Bonding with alienated stepkids.

Tiny Pep Talks for Stepparents

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Parental alienation affects your stepkid’s ability to form loving bonds… including bonding with their stepparent.

Alienated kids can develop a specific set of characteristics that also make them hard to warm up to... like acting cold, rejecting you & your partner, lying between houses, and many more than I could share in a short daily podcast.

So if you're beating yourself up for struggling to love your alienated stepkid the way you think you should — please stop! Alienated kids make themselves unlovable on purpose so they can reinforce the narrative they're telling themselves: that you don't like them, the targeted parent doesn't really love them, they're unhappy at your home, you're bad parents, and so on. They’re pushing you away ON PURPOSE.

If you've experienced alienation as a stepparent, please know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I've got an entire resource guide on parental alienation right here that I really encourage you to read. The best defense against parental alienation begins with education & documentation, but love and not giving up are pretty damn important too. xo

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