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We like to think of family relationships as simple, straightforward, and uniformly positive. Family consists of the most supportive people in our lives—individuals whom we like, love, and depend on. For many people this is true. But family relationships also face daunting challenges. Three of the most difficult to navigate are stepfamily transition, parental favoritism, and interparental conflict.

STEPFAMILY TRANSITION

Transitioning to a stepfamily is a common challenge, given that approximately half of the marriages in the United States and Canada involve a remarriage for one or both partners (Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000). While most people enter into stepfamilies with the best intentions for a new start, not all stepfamily members experience the transition equally. Adolescents tend to have more difficulty transitioning into a stepfamily than do preadolescents or young adults. Studies have found that children in stepfamilies have more frequent behavioral problems, turbulent relationships, and lower self-esteem than do children in first-marriage families (Golish, 2003).

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The majority of stepfamilies confront very similar challenges, including negotiating new family privacy rules, dealing with discrepancies in conflict-management styles, and building solidarity as a family unit (Golish, 2003). But the most frequent and perplexing challenge is triangulation: loyalty conflicts that arise when a coalition is formed, uniting one family member with another against a third family member (Schrodt & Afifi, 2007). Two forms of triangulation are common within stepfamilies: children feeling caught between their custodial and their noncustodial parent, and stepparents feeling caught between the children in their stepfamily (Golish, 2003). Family members caught in triangulation feel torn between different loyalties. As one daughter described her triangulation between her birth parents, “I would carry things from her, she’d say stuff about him, and he’d do the same and talk about her. It’s kind of hard to get both sides of it. So I avoided them for a while. . . . I just felt that I was caught in the middle” (Golish, 2003, p. 52). Such triangulation has pronounced negative effects: children who feel “caught between parents” report higher levels of stress and anxiety, and substantially less satisfaction with their parent-child relationships, than do children who aren’t triangulated (Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013).

Given such challenges, how can you help ease the transition to a stepfamily, should you experience it? Try these suggestions:

PARENTAL FAVORITISM

Few things matter more to children than expressions of affection from parents (Floyd & Morman, 2005). Such displays include verbal statements (“I love you”), nonverbal contact (hugs, cuddling), gifts, favors, and other resources that make children feel adored and appreciated. But when there is more than one child in the family, competition between children for parental affection becomes a natural part of family life (Golish, 2003).

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Many parents respond to this age-old dilemma by equally allocating their affection and resources. However, some parents engage in parental favoritism: whereby one or both parents allocate an unfair amount of valuable resources to one child over others. This may include intangible forms of affection, such as statements of love, praise, undue patience (letting one child “get away with anything”), and emotional support. Or it may involve tangible resources, such as cash loans, college tuition, cars, or job offers. For example, when my friend “Susan” was growing up, her father blatantly favored her sister over her. He bought her sister a BMW for her 16th birthday but refused to loan Susan his car when she needed to get to work. Susan’s father paid her sister’s out-of-state college tuition but refused to contribute toward Susan’s community college education. When she finally confronted him about his lifelong favoritism, his response was clear: “Your sister deserves all I’ve given her because I love her more than you.”

Parental favoritism has profound and enduring effects. Because favored children garner more of their parents’ resources, they are more likely than their siblings to be professionally successful as adults (Hertwig, Davis, & Sulloway, 2002). Favored children also report a greater sense of well-being and life satisfaction in adulthood than do disfavored children (Suitor et al., 2009). At the same time, the relational consequences are devastating, especially for siblings. Studies show that siblings from households in which favoritism occurred feel and express substantially less warmth and more hostility toward one another than those from households where it did not. Similarly, siblings from favoritism families are substantially less close and report more conflict than those who grew up in equitable families (Suitor et al., 2009). This is true regardless of family size, gender of siblings, or the family’s ethnicity.

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What’s the best approach for dealing with parental favoritism? First, realize that favoritism is never the fault of the favored child. The sad truth is that some parents play favorites. If you’re a disfavored child, avoid blaming your sibling. If you feel unmanageable resentment toward your favored sibling, seek counseling. Second, carefully consider whether it is worth confronting your parents. Unfortunately, challenging parental unfairness is unlikely to bring about positive outcomes. For one thing, you can’t control your parents’ behavior. Some parents may not even realize they favor one child over others, especially if their favoritism is subtle (for example, differential praise, attention, or emotional support). In such cases, challenging parents for being “unfair” will only hurt their feelings and create a rift between you, them, and the favored sibling. Alternatively, if your parents recognize and relish their preferential treatment, confrontation may lead them to defend their behavior in ways that hurt your feelings further.

Instead, focus on maintaining your sibling relationship by regularly practicing positivity, assurances, and self-disclosure. If you’re a favored child, realize that your siblings may resent you and all you’ve gained. Discuss this openly with them, and look for opportunities to “balance things out” between you and them through acts of generosity and support. To repair the relational damage done by their father, for instance, Susan’s sister began quietly funneling financial support to Susan to help her pay for nursing school. Although Susan and her father no longer speak, she and her sister are quite close. This is an unusual outcome, only achieved through both sisters’ hard work to overcome the bitter wedge driven between them in their youth.

INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT

One of the most potent family challenges is interparental conflict: overt, hostile interactions between parents in a household. While such constant fighting is harmful to the parents’ relationship, the impact on children in the household is worse. Interparental conflict is associated with children’s social problems, including lower levels of play with peers and lower friendship quality (Rodrigues & Kitzmann, 2007). Such children are also more likely to imitate their parents’ destructive interaction styles and, consequently, are more at risk for aggressive and delinquent behaviors (Krishnakumar, Buehler, & Barber, 2003).

But the most devastating effects of interparental conflict are relational. Adolescents who perceive a high frequency of interparental conflict are more likely to report feelings of jealousy and fears of abandonment in their romantic relationships (Hayashi & Strickland, 1998). Interparental conflict also negatively impacts late teen and adult perceptions of interpersonal trust, love attitudes, sexual behaviors, relationship beliefs, cohabitation, and attitudes toward marriage and divorce (Rodrigues & Kitzmann, 2007).

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Why do children suffer so many profound and negative outcomes from fights between parents? One explanation is the spillover hypothesis: emotions, affect, and mood from the parental relationship “spill over” into the broader family, disrupting children’s sense of emotional security (Krishnakumar et al., 2003). Children living in households torn by interparental conflict experience a chronic sense of instability—not knowing when the next battle will erupt and if or when their parents will break up. This gives them a deep-seated sense of emotional insecurity related to relationships (Rodrigues & Kitzmann, 2007), which manifests in their own intimate involvements, months and even years later. Of course, the spillover hypothesis works both ways: children growing up in households in which parents actively support each other’s parenting efforts and calmly discuss disagreements are more likely to be satisfied in their relationships with their parents, and report better mental health overall, including lower levels of stress and anxiety (Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013).

What can you do to manage interparental conflict and its outcomes? If you’re the child of parents who fight, encourage them individually to approach their conflicts more constructively. Share with them all you know about conflict from Chapter 9: effective approaches for managing conflict, the negative role of self-enhancing thoughts, the dangers associated with destructive messages, and the trap of serial arguments. If you feel that you are suffering negative outcomes from having grown up in a conflict-ridden household, seek therapy from a reputable counselor. And if you’re a parent with children, realize this: everything you say and do within the family realm—including interactions you have with your spouse or partner—spills over into the emotions and feelings of your children.