This is Ask Lisa, a podcast to help people understand the psychology of parenting.

Psychologist Dr. Lisa DeMore, author of two New York Times best-selling parenting books, takes your questions.

And I'm co-host, Rina Ninan, a journalist and mom of two.

Some of what we talk about comes from raising children ourselves.

Most of the time, I'll be getting answers to your parenting questions.

So send your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.LisaDemore.com.

Episode 68, how should stepparents fit in? Boy, we've gotten such incredible feedback about our divorce episode last month.

I'm so glad we did that. I mean, we really scratched the surface, rena, you know.

Marriages and divorces and co-parenting are such

complex things, but I was glad that we got into it. And I also felt it was really valuable

just talking about dealing with conflict with your spouse or partner and how that can affect

your kids. Yeah, whether you're married or not. Yeah. We got so much feedback. People were even

asking, I'm a step-parent, how do I help?

And we just realized we've got to do a follow-up on this, but dealing with step-parents.

And this letter came in, Lisa, it says,

Hello, Lisa, I have two stepdaughters, eight and five.

When their dad, my husband, and their mom split up three years ago, mom had full custody, but now we have full custody.

They're with us during the week and with their mom during the weekend. Over the last year,

their mom has been in and out, very inconsistent in all manners. When she was more consistent,

the girls were well-behaved. However, the past six months have been especially hard on the

five-year-old.

I feel like some of her emotions she's taking out on me as her stepmom.

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