Simone Young on Nurturing Children’s Emotions in Blended Families

Simone Young (00:00): We need to actually acknowledge our own feelings of confusion, our own feelings of insecurity, to validate those, to validate those in our partner and empathize with our partner when they’re also feeling those quite intense emotions.

Laura Jenkins (00:16): In the Blend is a podcast series that helps parents navigate life within a blended family. Join me as I speak with experts and guests to get practical advice on how to have a harmonious, blended family life. This series dives deep into the unique dynamics, logistics, and challenges of raising a blended family from new partners to juggling mixed finances. We will help guide you through it.

(00:45): In today’s episode, I’m thrilled to be joined by Simone Young, a child and family practitioner at Stepfamilies Australia with a wealth of experience in the field. In our chat, we’re covering children and emotions and exploring the emotional landscape that children navigate within step and blended families, and how these emotions can manifest in their behavior. We cover everything from fostering an environment of support and openness strategies and techniques that parents can employ to guide children through those feelings of confusion and insecurity, through to good old loyalty conflicts and more. This one is jam packed with useful tips and information to support you no matter what your role in your blended or stepfamily system. I hope you enjoy the chat with Simone as much as I did. Now, you have been helping blended families and step families for over 15 years now, so you’ve got an absolute wealth of knowledge and experience in this space. As a child and family practitioner with the extensive experience that you’ve got, could you share some common emotional challenges that children often  face when adjusting to blended family dynamics and how these emotions can manifest in their behavior

Simone Young (02:08): I think one of the first things we all need to think about when talking about children in blended or step families is what is their age and developmental stage, and particularly what’s their neurological development, because that really impacts on the emotional challenges that they experience. So that’s the first thing I would say to anyone is, uh, or ask anyone, how old are the kids? Where are they at developmentally? Because that gives us a wealth of information around what they could possibly the
kids could possibly be experiencing emotionally and how that plays out in their behavior. The second thing I really think is important for us to consider is that, you know, a stepfamily is not necessarily a child’s choice. And so that really plays out this idea that they’re not in control, or it wasn’t their choice to be in this new family structure that plays out depending on their age and stage as well.

(03:07): The other thing to consider is, before we even get to the emotional challenges, is often the first thing we see with kids is their behavior. It’s kind of like an iceberg, right? We see the tip and what lies underneath the water is like much bigger in mass. Yeah. And so for kids behavior is their way of communicating what’s under the water, their emotions, what they need, their thoughts. So going straight to the emotional challenges kind of bypasses the way kids actually communicate to us what their emotional challenges are. And they do that through behavior. So it’s the, perhaps the behavior we consider to be good, or the behavior we consider to be tricky. We need to stop pauses, think as adults and wonder what, what’s the feeling behind this? What, what do, what does my kid need when they’re behaving in this way? I think we can also think about emotional challenges for kids in two ways.

(04:11): Um, the pace of forming this new family is really or directed by the pet, the parents, the adults, when they choose to repartner. And that doesn’t necessarily match between you and me. It doesn’t match the pace of the children’s processing. So it’s important to know that when you are an adult and you are experiencing an incredible amount of positivity, when you found someone new and you’re on this journey to establish a new family system, your kid might be in a really different place on that path. And that, uh, can lead us to having more understanding about the emotional challenges for kids. And the other thing is that often kids hold a very unconscious fantasy that their parents may get back together, that their parents may unify again one day in the future. And when a parent repartner, that fantasy is lost again, based on age and stage.

(05:23): Kids will react to that in quite unique and individual ways. It is a source of the emotional challenge for kids with in-step families. And I think the number one biggest emotional challenge for kids is the unacknowledged and often unexpressed experience of grief and loss. So one of the reasons why we at
Stepfamilies Australia use the, the word stepfamily is because step is a derivative, a German derivative, an old English derivative, meaning born of loss. So when loss needs to occur before this new family system can be established, and for kids, again based on the neurological development, really don’t have the ability to articulate that loss, we see it in the behavior. We might see it in intense emotions. If you were to say to a kid, oh, are you feeling that ’cause you are experiencing grief and loss? No, you’re not gonna get an answer. Yet, us as adults can step back and think, well, there are all these kind of behaviors thinking about that iceberg. What could be the needs underneath that? What could be the feelings? Oh, this might be a, a way of them communicating to me that they’re feeling this grief and loss, that they’re, they don’t have the ability to articulate.

Laura Jenkins (06:50): That’s so good. I love the idea of the iceberg. I think that’s a really, really useful analogy. And I think it makes it much easier as a parent to be thinking about, okay, what does this mean? What is going on?

Simone Young (07:06): What, um, what is my kid trying to communicate to me through behavior? Because they don’t have the ability to articulate it like an adult does. And again, between you and me, there are lots of us adults out
there that cannot communicate our feelings or needs either. Yeah. We do it through behavior.

Laura Jenkins (07:27): The iceberg analogy might apply to adults in some circumstances as well.

Simone Young (07:31): Absolutely. And often when we can see our kids’ behavior, our own iceberg might get triggered.

Laura Jenkins (07:41): Yeah. True. So blended families are so complex. If you’re seeing signals from your child that they might be unhappy or they’re expressing those emotions, what can you be doing to create a supportive and
open environment for them to be able to do that freely? And then also best adjust, uh, sorry, best address any behavioral changes that might arise during the adjustment?

Simone Young (08:12): In the work that I do with families, I think one of the most important things around this idea of how do we express emotions freely? How, how do we make adjustments in behavior? The adults need to be on the same page. And that’s really curious, isn’t it? Because we might have repartnered with someone who’s quite different from us, has quite a different experience. Yet here I’m talking from Stepfamilies Australia saying, oh, it would be a good idea if you could be on the same page when it comes to, what
does it mean, express emotions freely. And I think when we ask ourselves that question, as adults, we might actually find that we have very different opinions on what that looks like and very different opinions on what appropriate behavior looks like. So there’s a whole heap of discussion there. There’s a
great opportunity to discuss with your partner what that actually means, and actually what does it mean for that for ourselves as adults? Do we actually feel like we can be emotionally free with our partner? What do we actually feel about sadness? What do we feel about anger? What do we feel about frustration? Because if we’re not aware of our own meaning and even judgment of those emotions, it’s really difficult for us to create an environment where kids can express that freely.

Laura Jenkins (09:41): So good. Yeah. That’s spot on.

Simone Young (09:43): The other thing I think can be really helpful is the idea of emotion coaching. And, um, that’s a great way to create an environment for emotional communication. And I’ll speak a little bit more to that I think
later today. And lots of adults share with me that it can be really, really helpful to get a skilled up as you can around children’s development. And so I highly recommend parenting programs such as tuning into kids, tuning into teens, bringing up great kids, any of the work by Dan Al, uh, sorry, seagull or, um, Dr.
Shefali. There’s so many books, there’s so many websites, podcasts, you name it out there right now, adults share with me as soon as they get a little bit of information that’s, you know, uh, kind of grounded in both anecdotal and research evidence. It just builds their confidence. And that ability to stay calm as an adult then helps your child be able to express more freely.

Laura Jenkins (10:50): Mm. So true. It’s all about role modeling that behavior, isn’t it?

Simone Young (10:56): And it’s very tricky.

Laura Jenkins (10:58): Mm. When you might have your own emotions going on underneath the iceberg.

Simone Young (11:03): Absolutely. Absolutely.

Laura Jenkins (11:06): So in your experience, what would be some of the effective strategies or techniques then that parents and stepparents can use to help children cope with feelings? So let’s say the child’s feeling confused or they’re feeling insecure. How, what are some ways that, uh, that, that parents can, can step in to help?

Simone Young (11:29): I think the research shows us very strongly that as an adult, as a parent, you need to be as clear in an age appropriate way and consistent in your communication with the kids. Yeah. And that might, uh, you
might think that, oh, you, you’re kind of doing that. Okay. And you might need to review that refresh. Am I being as consistent and clear on my messages as I can, particularly around any kind of changes, transitions, and the basics say, you know, living arrangements. Yeah. I think it’s really important too that there is space created for the parent and the child to have quality one-on-one time, and especially if the children are living in two households. Um, so if you are a, uh, a parent who, um, needs to support your child in transition from home to home, so many families have shared with us that when they allow that
child to have one-on-one time with their parent, at the start of those visits, the start of those transitions behavior seems to settle in bonding, reestablishing the attachment connection seems to settle in much quicker than if, uh, the adults choose to do, say a whole family activity.

(12:56): Um, got it. I think the other thing too is that, you know, apart from reentry into a home, we, we need to embrace the opportunities of daily activities that that’s one-on-one time. What do you do at bedtime? Do you prepare meals together? The time in the car when you go down to the shops to buy, you know, the groceries, brushing teeth, all of that is provides great opportunity for the one on one connection I mentioned before, emotion coaching, particularly with intense feelings such as anger or insecurity,
confusion, the basics of emotion coaching. About 30% of the time the research tells us really helps settle and soothe and improve connection between adults and kids. And very simply what I’m talking about here is acknowledging that your child has a feeling, validating that feeling, Hey, oh yeah, I probably feel
that too, if that thing happened to me and empathizing with them.

(13:59): Yeah. It’s really tough to feel that. And in many cases, children don’t need any more than those three steps. Yeah. They don’t actually need us to solve the problem of insecurity or confusion. They need it to be acknowledged, they need it to be validated, they need to be em, em emphasized with. Yeah. And I guess that when we were talking about the iceberg, it’s uh, the same for us. We need to actually acknowledge our own feelings of confusion, our own feelings of insecurity to validate those, to validate those in our partner and empathize with our partner when they’re also feeling those quite intense
emotions. What’s interesting is that confusion is a recognized stage in the lifecycle of a stepfamily. It’s often what the person who’s kind of newer into the family system and the children experience before the parent does. It’s kind of goes hand in hand with stepfamily development. So again, it’s about normalizing. It’s kind of okay for us to have these feelings and we don’t actually need to solve the problem of them, but we definitely need to acknowledge it and validate it and empathize with it.

Laura Jenkins (15:22): I think that’s a good reminder about not solving it. Mm-hmm. And really being there to listen and show that you understand Yeah. And that you’ve heard them. And, and I think that is such a valuable, um,
reminder Yeah. To do that. And, um, when you talked about the emotion coaching, I’m curious to understand, is that something that parents can invest in doing for themselves?

Simone Young (15:49): So emotion to develop those is a technique that was probably originally, I’d say in an evidence way. Um, comes from the Gottman Institute and it here in Melbourne, an organization took the principles of
emotion coaching and put them into the parenting programs, tuning into kids and shooting into teens.

Laura Jenkins (16:11): Yeah. Okay. Got it. Okay. Well, we’ll link to all of that Great. In the show notes. Well, fantastic. So let’s talk about loyalty conflicts. Mm-hmm. This is one that I know comes up all the time in blended families.
How can parents and stepparents navigate this delicate aspect whilst ensuring the child’s emotional wellbeing and helping to promote appropriate behavior?

Simone Young (16:36): I like to call them and I think our, our friend Patricia Papow likes to call this loyalty binds and it kind of highlights that it’s not necessarily a conflict for the child, it’s actually representative of the, um, the,
yeah. The binds kind of like those invisible ribbons that children have with their caregivers, their main attachment figures. And so I think the first set step is to really acknowledge that loyalty binds are a very, very common experience for kids in your family. That it’s not necessarily something that you need to fix.
Definitely something that as an adult you need to accept. And I think they can present in really surprising ways. And it’s again, really important to validate that experience, to empathize with it and not necessarily rush to solving the problem of it, because it’s not necessarily a problem for the child until
sometimes the behaviors can lead to it being problematic. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

(17:43): <affirmative>, uh, I think you really need to, as adults in the stepfamily, resist the need to complain or compete with your children’s other parent and with each other. Now, this might be a surprising one, but
I can’t tell you how many couples I’ve worked with and they’ll say, oh, my new partner is such good parent. There’s so much better than me. My kid loves them more than all of us. That creates a loyalty bind. Your kid is then like, oh, do I, do I have a relationship with this new person? Because not only will my other parent maybe get upset or maybe won’t, I don’t know, but my own parent has just told me that this other person is better than them.

Laura Jenkins (18:32): Yes.

Simone Young (18:33): So, oh yeah, we’re doing it out of this great intention of, you know, welcome in the new person. They’re so great. Yet it creates a new set of loyalty binds. And so some kids might not necessarily wanna connect
with a new person because they don’t wanna hurt their parent

Laura Jenkins (18:50): Mm-hmm.

Simone Young (18:50): When we normally think it’s between the parent and the other parent and the other household. But it can actually happen in your own home. So that idea of stepping back from complaining about adults
within kids’ ear, um, within their hearing and competing.

Laura Jenkins (19:10): Yes.

Simone Young (19:10): The other thing is to take things slow. Yeah. Take the development of your stepfamily slow, slow down the pace of connections in relationship, slow down any expectations of you going anywhere. Embrace
that you are here and, uh, think of the long game. So your kids will have different variations of loyalty binds throughout their life. Right Now it might feel really intense because they’re living with you, but you think about the future, like who are they gonna gra when they graduate from wherever, who are they gonna invite? Who sits where? This is a constant for your children marriages, having children going overseas, Christmases or whatever other family celebration you have. These loyalty binds will always be there.

Laura Jenkins (20:04): Yes.

Simone Young (20:05): And I think as adults and step families, we really do need to manage our own expectations around this. The idea that a place of neutrality is actually a win. So if you’re wanting to eradicate the loyalty bind,
you’re kind of setting yourself up to lose, because the loyalty bind will probably be there in some way or another, but we can support our kids through it by stepping back on the expectations.

Laura Jenkins (20:35): So you are saying the loyalty bind will likely resurface its head in a new capacity as you move through those different seasons of the family?

Simone Young (20:46): Exactly. Yeah. And so if you’re trying to eradicate it, you, you setting yourself up for a big fall because it’s always gonna be there for your child, how it presents in your child. It’s probably is really connected to
the level of conflict that’s across the whole family system. So that’s good. We can do something about that. We can try our best to decrease the level of conflict.

Laura Jenkins (21:11): Yes.

Simone Young (21:13): Got it. So even when things are going well, your child might still feel the loyalty bind.

Laura Jenkins (21:21): I think that’s so helpful to think about it that way and not try and fix it or eradicate it. Yeah. Because it will potentially manifest again, but just to be more accepting of it. Yeah. And look at if there’s anything
else you can fix in the background Yeah. That’s gonna impact on that overall system, as you said.

Simone Young (21:40):
So you know, I’m gonna give you an example of, of a, um, an adult client I had who, um, their parents separated when they were about four and their parents repartnered pretty quickly and established quite big families. So there was a already one family, and then they, um, had more children with their new partners and this person was the eldest of probably about, um, at least eight kids because there was some triplets and whatever mixed in the mix. And this adult said that one of the things I really missed out on was having a photo just with their parents. And they knew that their pa, that all the adults in their lives were doing the best to care for everyone. And yet they couldn’t ask for what they wanted. This person couldn’t ask for what they wanted, which was a photo with just their mom and dad because they knew it would then aggravate really what we’re talking about here loyalty binds.

Laura Jenkins (22:44): Yeah. I can imagine that playing out. I bet that happens often.

Simone Young (22:49): And everyone’s thinking, well, wasn’t this great? We can all be in the photos together. There’s, you know, him and hers there, him and hers there. Here’s the kid, they’re an adult, everything’s great. We’ve
got through this all these years. Yet no one seems to think to ask that child, oh, who would you like to be in the photo? And it doesn’t mean anything personal about anyone else in the family system. It’s just simply I’d like a photo with my mom and dad.

Laura Jenkins (23:17): Yeah. And if you’re a step mother feeling put out by that, then that’s another issue. <laugh>,

Simone Young (23:24): Then that’s another issue. that’s another podcast.

Laura Jenkins (23:26): Yeah. We’ll come back

Simone Young (23:27): We’ll do a podcast about that one.

Laura Jenkins (23:30): Exactly. That’s a whole nother thing. All right. So I know children are all different. Yep. Every child’s experience in a blended family is unique. Yeah. And blended family setups are all different in themselves. So what can parents and stepparents do to be better attuned to in to individual children’s emotional needs and provide that personalized support for them to help manage their behavior in a constructive manner?

Simone Young (23:59): Again, the first place I wonder is have the parents had a conversation about this very idea that a child’s experience is unique and that a personalized approach is what is needed. So many couples I see actually
don’t believe this idea that everyone has individual needs. So many parents that I’m working with are really trying to make their family system fair and in their attempts to make things fair, they’re not actually acknowledging the individual experience. So that’s the first place I would say adults need to begin. Like, what is your point of view on an individual approach? And some people will be really surprised that actually they don’t believe in that they weren’t brought up to believe in that, and that they think that the best thing for all the kids is to, for everyone to be treated in the same way. Now that becomes really tricky when you’ve got kids who are neurodiverse and the parents of kids who are neurodiverse really understand that you need to take an individual approach. Right. And that can be very challenging if your partner doesn’t have the understanding that an individual approach is required. So again, I think it’s like a really hard, it can be really difficult conversation that the adults need to have. And are they on the same page? Are we just assuming our partner thinks that, you know, our kids have a unique experience? Or do they actually come from a family where kids’ experiences weren’t valued in that way?

Laura Jenkins (25:45): Some children I know may find it challenging to bond with their stepparent or their stepsiblings. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I’m sure this is something that you’ve seen come up quite a lot in your experience as well. No doubt. What advice would you offer to families seeking to build stronger emotional connections in such situations? And how can this positively influence the children’s behavior?

Simone Young (26:11): The number one message is to take it slow. Yeah. That it takes time to build connections. It takes time to build relationships. If you think of it in terms of a, like a, a love bank, the Gottman’s like to talk about
that a lot when uh, you partner with someone who has children, the partner love bank is overflowing. And you might find that that balance sheet is in the red, right, is in the negative. And it actually might take you quite a while before you even get a dollar or two in that love bank. It takes time. And again, the
age and stage of the kids really impact on the ability to make stronger connections or to make any kind of connections. So, and Papa now speaks quite a bit to the fact that kids of, you know, babies to under five might be more compliant in the establishment of a stepfamily.

(27:22): Yet I’m sure you’ve probably spoken to heaps of step mumms who are like, oh my God, that two year old, I can’t believe it. You know, they just look at me and I know they don’t want me there yet. The research tells us, you know, under five, we’re gonna get kids that are probably more compliant just given the nature of their age and stage. And again, you know, kids between primary school, primary school age too, will then start probably expressing more of their confusion around the new dynamic. If you are attempting to establish any kind of step family when kids are teenagers, when they’re developed goal is to individuate and your goal is to establish a new family system, you’re gonna
probably find a whole heap of difficulty and challenge. Right? Yes. It’s almost like we’re trying to combine water with oil. That’s not to say there are many success stories for, um, teenage kids and the establishment of Stepfamilies.

(28:20): It’s just really important to be aware that your idea of strong connections with teenagers looks very different to your strong connections with under fives. Yeah, definitely. So we really wanna embrace where is everyone at? And I think the other thing to be really important that is really important to consider is the idea of a mutually civil relationship. And that that can be enough. That if you have adults and children who are living together and they’re civil and polite and pretty neutral with each other, that could be huge win. So that kind of, uh, says, oh, well what’s, where’s the place for stronger connections? Well, when the pressure of stronger connection is taken off children and adults and the neutral place is given more acceptance than we’ve created a space to develop stronger connections, then we’ve got more energy to develop stronger connections. So this again, brings up the, the topic of grief and loss.

(29:39): Because for those of us have kids and we find this great new person and we really want everyone to love each other, we can feel really disappointed, even sad when our partner and our kids aren’t getting along. Or we might even feel sad if they’re not getting along perfectly. Or we might feel sad if they’re at
loggerheads all the time. And so it’s about stepping back. If you’re in a situation where your kids and partner are no longer fighting, there’s no conflict, that’s a win. Are you in a situation where they don’t hug each other? That’s still a win. Yeah. Because maybe one day, ’cause we’re talking about the long haul here, that could happen, and it is about following the pace of the kids.

Laura Jenkins (30:31): Such good advice. I love the idea of mutually civil relationships and connections. I think that’s great. It’s all about lowering those expectations. Yep. Not expecting perfection. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Simone Young (30:49): Absolutely.

Laura Jenkins (30:51): And being patient. Yeah.

Simone Young (30:52): And so what you can think about then is not having a big step family activity where everyone’s doing the same thing, but think about activities and rituals and traditions that allow for people to do different
things. So, you know, examples are to, like, if you’re interested in sports, you go to a sport sporting place. And if someone wants to pull out their book and have a read, I don’t know, does that happen in 2023? <laugh>? I’m not sure about that <laugh>, but hey, you know, no screens, wow, it could happen
happen. Um, not everyone has to play the footy match, but everyone can be there and that’s actually good enough and that will foster stronger connections rather than the disappointment, the maybe even that nagging around why aren’t we all doing the same thing? Um, lots of families share that they do go
and watch sport together, uh, but not everyone will necessarily watch it. And that’s okay. Um, people share that, you know, they will, uh, have preparing meals together. Um, but not everyone will do the same thing. And it is in the consistency of offering space that doesn’t have the expectations of how the
relationships need to be, that then fosters stronger connection.

Laura Jenkins (32:18): Absolutely. Makes sense. When you think about it, you, you step back and think about it.

Simone Young (32:23): Yeah. But when you’re locked up and you know you’ve made this great choice and you can see the future and you can see perhaps even the correction from the past, it’s hard to sit with This doesn’t look
like the fantasy I thought it was gonna be.

Laura Jenkins (32:38): Yes.

Simone Young (32:38): Yeah, It is quite hard and painful

Laura Jenkins (32:42): When you’re in it.

Simone Young (32:42): When you’re in it. Yeah,

Laura Jenkins (32:44): Definitely. Simone, I could ask you questions all afternoon here, <laugh>. Um, but we’re almost at time. Yep. Just lastly, what key takeaways or actionable tips would you like to share with our listeners to help them better support their children’s emotional wellbeing and behavior in the context of blended families?

Simone Young (33:08): You’ve heard me say it before. I’m gonna say it again. Slow down. Take the relationship building slow, take changes, slow transition, slow and accept that your children will probably be at a very different pace than the adults. And that is okay. The second thing to hold is that grief and loss is actually something that all members of the family can experience at any time. And remember that, you know, children don’t have the skills or the brain development to clearly articulate their feelings of grief and loss and that it’s their behavior. Probably the really tricky stuff that lets us know what they are experiencing. So yeah, we, we need to hold that for ourselves as well because we can bump up into our own grief and loss as adults in the stepfamily system quite a lot and in quite surprising ways. The other thing is to focus on what is working in your stepfamily?

(34:13): How far have you come look for the best in all members of the family? This allows you to increase that emotional love bank that I was referring to earlier. It also, uh, changes the pathways in your brain. It’s really easy for us and sometimes very important for us to look at what’s not working. Yeah. You can kind of, you know, our brains, um, wired to find the threat and we can kind of do that in our step families as well. So this activity of looking for what you’re doing well, what is working well does help rewire your brain and is something that can soothe a lot of the anxiety and confusion and insecurity that people can experience in stepfamilies also leads to a decrease in conflict that people might be experiencing as well. And finally, I think what is really important to remember, um, is that the research tells us that the best outcomes for children and the stepfamily itself occurs when all diadic relationships.

(35:25): And by that I mean parent child, the couple, the adult in the step role with their partner’s, children, that those relationships are attended to in one-on-one way. And that kind of goes against what we instinctively think. We think if we put everyone together in the big soup of the stepfamily, it’s gonna
turn out really great. And actually the research is telling us, no, just let the, you know, the parent child simmer over there and let the couple get some goodies over here. And if the, you know, the adult in the step role can find some, uh, a, a place of interest to connect with the children over here, that’s actually
gonna lead to better outcomes

Laura Jenkins (36:11): Thank you so much for your time. Where can people go if they’d like to connect with you or find out more about the work? Yeah. Of Stepfamilies Australia?

Simone Young (36:20): Yes. Check it. Check us out at, at our website, stepfamilies Australia. Um, that’s probably the best place to start. And yeah, it’s been great to chat with you today.

Laura Jenkins (36:31): Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the In the Blend podcast. The show notes for this episode are available @intheblend.com au. And if you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe and please rate and review in your podcasting app. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.