Step-Parenting Isn't For Cowards

Step-parenting isn't for cowards...that is an understatement... Step-parenting, especially if you yourself were never a step-child, is most definitely not for the weak of heart, but rather an amazing opportunity to grow the heart.

Children aren't couches that came with the new marriage, they aren't a vacation home that is still shared between the two divorced parties, they are children who deserve to be loved.  Why put a line where one doesn't need to be? There is nothing wrong with blurring the lines between biological and step-children, after all doesn't God do the same with us? Does choosing to love your step-children as your own mean you are trying to take over and replace the other mother or father? No. It means you are choosing to love your spouse's children as an extension of your marriage. When two become one flesh, the line has already been erased, it is selfishness that puts the line back in place, especially once new children get added to the mix. Love is a choice, one has to choose to love and treat all the children in the marriage equally.

Family can be brutal, and can be the biggest road block on your way to forming a parent/child relationship with your step-children. Consider this: if it can't be backed up with Scripture, it isn't good advice. Be in constant prayer, and follow God's Word, seek His guidance; and remember that in the end you only need to do things God's way. Love those children and treat them as your own, God will grow your heart.

Now, loving them and treating as your own brings up interesting challenges especially with different parenting styles inevitable. At your house there are rules, boundaries and expectations, that may be different or non existent at the other home. The children must know what they are and accommodate accordingly, being held accountable when it comes to your house hold rules just as your biological children would have to.  Rules are different in different places, that is part of life, by molding your rules to each set of children in the home (his, hers, and ours) you are hindering their growth and understanding of the real world; setting them up for a rude awakening when the world doesn't bend in their favor. And again, family can sometimes (not always)  be your biggest obstacle, stick to your guns don't back down, remembering to comply with what God wants and expects of you.  If, in your home MTV, rap music, cursing and rated "R" movies are not allowed, then the children need to comply. If in your home back talking and direct disobedience are not tolerated, the children need to understand that there are consequences to those things.

For all of the children in your marriage expect nothing less than excellence from each child. Excellence is not the same as perfection, it just means expect each child to do everything to the best of their ability all of the time. The best thing you can do for all of your child is to keep the "bar" raised just enough so they have to reach for it, not so they can step over it.

Circumstances do not define us, it is how we approach them that helps shape who we are. Blaming ones actions on anyone circumstance is cowardly, so, your parents got a divorce...that is no reason to rob a bank.  Step up to the plate, you are accountable for you and how you respond to the world around you and the circumstances God has allowed in your life.

If God has called you to be a step-parent, don't look at it as an exhausting battle of wills, look at it as God entrusting you with a bigger heart, and a few challenges to overcoming with love and perseverance. Step-parenting isn't easy, but then again either is parenting.