From our stock of OOPS - (Officially Out Print Selection)-
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN...
You marry someone who has two children — one older than your firstborn son and one younger? Who is junior now? The firstborn? The middle child? Your son still thinks of himself as the stellar firstborn, but others see him as the middle child.
Your baby "cub" — the clown of the family who is five years old — suddenly has a younger sibling and an older one? How does this affect the cub who has always been the centre of attention? (Not well, says Dr. Leman, who's the baby cub himself.)
The firstborn child from each side of the blended family is a flaw-finding little character, and in the newly blended family, these two firstborns have to share a bedroom? Need I say more?
Birth order — as families are blended, shuffled, and rearranged, it's anything but static. When children from two families are brought together by the marriage of their parents, all of them are plunged into what Dr. Kevin Leman calls the birth order blender.
Yet you can blend a family — without breaking it — Leman promises. "The principles in this book will help you wage the battle of blending your family — and come up not only a survivor but a winner!"
Phil, a regional sales manager tor a large computer firm, had remarried only a year ago. "At first Peggy's kids and mine acted like they were happy we married," Phil explained. "But soon the tension began. Now when I show any interest in Peggy's girls, in particular, my second born, Tiffany, really gives me a bad time — anything from the cold. shoulder to throwing a small fit. And Peggy tells me that she hadn't been in the house three weeks when my two kids decided she was the wicked stepmother."
Most couples will find, as Phil and Peggy did, that blending families isn't as easy as The Brady Bunch made you think it is. "Starting a blended family involves a lot more than having Mom and. Dad and all the kids move in to a picturesque two-story colonial, with a family cat and dog," Dr. Kevin Leman says. "You're bringing together two sets of birth orders, and birth order has a lot to do with why family members look at things so uniquely. Call it different personalities, if you please, but if there is anything a blended family needs to understand, it's who is who and why each person is the way he or she is."
Basing his book on the premise that understanding birth order is key to resolving conflict, Dr. Leman offers a practical strategy for helping parents and children thrive in their new family constellation.
This book is hopeful, practical, and much-needed, and its focus on now birth order affects stepfamilies makes it a crucial guide for all blended families. As you take practical steps toward resolving your own Armageddons, you'll discover, like so many others, that blending is a process, not an event. And that process can have a happy ending.
Dr. Kevin Leman is the author of fifteen books on marriage and family. His books have sold millions of copies and include The Birth Order book, The Pleasers, Bonkers, Parent Talk, Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours, Sex Begins in the Kitchen, Keeping' Your Family Together When the World Is Falling Apart, Bringing Up Your Kids Without Tearing Them Down, and Unlocking the Secrets of Your Childhood Memories. A master communicator, Dr. Leman is an internationally known psychologist and humorist, and is co host of the nationally syndicated radio program "Parent Talk."
Dr. Leman attended North Park College and received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Arizona, where he later earned his master's degree and doctorate. Originally from Williamsville, New York, he and his wife, Sande, live in Tucson, Arizona, with their five children.
