Award Winning Children's Books

Listen now: Award Winning Children's Books

At Blended-Families.com, we are continually looking for great resources to make a positive difference in the lives of blended families. We recently came across two award-winning children's books by David Michael Slater that we are thrilled to feature and share with you. "The Ring Bear" is about a son and mother, while "Flour Girl" is about a daughter and dad. The illustrations are delightful and make the stories come alive.

With humor and creativity these books capture the confused emotions that come up for children when they find out their father or mother plans to remarry. Parents and children alike will relate to the messages in both these stories, as well as gain some clues about ways to navigate those inevitable bumps that occur when blending families.

We highly recommend these books to anyone looking for ways to integrate a new partner into your family system.

Listen now: Award Winning Children's Books

Fathers Day Just Might Be His WORST Day

Fathers Day can really stink for many divorced and step dads. It is not necessarily a happy day -- especially if they are not close to their kids physically or emotionally.

Often step and divorced dads find themselves marginalized and seemingly unimportant in their child’s lives: geographical distance because of work, remarriage, or divorce poison....

Blended Family News contributor and coach Sheena Berg takes a look at the struggles Dads have in these situations and offers some sound advice for Fathers Day.

Summer Vacation is Here! Are You Ready?

Summer vacation is fast approaching and as every kid is salivating about being out of school, sleeping late and watching TV and mindless movies, parents are stressing about how to maintain a healthy balance of relaxation and productive use of free time so that the kids don't go back to school in the Fall saying they did "nothing" all summer. Blended families have the additional stress of organizing summer visitation, coordinating parent schedules and making sure the kids have structure as well as fun.

Michele Farias, a teacher and school counselor for over 25 years, addresses this very issue in her best selling book, 25 Ways to Keep Your Child Safe, Healthy and Successful: Lessons from a School Counselor. Ms Farias believes it is beneficial for kids to balance summer vacation time with productive activities because it prepares them for a successful school year ahead.

This Summer Vacation podcast contains several useful pointers for step-parents to encourage a well-balanced summer schedule.