7 Day Devotional for the Stepparent Намуна

If you want to make anew friend you have to extend yourself in their direction—and you must do so in ways that make it more likely they will open themselves to you, and perhaps, pursue you back. Smart stepparents continually pursue the liking of their stepchildren. Be fun and warm. Smile at them. Spend time doing things they enjoy. If you aren’t approachable, don’t be surprised if they don’t want to hang out.

If your stepchildren are adults, keep in mind your initial goal is being friendly, not necessarily openly “loving.” If we gave you an assignment of making friends with a new neighbor, you probably wouldn’t introduce yourself and immediately give them a bear hug and kiss on the cheek. Make friendliness your initial goal. That will likely be more palatable for them.

No matter a child’s age, it could be that both of you are just now learning about the love languages. But it could also be that the biological parent knows their child’s love language and the stepparent is just now exploring this. The biological parent has much to share, but both of you should know the upheavals of the past may have created traumatic experiences for a child that have altered or even soured their love language.

Now here’s the catch for stepparents. Pursuing makes you vulnerable; it hands power over to a child, especially one who is closed toward you. The least invested person in any relationship always has the most power. This is another reason to partner with your spouse who can shut down any manipulation.

In addition, don’t let your pursuit turn you into a pushover. You can still say “No” and risk disappointing the child; in fact if you don’t they may never respect you. Rather, walk the line of deepening your friendship and trust in one another while remaining the adult in charge.

As if all this weren’t complicated enough, you need to consider your biological child’s feelings as you reach out to your step-kid. One stepdad asked, “How do you balance giving gifts to a stepchild in front of your own child, whose love language isn’t Gifts, but still sees the other child receive something from me?” The answer is to continue loving each child as best he can. Not everything has to be equal but it should be fairly equitable.