Try to Connect, Despite Differences

Embrace patience, honor your stepchildren's relationships with their biological parents, and find a support system outside your stepfamily. Try to connect with your stepkids on their own terms. If you can follow a go-slow approach and commit to your stepfamily for the long haul, you'll experience plenty of rewards over the years as your relationship grows.

"The payoff is having a good, loving relationship and enjoying the stepchild's growth and development into a healthy adult," says Dennis Balcom, a stepdad and licensed clinical social worker in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It's watching kids grow. I think the first time Alex, my stepson, rode his bike by himself, I was the only one who witnessed it. Those are special moments."

Look at the Big Picture

While you're working on connecting with your stepkids, realize that numerous factors affect the bonding process. Your stepchildren's mother and biological father play critical roles in the stepdad-stepchild relationship, says Robert Klopfer, a licensed clinical social worker and co-director of Stepping Stones Counseling Center in Ridgewood, New Jersey. If a child is rejecting, the stepfather should try to understand that the child may be feeling as though he needs to be loyal to his biological parent, Klopfer points out. "Kids get cues from other family members," he adds. "If the stepkids' biological mom is truly welcoming of the stepdad as an important person, that's very helpful."

Joe Hertzberg of Portland, Oregon, didn't feel important in the eyes of his stepdaughter, Lara, at first. His wife had a very strongly established and close relationship with Lara, and Hertzberg often felt excluded from their tight bond, he says.

It would have been easier for Hertzberg if his wife had explained to Lara that her stepfather was in a tough spot. "The biological mom should say, 'He's the new one here, we need to include him,'" says Klopfer.

But that doesn't always happen. What's more, stepfathers often encounter an additional roadblock in the form of their stepchild's biological dad.