Like many children from blended families, Nathan lived a life of constant transition. Life meant two sets of parents, two groups of siblings and two different beds.
“Now I can finally unpack!”
The night before my nephew, Nathan, left for college, he spoke excitedly about how he finally would be getting a place of his own, even if only a dorm room. Nathan had been living out of a suitcase since his parents divorced when he was 11. Because his parents had shared custody of him, they divided his time between the two homes — a few days at Mom’s place, a few days at Dad’s, week after week, year after year.
“Whenever Mom, Dad or the steps told me to unpack, I’d go upstairs and dump my bag out on the floor,” Nathan says. “I thought, Why bother? I knew I’d be leaving again in a couple of days.”
Like many children from blended families, Nathan lived a life of constant transition. Life meant two sets of parents, two groups of siblings and two different beds. It meant switching between different rules and routines and having two homes, yet often feeling as if he were not a part of either. Parents are often unaware of the stress a child endures when he’s shuffled between two homes.
Children crave stability. In its absence, they may become territorial about their belongings and their space. Their “things” become their security.
I remember a young boy, Josh, whom I was working with in a day-camp program. His father had brought him to camp an hour before his mother dropped off his stepbrother. When the stepbrother walked into the room, Josh’s eyes filled with tears.
“That’s my new shirt he’s wearing,” he sobbed. “Dad gave it to me for my birthday. How could Mom let him wear it?”
To Josh, who shared his entire life with a new stepbrother, the loss of a simple shirt made him feel as if he’d been betrayed.
As a parent, you can help each child feel like a valuable, respected member of the family and take measures to minimize the stress of switching homes by doing the following:
Linda Ranson Jacobs is recognized as a forefront leader in the areas of children and divorce, and single-parent family needs. Having been both divorced and widowed, she was a single mom who learned first-hand the emotional and support needs of broken families, and she developed a strong passion to help meet those needs. As a children’s ministry director, public speaker, trainer, author, and therapeutic child care center owner, Linda has ministered to countless divorcing couples and single parent families and their children. She is the founder of the DivorceCare for Kids program and a regular contributor to many blogs and periodicals. She has written two books: Attract Families to Your Church and Keep Them Coming Back and The Single Parent: Confident and Successful. Linda has re-married, and she and her husband, Bruce, have 10 grandchildren.
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