Stepfamily Archives | Happily Blended

Parenting Autism – The Cold Hard Truth, as He Sees It #autism #parenthood

brandyellen — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 10:03:40 +0000

Raising my son who has high functioning autism brings on a lot of jaw dropping, “did he just say that”, type of experiences. Sometimes, Aj can come off hurtful but really he isn’t meaning to be that way. At times Aj’s comments can be hilarious, but do not giggle at him, because then he will either act out at you angry due to being hurt, or he will be telling you with tears in his eyes “that isn’t funny”. It’s hard to parent a child who sees the world more simple than the rest of us do, he is part of an amazing group of both children and adults who have various struggles with how the real world works. Yet, it’s so simple really. My fiance’s daughter, age 13, moved …

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Remembering a Wonderful Summer of So Many Changes

brandyellen — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:02:58 +0000

This Summer brought on changes for my family because we not only blended our family with the boyfriend and his children, but we moved to a new house. Having a lot of changes at once can be overwhelming for adults but especially for children of any age. That is why we worked hard to ensure this Summer was as fun as possible, and probably why we have more boxes still unpacked than I would like to admit. It was important to Lee and I to ensure our children blended together happily, while everything went really great at first, at the moment we have an issue with one of our children which may or may not be resolved with time and space as well as a listening ear. The summer though? …

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When Gentle Rain Turns to a Rain Storm

brandyellen — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 13:43:14 +0000

In theory blending a family with two people who are absolutely in love should be a smooth process. This is taking into consideration that the children get along pretty awesome and the two parents have an amazing communication level to work out the kinks. What happens when the theory of this is how we will blend the family turns into this is it, what do we do?! In theory two parents communicate to come down the middle road, or close to it, as a way to not turn one kids life versus the other kids upside down. His and hers. Hers and His. This would make total sense if the children in a blended family situation lived together for longer periods than just six days of the month, heck that …

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A New Chapter in my Life

brandyellen — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 05:03:51 +0000

My children have two different Dad’s, my first born and only daughter has one father that I was never married to and have not been in a relationship with since she was about 4 months old {she is now almost 11 years old}. Then my two sons who are now 4 and 6 were with my ex husband, we divorced in May of 2010 { I believe} but lived together off and on among trying to make things work for our sons many a times until we finally realized enough was enough and it wasn’t something you can force to work. My ex husband and I co-parent great together, I consider him a great friend and he is a fantastic Daddy to our sons. Never though, have I met someone …

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Co-Parenting Isn’t About Personal Feelings

brandyellen — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:03:52 +0000

The holidays are coming and to be honest I have absolutely no clue if this is the year I have my daughter for Thanksgiving or not and as I started thinking about that it stirred up a few thoughts inside of my head; mainly thoughts surrounding my witness of other co-parents being so territorial about their child. Whenever I see co-parents; two parents no longer residing together in a personal relationship but raising child(ren) together, they are not usually super friendly with each other. If these co-parents have moved on to have children with other people it seems those children are not super close to their half siblings parent either. This makes me sad. I admit, my daughter’s father and I don’t always see eye to eye on life, heck …

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Blended Family’s and Bonding

brandyellen — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:25:14 +0000

Blended families are commonly referred to as step families, and are increasingly common among society today. If you were to create a poll for children in elementary school probably one third of them would respond they have a step parent or that their biological parents don’t reside in the same household. Children who are a part of a step family may resist the other “new” parental figure in their home, this is natural behavior, especially if they have very involved parents. As a product of a step family myself, I must say that I resisted my step father, although not married to my mother, he was referred to as my step father. Teen age years were the worst, I would fight him tooth and nail on anything he said. I …

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