Step Parenting

What makes stepmothering so hard? And why are we, as people and a culture, so hard on stepmothers? How can we make it easier? Stepmonster is a truly unique and groundbreaking book for women with stepchildren, men with kids who repartner, adult stepchildren, and anyone who cares about them. It is a comprehensive, cross-cultural, research-based reconsideration of stepfamily dynamics - from the perspective of the stepmother.

Blended families face unique challenges, and sadly, good intentions aren’t always enough. With so many complex relationships involved, all the normal rules for family life change, even how you apply something as simple as the five love languages. That’s why Gary Chapman, the best-selling author of The Five Love Languages and national expert on stepfamilies, Ron Deal, join together in this book to teach you how the five love languages can help your blended family.

You've met the partner of your dreams and have gotten your happily ever after, but now you've taken on a new role: stepmom. And you have no idea what you signed up for. Or maybe you've been a stepmom for a while now, but things are getting you down. Who do you turn to for help? Who actually gets how hard being a stepmom can be? We do. Written by stepmoms for stepmoms, these tips, anecdotes, and words of advice will help you find success and support within your new family. We are the Stepmoms' Club—your club—and we're here to help you.

Most children are afraid of the dark. Some fear monsters under the bed. But 10 percent of children have excessive fears and worries - phobias, separation anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder - that can hold them back and keep them from fully enjoying childhood. If your child suffers from any of these forms of anxiety, the program in this book offers practical, scientifically proven tools that can help.

To make up or break up? Whether you’re just getting serious or have a long-term commitment, no other question causes so much heartache and self-doubt. Many other books tell you how to fix your relationship. This groundbreaking bestseller is the first one to help you choose whether you should try—or you need to go.

Stop the yelling, lose the guilt, and become a calmer, happier parent. Drawing on evidence-based practices, here is an insight-packed and tip-filled plan for how to stop the parental meltdowns. Its compassionate, pragmatic approach will help listeners feel less ashamed and more empowered to get their, ahem, act together instead of losing it.

George Glass, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist, has designed an audiobook to help parents understand the challenges of beginning new lives with blended families, and to help their children make the necessary adjustments. He explains how to approach unavoidable dilemmas when they occur and offers invaluable lessons about the link between divorce and issues of self-esteem, depression, substance abuse, and relationship failures that often result from the breakup of a family.

Bestselling author Robert J. Ringer has shattered the mold of tradition-bound ideas and designed a winning new philosophy to be used every day. Inside this get-tough-with-yourself guide, you'll find the simple but vital habits that can change your outlook and lead to big results--personally, professionally, and financially. Before you know it, you'll be turning negatives into positives--and turning your life around--without thinking twice!

Half of all marriages end. Unfortunately, about 20% of divorces are high-conflict, involving frequent visits to court, allegations of abuse, and chronic disagreements regarding parenting schedules. In response to this conflict, some children become aligned with one parent against the other - even a parent who has done nothing to warrant the hostile rejection of their formerly loving children. These parents are on a painful journey with an uncertain outcome. Surviving Parental Alienation fills the tremendous need for concrete help for these parents.

If you are considering remarriage and want to do everything you can to ensure a happy and fulfilling union, turn to Ron Deal and the Smart Stepfamily series. This is the ideal book for engaged or pre-engaged couples who have at least one child from a previous relationship, offering premarital counsel about how to prepare to blend family relationships, parenting, finances, rituals, and daily routines for your new life together.

In Co-Parenting with a Toxic Ex, a nationally recognized parenting expert offers you a positive parenting approach to dealing with a hostile ex-spouse. You'll learn to avoid the most common mistakes of co-parenting, how to avoid "parental alienation syndrome", and effective techniques for talking to your children in a way that fosters an open and honest response. In addition, you'll learn how to protect your children from painful loyalty conflicts between you and your ex-spouse.

It's all about cheating - the biggest threat to intimacy. Typically, men are good at creating rifts in relationships but terrible at mending them, especially after they've repeatedly betrayed their partner through sexual infidelity. For the most part, cheating men are both intimacy-challenged and empathy-challenged, and, as such, they lack the skills needed to overcome the damage wrought by their infidelity. Robert Weiss has spent over 20 years in the treatment of sex and intimacy issues. He's helped both cheating men and their betrayed spouses....

Love may be sweeter the second time around, but once the bliss of a newfound relationship wears off a little, the reality of being part of a stepfamily sets in. If you are one of the millions of remarried Americans facing the challenge of blending two existing families into one cohesive whole, you are part of a stepcouple - and you know all too well how hard it can be to make your marriage work in sometimes tough terrain. Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green provide tips and strategies on dealing with the issues remarried couples face, with a wealth of advice from real-life stepcouples.

You found the love of your life, and you vowed to have, to hold, and to stepmother. You always thought that in time you'd grow to be the perfect, loving family. So why does it seem that the harder you try, the more unappreciated you feel? As a stepmother, therapist, and founder of the popular stepsforstepmothers.com, Dr. Rachelle Katz knows all too well how challenging stepmotherhood can be. Based on thousands of in-depth interviews and the latest research, she's created a powerful program to help you.

Complete with paradigm shifting wisdom, illuminating client stories, and detailed practices, The Parenting Map is that evidenced based, solution-oriented manual that every parent has been searching for and the one that we all wish our parents had.

A resource for couples in which one of the partners suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), this book guides troubled marriages toward an understanding and appreciation for the struggles and triumphs of a relationship affected by it and to look at the disorder in a more positive way. Going beyond traditional marriage counseling, this discussion offers advice from the author's personal experience and years of research and identifies patterns of behavior that can hurt marriages.

Leading stepfamily expert Ron Deal offers a revised and expanded edition of his signature resource, which addresses key concerns and practical issues facing every stepfamily.

Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships draws on current research, a wide variety of clinical modalities, and 30 years of clinical work with stepfamily members to describe the special challenges stepfamilies face. The book presents the concept of "stepfamily architecture" and the five challenges it creates, and delineates three different levels of strategies - psychoeducation, building interpersonal skills, and intrapsychic work - for meeting those challenges in dozens of different settings.

The Compound Effect contains the essence of what every super achiever needs to know, practice, and master to obtain extraordinary success. Inside you will hear strategies on how to win-every time; eradicating the bad habits that are derailing your progress; painlessly installing the few key disciplines required for major breakthroughs; the real, lasting keys to gaining and sustaining motivation; capturing the elusive, awesome force of momentum; and the acceleration secrets of superachievers.

In this simple, fast-paced audiobook, you will be learning what it takes to create the life you want. 30 Days is for people who are struggling, wanting to change their lives, but they feel powerless and think change comes from the outside. They also keep doing the same things over and over expecting a different result, which Albert Einstein considered to be the purest form of insanity.