Grandparents and Stepgrandparents: Challenges in Counseling the Extended-Blended Family

✍ Scribed by Jane E. Myers; Valerie L. Schwiebert

• Publisher: American Counseling Association
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 640 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1524-6817
• DOI: 10.1002/j.2161-0029.1999.tb00081.x

✦ Synopsis

Remarriage of parents may bring new grandparents and stepgrandparents into the lives of children, creating new family structures and needsfor adjustment. The extended-blended family may benejtji-om spec& counseling interventions.

Divorce and remarriage affect family structures in major ways that remain difficult to define (Aldous, 1995). Kinship relationships between members of blended families are developmental processes that change over time, and researchers have only recently begun to examine these relationships (Bray & Berger, 1990). Divorces in first-time marriages, remarriages, and divorces after remarriage contribute to fluctuations in kinship networks f i r both adults and children. For example, remarriage of one or both parents may create as many as four new grandparents in the family system (Sanders & Trygstad, 1989). These grandparents comprise part of both the extended family and the blended family and may be described as belonging to the extended-blended family.

Studies of relationships between grandparents and young grandchildren following divorce emphasize the importance of grandparents' roles in helping children adjust to single-parent and step-family life (Kennedy & Kennedy, 1993). Role ambiguities in stepfamilies, however, contribute to difficulties in adjusting to new relationship patterns (Aldous, 1995). These ambiguities may be even more pronounced for stepgrandparents, who lack both biological ties and an extended history of relationships within the family (Sanders & Trygstad, 1989). Counselors working with blended families find it useful to encourage relationships between children and grand-