How to help your stepfamily grow closer

Life Kit: Parenting

NPR

Kids & Family

4.4 • 634 Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Becoming a blended stepfamily can be fraught for everyone involved. How can your family build trust, function more smoothly and ultimately grow closer? In this episode, NPR health correspondent Maria Godoy shares research on stepsiblings and blended families that can make this process easier.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
0:05.4	RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.
0:12.1	Learn more at RWJF.org.
0:15.4	You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.
0:23.4	Hey everybody, it's Mariel.
0:25.9	Let me introduce you to two step-sisters.
0:28.4	My name is Lisa Gerard.
0:30.1	I am Kirsten Brand James.
0:32.3	So it was the early 70s.
0:33.8	Lisa's dad and Kirsten's mom were both widowed, and they had three kids each.
0:38.2	Yeah, kind of like the Brady Bunch.
0:40.1	The parents were old friends from school.
0:42.2	They started dating one summer.
0:44.0	And then they got married in two months.
0:46.3	I was shocked.
0:47.3	It was shocking to us as well.
0:49.2	Kirsten had to move from her home in California to Texas, live in a new house with a new step family, go to a new
0:55.9	school. I cried. I think we were upset. Yeah, it was like, you're kidding me. You're ruining my life.
1:02.0	We weren't going anywhere, but it's still shocking to us. But 50 years later, these step siblings
1:08.3	are super close. All six of them video chat every week to catch up.
1:12.5	And they consider each other's siblings. No prefix needed.
1:15.5	When people ask me, are you close to your siblings? I say yes. I consider as close.
	...

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