New Families New Therapy is here to help you find the best solutions for you and your children when you are creating a new family from a prior family. You may not have thought of it this way, but following a divorce or death in the family there is a transition to a new family. The new family will of course have a new structure—it is very different when two parents are parenting together in one home then after divorce or death (of a parent) when the family is led by one parent. When new relationships are entered into, such as a new marriage or live-in relationship, it is time again for establishing another new family. This new family may include new siblings, a new home and neighborhood and new extended family members and friends. Your family has a new identity.
At any stage along the process of establishing a new family it is important to be prepared for the challenges you and your children will face. While each family will deal with its own unique circumstances there are predictable challenges in the transitions of forming new families.
Raising children is a hard task no matter how stable the family—it becomes more complex and challenging when children need to accept the realities of a new family. When parents enter a new relationship after divorce or widowhood there is a natural period of adjustment—the loss of the former family is felt more acutely and the possibilities of new relationships can be welcomed and/or feared. Creating the new family is never a neutral event.
Parents and other family members may want to reassure children following divorce or death by saying that “nothing will change.” That statement, though we may think it is reassuring, is not a helpful prescription for life moving on–there will be change. With new relationships there will be even more changes, some fundamental to the way the family has functioned while one parent has been the only head of the household.
New Families New Therapy is designed to help educate, guide and support you through the normal challenges (and on occasion the more significant challenges) that parents and children need to navigate as they establish new families. It is never too early to become aware of and therefore anticipate the challenges that you will encounter in the task of forming a new family after a prior family. There will be joys and pain—growth is rarely without the need to face realities that are not always welcomed at first. Perhaps you are already facing conflicts between members of the new family or the new family has not been allowed to establish itself because of resistances to forming it. There may also be issues that arise post-divorce between the different households that need to be addressed, conflicts that did not exist until new relationships are entered into.
At whatever point you are in developing your new family New Families New Therapy is here to help you. Please go to the tab How It Works for additional specifics on getting started.
