Claudette's Blog

Have you ever experienced someone taking the time to acknowledge just how you felt? How did it feel when someone was genuinely concerned about what you were going through?

• Did you feel understood?
• Loved?
• Cared for?
• Did you feel as if you mattered?

These are just a few of the things that we feel when someone takes the time to acknowledge our feelings. What better way to build and strengthen your relationships with your spouse, your kids, other family members and friends.

No one likes to be told what to do. Unsolicited advice is never welcomed and often, that’s not what people are looking for. What they want is an empathetic ear, so that they can filter through their own emotions, have a sounding board to help them decipher all that noise that is going on in their heads.

We all yearn to be understood, to be valued, to be heard. One of the most appreciated gifts people love to have, especially women, is knowing that someone is listening to them and that they are being heard and validated.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, what better gift to give than that of truly being there for the other person, of being attentive to what they are saying and being genuinely concerned about what is going on for them.

Try it and see what happens!

Have you read my special report on “Top Secrets of Highly Effective Family Communicators"? Get you very own copy here at www.coachingsteps.com. Plus, you’ll receive more tips just like these every week. The only way to improve on your relationship is by taking action now! What are you waiting for?

I'm sitting in my wonderful kitchen, which overlooks our backyard forest. The sun is shining on our snow-covered yard and that warms my heart. I love the first snow of the year (and this will probably be the only one, considering we live in VA). Everything look so pure and clean, so simple. It's very serene and peaceful.

Yesterday, I had the privilege to have my granddaughter and her brother spend the afternoon with us. I say her brother because he has a different dad that she does (who is my son) but he doesn't care because he calls us "Grand-mere" and "Papa" the names the kids call us by. We love these kids very much and welcome this little brother of our granddaughter with open arms.

You see, he didn't ask to have a complicated life but just to be loved. He doesn't have a chance to see his grandparents and extended family very much. His sister comes to our house every week and we do have fun. We do crafts, play games and read a lot together. Poor little fellow sees his big sister leave to go to her grandma and yet he stays home with his mom.

Life is complicated for adults but for little ones, it's incomprehensible. They don't understand that there are expectations adults have around what families should look like, what they are suppose to do and not. In his poor little head, he is probably wondering why he doesn't get to do all kinds of fun things his sister gets to do.

Yesterday, the kids asked us if they could both come in our RV to the beach like we had done over the summer. Their faces were glowing as they remembered the few days we spent having fun. My heart was in turmoil as my head is saying, but he isn't even my grandchild! You know what? He loves me just as much as his grandmother and I know for sure he never said to himself, "well, you are not my real grandmother!". These kids love unconditionally. We just need to love them back.

So after making a huge snowman, snow angels and riding a sleigh, we come back into the house, have a hot coco, watch "Frosty the Snowman" and just enjoy each others company.

When Mom came to get them, the kids told her they had the best time ever and that they love coming to Grand-mere's and Papa's house. Like the snow that I am looking at, these kids are pure and serene, innocent and loving. What more could I ask for on a beautiful day like today?

I watched the Dr. Phil show yesterday and although I didn't get the title of the show, I was glad to see two different scenarios in stepfamily dynamics. Not everyone will become buddy-buddy with their husband's ex but we really don't need to be the enemy either. We don’t have enough shows helping stepfamilies setting new standards of conduct. We are still trapped in the old ways of doing things when it comes to families. We believe that the way it’s always been in creating families is the right way.

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Holidays are a time for families to get together and remember the fun times they had. They laugh and share memories of past events. But for stepfamilies, especially new ones, this isn’t always the case.

Often,those past memories are shared with other people that are not a part of the new family. Sometimes,resentment, fear, anger, and loneliness is what comes up for stepfamilies. Stepparents (both stepmoms and stepdads) are looking at this time of year as probably one of their worst ever. But it doesn’t have to be and I’ll share with you a few tips that I shared with a stepmom recently.

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Have you ever wondered what was going on in your head way way back when? Well that's exactly what I've been doing for the last several days. I've decided that I was ready to write my book about being a stepmom. This is about my life and how I dealt with the ups and downs of merging our two families together.

Next January, my husband and I will be celebrating 20 years of being together. I know that it wasn't always wonderful. And there were times that I didn't even think that we would last. Several times we were on the edge and I even left for several months where my son and I stayed in a woman's shelter. I couldn't believe that my life had gone so low.

But I also knew that we had had great times together and I needed to remember those. Looking back at the words I wrote 20 years ago, the one thing that comes to my mind is that I just want to hold her in my arms and tell her that everything will be just fine. I know that it will because I am here and it is.

I think we are doing really great in our family (I don't think that perfect families exist) and that we are always working on something. Gosh, I look at many traditional families and I know that there are always something that comes up.

So as I read my journals, I will share some of the stories that I've lived and gone through, some of our best moments and maybe some of our worst. The one thing throughout this entire life of this one woman is that she never gave up hope. She believed that there was something worth fighting for and yes, there were times when it was hell, but those got blurred out with those great moments of joy.

Do you write in a journal? Have you gone back to read them? What was your impressions and feelings as you read them?
I'd love to hear your comments and hear your stories of stepfamilies.

Hi Everyone

I just received an email from a fellow stepmom sister Jennifer Marine, author of No One's the Bitch: A Ten-Step Plan for Mothers and Stepmothers

Subject: Stepmoms are being represented on the Dr. Phil show--Filming Today! (Air Date TBA)

Dr. Phil Show now looking for moms/stepmoms in L.A. to ask questions / for anyone to submit video questions

The Dr. Phil Show would like to focus on taking questions from both moms and stepmoms in the audience, so participants would have to either live in Los Angeles or close by. They're also looking for questions to be submitted by video, so obviously that can be from anywhere!

If anyone is interested in attending the show and asking a question or submitting a video, they can either contact the show with the subject "STEPMOM/MOM CONFLICT - 11/3/09" in the subject line, or they can send me a message at marine2marine@gmail.com and I will pass it along to the producer.

Again, it's a great opportunity to get a broader dialogue going concerning dual-family issues. We'll be on regardless, but they're trying to address the most common challenges and concerns.

Thanks so much!

Cheers,
Jennifer

No One's the Bitch: A Ten-Step Plan for Mothers and Stepmothers (Globe Pequot 2009)

Today, my husband sent me a forward of an article he saw online. It was sort of funny considering that recently, I hosted a teleseminar with a friend of mine Heidi Bernstein on Dating as a single parent. Heidi's expertize on divorce and dating helped people understand what they needed to do in order to be successful.

I, on the other hand brought the perspective of what merging two families is all about, the do's and don'ts of dating as a single parent.

-For one, don't start dating and bringing your date home if you've been single within a couple of months.

-Be truthful about your ins and outs with your kids. They will notice something is going on and they will become suspicious. Trust is a very fragile connection between two people. Don't break it.

-Have a vision about the kind of relationship you want and the kind of partner you are looking for. Often we are looking without really knowing what we want in life and sometimes, it's just underneath our noses.

I am sure that as stepparents, we can see some of the things that you wished you had know before getting into a relationship. I'm not saying that you wouldn't have married the person, but I bet you that you would have asked a lot more questions and clarified a lot more about your life together.

Well, just a little something I felt like sharing today.

Am I normal to feel angry, jealousy, envious, confused, distressed, overwhelmed, etc?

I hear this all the time, stepmoms asking me if they are normal and the answer to this is YES! You are normal and I'm going to tell you why.

As little girls, we grew up with images of what being a woman, wife and mother were like. Society has these views of what we should be like (the same goes for men too by the way). We are often guided by what we see in our families of origins, what we see at our neighbors and on TV. But are they all realistic?

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