The Blended Family: Born Out of Loss

Blended families are born out of loss. A stepfamily would not exist if there hadn’t been a death, a divorce, or a break-up of a previous relationship. Laura Petherbridge, a wife, stepmother, life coach, and published author of several books including The Smart Stepmom, joins Traci on the podcast. Laura explains how loss influences the stepfamily dynamic and the importance of addressing this loss in your own blended family.

Three Key Points:

1. Laura highlights the importance of couples entering into blended families to address this key issue of loss for their children and stepchildren.

2. Laura explains how we must overcome the lie that loss is no big deal for kids and that they'll be perfectly fine with the new relationship of their parents. Just because the children aren't acting out does not mean that they aren't struggling. We've got to become educated in our understanding of what the child's brain and emotions are doing, so Laura recommends getting some resources to help understand what our children's brains experience when their biological family splits up.

3. Laura mentions a book written specifically for the child living between two homes called Between Two Worlds by Elizabeth Marquardt. Elizabeth does a superb job of explaining what happens in the brain of the child who flips between one household for a period of time and then to a completely different dynamic in their second household. Even though it's an older book and doesn't contain all the technical stuff that today's kids are dealing with, it's still a great resource on the market because it explains it so well and gives the parents advice on what to do about it.

Laura Petherbridge: Website

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website: www.nuclear-families.com