad
on this big journey.
And it doesn't matter again
what gender it is
that we need to make
so that we are inclusive, that we can be okay
and comfortable and then my other tip under that
is please don't try to win the affections
of the children by doing anything extra
'cause they'll smell a rat.
You have to just turn up
as authentically as you are
with as open heart as you possibly can
and give small gestures of kindness
or small support
because the other thing your children want
is the parent you're living with to be happy.
Their parent's happiness is incredible.
The more that they see
that their mum or their dad in that relationship is happy,
the more they're actually comfortable
with you being in their life
even though you're not biologically belonging to them.
So again, there's just some commonsense things again.
You've got to be very careful
that they don't ever hear you
bagging the other parent absolutely ever,
even if they've made a choice
that's not a good one
and remember, all parents make lousy choices sometimes
so it's a very much about us never, ever letting them hear
us criticise or put down the other parent
who they absolutely love and adore.
Our children dearly would love us
to stay together forever and forever
because that's just how the fantasy's been portrayed to them
and that's how loving families would love to be.
When it doesn't work out,
the less stress, the more kindness,
the more opportunities for having conversations
around being healthy families, the better
and I do recommend a family meeting
can actually help sometimes in the early stages
for them to be heard
about what they might like you
as a new step parent to either do more of
or do less of
because they will give you some feedback.
We shouldn't do to children,
we should do with them
and again, thousands of kids out there
have actually recognised their step parent
as being the one they want
to either walk down the aisle with
or go to with a problem later in life.
So again, it can work out positively for everybody
with some thought, some awareness
and lots of compassion and that's all for today.