109 | Preparing to Blend: Effective Pre-stepfamily Counseling with Couples and Children

In blended families, the rules are different, but the majority of dating and engaged couples walk into their wedding with both eyes shut; a full 75% of couples forming blended families get no premarital counseling at all—and those that do usually receive the same counseling a couple marrying for the first time would receive. Licensed mental health professionals, marriage coaches, and ministry leaders alike have the opportunity to help heal previous attachment injuries and equip couples and children for successful stepfamily living. Still, they must understand competing emotional attachments, loss and loyalty issues in children, parenting across multiple households, and the ambiguous relational dynamics of stepfamilies. In addition, the structure of pre-stepfamily counseling must vary from traditional premarital counseling. In this workshop, participants will learn how to help couples have realistic expectations in marriage, work through past hurts and losses to not bring them into the new marriage, and aid the couple in bonding with children in the stepfamily. Specific interventions for these types of families will be discussed.