Bonding with Stepchildren
How Parents Can Facilitate the Process
February is the National Month of Love. Everyone would like to have a loving, happy home. How do you accomplish that within a blended family? How do you bond with children who don’t accept your presence, let alone like you? In order to bond with your stepchildren you need to start from the beginning. Remember when your own children were newborn? How did you bond with them? The actions you take as the adult will be similar to those that you shared with your biological children from birth. The difference lies in the reception you will receive from your stepchild.
Babies learn to love and trust you as their caregiver. When they cry, you respond. When they are hungry, you feed them. After their cries for attention are repeatedly and consistently met they build trust in your ability to nurture them. Bonding with older children is much the same, although your efforts may be met with resistance, thus require more patience on your part.
To bond with your stepchildren you quite simply have to be available to consistently meet their needs. The level of difficulty bonding with your stepchild varies according to their age, emotional state and how much resistance they are exhibiting. Generally, the younger the child, the easier it is to bond. Look for opportunities to care for their physical needs. Cook for them, help dress them, give them comfort when they are feeling low. If your stepchild is older they will need less physical care, but their emotional needs are great. Be available to listen when they need to talk. Be loving but not intrusive. Give advice only when asked and make sure they know, without a doubt, that you care about their feelings.
It may take a considerable amount of time before your stepchild is willing to build a relationship with you. This is entirely normal. In some cases the stepchildren are in adulthood before readily accepting or loving their step parents. You have no choice but to accept the length of time, however long it takes, for your love to be reciprocated. It is impossible to force someone to bond to you. Attempting to do so will only cause the process to take longer. The children need as much time as necessary to grieve the loss of their first family. Only after that process is complete can they begin attaching to another parental figure.
If you take care to meet each opportunity with enthusiasm and sincerity you will begin to bond with your stepchild and sooner or later they will begin to bond to you. After the bonding process has begun time will cement your devotion to each other and to the family as a unit. A shared history, common goals to commit to one another and respect for personal differences is the strength behind any relationship. Whether it takes one year or fifty some kind of bond can and will develop if you are willing to work hard to encourage it.
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