Eps 74: Talking to Melissa Brown About Blended Families

Today’s guest is Melissa Brown, a blended family podcaster who works with stepfamilies. We are going to talk about blended families and the challenges they face. Join us!

 “Raising children is the biggest rollercoaster ride of your life.”

What you’ll hear in this episode: 

• The biggest challenge facing blended families today
• Dealing with drama while protecting kids from triangulation
• The value of a child-centered approach when navigating difficult relationships with exes
• The importance of self-awareness, love and patience in creating a positive environment for kids.
• How to use problem solving tools you use with your kids with your exes to improve relationships
• Learning to identify what you can’t control and how to deal with that
• The mixed blessing and additional pressure of sibling rivalry on blended families and how to handle it
• How to empower your kids for conflict resolution in blended families and learning to stay out of it, resisting the temptation to “fix” things
• Protecting your relationship from blended family drama
• Bonding with step kids – particularly teenagers – keeping an open mind.
• Finding an entry point for building connection
• Flexibility and scheduling in blended families
• Routines and rituals – creating a sense of belonging
• Consistency between houses, managing energy and big feelings.
• Leveraging patterns in your blended family – approaching problems with curiosity
• Dealing with (and expecting) setbacks and recovering when things don’t go as planned

What does Joyful Courage mean to you?

It takes a lot of courage to blend a family – it’s not always an easy journey. Joyful courage to me means understanding the importance of finding joy even through the pain in life. Our biggest growth and our biggest lessons always come from hard times.

Where to find Melissa:

Blended family podcast l Facebook l Twitter

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