Merging Families: A Step-By-Step Guide for Blended Families

Rating:
Summary: superficial and impractical
Review: I have specialized in providing professional education and therapy to divorced, courting, and re/wedded couples since 1981. I am 66, have been a stepgrandson, stepson, and ex-stepfather and stepbrother, am an invited Board member of the Stepfamily Association of America, a contributing editor to 'Your Stepfamily Online,' and the author of six books on personal growth and high-nurturance relationships and stepfamilies.

Structurally, Dr. Reed's book is well organized and "reader friendly," though she and her publisher omitted recommended readings and an index. However, the book's content omits four key topics, which destroys its practical value:

1) why and how to assess and reduce co-parents' psychological wounds from childhood (vs. divorce);

2) the origin and impacts of blocked grief in adults and kids, and how to spot and reduce it;

3) co-parent unawareness of five key topics: (a) normal personality formation, composition, and function; (b) keys to high-nurturance families and relationships, (c) effective communication skills, (d) healthy 3-level grief, and - for co-parents - (e) stepfamily realities and norms and implications. and...

4) little effective re/marital and co-parenting help (i.e. courtship coaching, classes, informed counseling, co-parent support groups) available in most communities and the media.

In my experience, these factors will often block the best-intentioned adults from following well-meant re/marital and co-parenting advice, as in this book. If ignored, the factors inexorably promote choosing the wrong people to re/wed, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time - and subsequent stresses and re/divorce. Awareness, acceptance, and discussion of these (and related) factors can reduce three of these stressors, and help to achieve thriving, high-nurturance stepfamilies.

For more perspective on this review, see:

http://sfhelp.org/11/choose_bks.htm


Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money
Review: I read the book entirely and found it very lacking in real-life commentary. Don't bother with this one.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money
Review: I read the book entirely and found it very lacking in real-life commentary. Don't bother with this one.