Characteristics Of Step Family

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The Stepfamily Stepfamilies can be complex and are becoming a common occurrence within the military. In the military the high occurrence of stepfamilies is believed to be more common because, it is common for couples to marry and start families young (Hall, 2008). These young families then divorce and remarry, creating many blended families (Hall, 2008). It is important when working with military families to understand both, the dynamics and characteristics of step families.
Dynamics
The dynamics of a family or stepfamily involves how members interact with each other (Hall, 2008). In any system, there are subsystems and in stepfamilies there are seven common subsystem interactions. Seven common subsystems are the divorced spouses …show more content…

There are characteristics of a step family that most first biological families do not have. These different characteristics include: a family born of loss; previous histories; the parent-child bonds predate the new couple; somewhere else a biological parent exists; there are two different households; no legal relationship; and step family potential (Hall, 2008). To start, for a family born with loss they have come into a new family system with some feeling of loss possibly of relationships, or expectations, and dreams (Hall, 2008). The loss can come from a divorce or death and for a military family this struggle mixed with military life can be especially hard (Hall, …show more content…

It is important if possible that children in the military have contact with their biological parent, and the lack of “rules” to merge a family together can cause struggles, especially for military families (Hall, 2008). The lack of rules means that the boundaries for the new family sometimes shift, and for military families the constant distance can make the child feel alone (Hall, 2008). For a family that has merged together whether it is a step mother or father there is still a parental role, even if both biological parents are active in the child 's life (Hall, 2008). To makes these new roles work takes time and understanding, and in the situations that the biological parent makes it difficult for a new family the child can feel torn between everyone (Hall,

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