When Mike Brady and a certain "lovely lady" got together, they had this crazy hunch that all their offspring from previous marriages would somehow form a family.
Nice for them, but they really skipped over a lot with that "somehow." The divorce rate is as high as ever - about four out of ten Canadian marriages fail - and these days, mixing families is more like an hour-long drama than a half-hour comedy.
Here's the story of a real-life Carol, from Orillia, Ont., who we'll call simply Mom. Mom's got three daughters, and a new boyfriend (who we'll call Boyfriend), with a daughter of his own. They've been dating for six months and they have a hunch it could be a long-term relationship, except for one thing - Mom's youngest, a nine-year-old (might as well call her Cindy), thinks she can get rid of Boyfriend by making everyone's life miserable. The strategy, Mom admits, has worked for Cindy with past boyfriends.
In the beginning, Mom says Boyfriend tried treating Cindy like his own child, hugging her or holding her hand. "She didn't take kindly to that," Mom says, "so he backed way off, and she said that also hurt her feelings."
Now, Cindy's just ignoring Boyfriend and making false claims that his daughter, who's a year older, is being mean to her. Boyfriend says she will even "interrupt our conversations, literally coming and standing in between us." Mom's other two daughters play along just fine, and at fifteen and seventeen years old, already have their own dramas going on outside the home.
But Boyfriend says the problems with Cindy leave the relationship with Mom hanging in the balance. "If I can't reach the child, I know I won't be able to reach the adult," he says.
So how do a real-life Mike Brady and his lovely lady deal with the kinks that are stopping them from bringing their families together happily ever after?
First off, says Deb Stephens, a therapist at New Path Youth and Family Services in Simcoe, Ont., put the brakes on the physical affection front. "The child may be uncomfortable with physical signs of affection from someone other than a parent," she says, suggesting Boyfriend would be better off "giving her a thumb's up, a high five, or a playful nudge with an elbow." Anything more than that should be initiated by the child when she's ready.
As for stopping Cindy's games, Ms. Stephens points out that "in the past, if the daughter has been unhappy, and Mom hasn't continued dating the man, in her mind, this beau should be heading down the same highway!" In other words, Cindy has learned that she can get what she wants if she persists, which puts Mom in a bad position.
"A lot of mom's job is to be a broken record," Ms. Stephens says, "saying the same message several times using different words." That message? "Things are different now. My love for you hasn't diminished or changed. If anything, it's grown because I'm happier now." If the positive words aren't doing the trick on their own, and Mom is tempted to use discipline, Ms. Stephens warns that actions such as taking away privileges likely won't work since that punishment has no connection to the problem.
Instead, Mom should try ignoring the complaints, refusing to engage with the daughter's bad behaviour. "When kids recognize that negative behaviour does not have any payoffs, they soon begin to engage in it less often and less intensely," she says, though she does warn that one should always entertain "the possibility that [the Boyfriend]could actually not be treating the child well" and keep an eye out for that.
Kelly Nault, an author and parenting coach in Vancouver, calls daughters like Cindy "little pit bulls." Their bark, she insists, is worse than their bite. "The mom should sit down with her and say, 'I know you're not happy, but this is the situation and it's not going to change.'"
Ms. Nault warns that Cindy may respond by insisting Mom doesn't love her any more or will worry that Mom will end up liking Boyfriend's daughter more. The natural response to this is to plead with the child that it's not true, and according to Ms. Nault, that's exactly the response Mom needs to avoid.
Instead, she should defuse the worry by completely brushing it off. "I would just laugh and say, 'Yeah right. You're so funny. Tell me another one.' That'll give the daughter more confidence than any justification."
"We can't expect children to love our new partners," says Ms. Stephens, and she suggests parents of mixed families use the following mantra: "You don't have to love, you don't have to like, but you have to respect. You have to get along."
"There is a reason that second marriages have a high rate of failure," she says, "and that certainly can be because of kids." Indeed, the situation with Cindy has set this relationship close to the breaking point. Boyfriend says that "it was a tough call for a while" when the problem started, as he increasing felt "not welcome in the family."
"Remembering that it takes between two and five years for a blended family to gel can help couples stay balanced," says Ms. Stephens. She also recommends "lowering your expectations that you'll have a happily ever after family with a yours, mine and ours chemical formula."
That's not exactly the half-hour sitcom ending you'd like to hear, but it's good advice for us out here in the real world when working our way through that "somehow" business.
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