Anyone who has married, or remarried, into someone’s life with children knows first hand some of the challenges. The premise of this book is that we do not “blend” families at all. That implies that everyone is blended together to become one consistency and flavor. We actually have a slow-cooker, a crock pot, in use. Everyone warms up at a different pace, each flavor is valued, and the overall taste is fantastic.

When my husband and I got married last year, someone at our church insisted we read The Smart Step-Family together. We knew that combining our families would have its challenges and we are both decent communicators and thought we would be just fine dealing with it all. However, reading this book opened our eyes to what we had to look forward to and what we needed to plan for.

The book starts out by basically scaring you about the statistics around failed re-marriages when children are part of the equation. The divorce rates are astonishing. We are determined to help the statistics out in the positive direction and to help other couples do the same. Next, the author, Ron Deal, explains the slow-cooker principle and helps you adjust your expectations and to learn to “cook a stepfamily.” He moves from there to explain how to keep your marriage the top priority and what the parent and parent stepparent roles are. This was extremely helpful, especially when it comes to discipline. Deal thoroughly explains the progression of the stepparent’s relationship with the stepchildren from an outsider to a favorite aunt or uncle to gradually into a close stepparent role. As the progression develops, the parental authority the stepparent has increases. Importantly, the length of time required to increase parental authority varies according to the age of the children, previous family experiences, relationship with other parent, the child’s temperament/personality, parenting style variations, and the child’s overall stepfamily satisfaction level.

The book then moves on to discuss common pitfalls to stepfamilies and handling special challenge

Reading the book was helpful, but we also recommend talking through the discussion questions at the end of each chapter. We found ourselves discussing ahead of time how we wanted to handle some of the difficult situations we knew we would probably face. This has been important as some of those situations have arisen. Some of the big hot-buttons facing couples bringing young children into a marriage could be dissipated by talking through scenarios before they happen and to find healthy ways to talk through scenarios that you are already facing. We are fortunate because our five children are older (17, 19, 21, 22, and 23) and we do not have the little-kid issues. But big-kid issues can be potential land mines as well.

Remarried, do yourselves a favor, and read it together. Take the time to sit down and read it aloud and talk through the discussion questions at the end of each chapter. It is very manageable to read a chapter at a time. If you don’t already have a quiet time together daily, now is a great time to start! The book is written from a Christian perspective. However, even if that is not your thing, there is tons of wisdom in this book and I highly recommend it!