Claudette's Blog

I am sitting here in beautiful Roanoke, VA in our RV. This is part of life that I enjoy the most...working remotely in our RV and enjoying the scenery around me.

This morning, I gave a presentation to a moms group here in Roanoke on the Powers of Effective Communication and how it helps to build and strengthen relationships. I believe that any relationship needs to be tended to on a continuous basis. My husband and I both work quite a bit. It seems that when the kids grew up and left the nest, we thought that we would have so much time together to do what we thought we couldn't do before.

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A while back, in November, I wrote that I started reading my journals after 20 years of being in a stepfamily. I was amazed at what I read. This poor woman, struggling to keep her family together, to find an identity within this new group and to feel as if she belonged.

Nothing is more important to human beings as a sense of belonging. That was what was missing for me. I didn't belong anywhere and it was terribly hard. My friends didn't understand because they had no idea what I was going through. My family wasn't much help either because they weren't in my shoes.

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MILLIONS!!!

That's right. There are over 1300 new stepfamilies being created daily (just do the math). And it's not just when you get married that you become a stepparent. Steprelationships start when you are seriously involve with your partner and started to include the children, whether you are married, living together or seriously dating one another.

There are many stepmoms in the media as well as in our day to day lives. The good thing about all of this is that they look nothing like Julie Andrews from the Sound of Music or Carol from the Brady Bunch.

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Who am I in this family? Am I the mother, the friend, the aunt, the babysitter, the maid, the taxi driver, the whatever? What is it that I am really suppose to be doing in this family? Am I suppose to be involved or just watch? Do I say something or not?

As stepparents, we really don't have clear role models as to what we are suppose to do. What little models that we do have are based on media and those are not very realistic or helpful.

Recently, I was interviewed by Jacquelyne Fletcher, author of " The Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom" where we discussed role ambiguity in stepfamilies. This is probably one of the most difficult issues new stepmoms (and stepdads) face because we have no positive role models to follow.

Click here to listen what I had to share with Jacquelyne on the subject and see if this can be of help to you.

I'd love to hear your comments on this and let me know how you view yourself in your stepfamily and how it's working.

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.

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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.

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