Love may be sweeter the second time around, but once the bliss of a newfound relationship wears off a little, the reality of being part of a stepfamily sets in. If you are one of the millions of remarried Americans facing the challenge of blending two existing families into one cohesive whole, you are part of a stepcouple - and you know all too well how hard it can be to make your marriage work in sometimes tough terrain. Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green provide tips and strategies on dealing with the issues remarried couples face, with a wealth of advice from real-life stepcouples.

Blended families face unique challenges, and sadly, good intentions aren’t always enough. With so many complex relationships involved, all the normal rules for family life change, even how you apply something as simple as the five love languages. That’s why Gary Chapman, the best-selling author of The Five Love Languages and national expert on stepfamilies, Ron Deal, join together in this book to teach you how the five love languages can help your blended family.

Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships draws on current research, a wide variety of clinical modalities, and 30 years of clinical work with stepfamily members to describe the special challenges stepfamilies face. The book presents the concept of "stepfamily architecture" and the five challenges it creates, and delineates three different levels of strategies - psychoeducation, building interpersonal skills, and intrapsychic work - for meeting those challenges in dozens of different settings.

If you are considering remarriage and want to do everything you can to ensure a happy and fulfilling union, turn to Ron Deal and the Smart Stepfamily series. This is the ideal book for engaged or pre-engaged couples who have at least one child from a previous relationship, offering premarital counsel about how to prepare to blend family relationships, parenting, finances, rituals, and daily routines for your new life together.

When it comes to a child's sense of family, what divorce breaks apart, solid co-parenting rebuilds. With a tested "here's how" approach, The Co-Parents' Handbook helps parents confidently take on the challenges of raising children in two homes. Addressing parents' questions about the emotional impact of separation, conflict, grief and recovery, the authors skillfully provide a road map for all members of the family to safely navigate through separation/divorce and beyond.

In Co-Parenting with a Toxic Ex, a nationally recognized parenting expert offers you a positive parenting approach to dealing with a hostile ex-spouse. You'll learn to avoid the most common mistakes of co-parenting, how to avoid "parental alienation syndrome", and effective techniques for talking to your children in a way that fosters an open and honest response. In addition, you'll learn how to protect your children from painful loyalty conflicts between you and your ex-spouse.

Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married was written to help you realize your goal of marital happiness. But don’t just listen to it - experience it. Grapple with the practical tips and ideas discussed, honestly share your thoughts and feelings, respect each other’s opinions, and find workable solutions to your differences. The more you do so, says Chapman, the more you will be prepared for marriage.

We already rely on science to tell us what to eat, when to exercise, and how long to sleep. Why not use science to help us improve our relationships? In this revolutionary book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller scientifically explain why some people seem to navigate relationships effortlessly, while others struggle.

Just as Masters and Johnson were pioneers in the study of human sexuality, so Dr. John Gottman has revolutionized the study of marriage. As a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and the founder and director of the Seattle Marital and Family Institute, he has studied the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over the course of many years. His findings, and his heavily attended workshops, have already turned around thousands of faltering marriages.

Leading stepfamily expert Ron Deal offers a revised and expanded edition of his signature resource, which addresses key concerns and practical issues facing every stepfamily.

Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them. Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans.

Heralded by the New York Times and Time as the couples therapy with the highest rate of success, Emotionally Focused Therapy works because it views the love relationship as an attachment bond. This idea, once controversial, is now supported by science, and has become widely popular among therapists around the world. In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond.

In January 2010, founder of ArtLeadHer Mashonda Tifrere and music producer Swizz Beatz finalized their divorce. When Swizz married award-winning singer/songwriter Alicia Keys, a new dynamic was born - three adults who loved and were deeply committed to raising Mashonda and Swizz's four-year old son Kasseem. In Blend, Tifrere draws on the insights they gained from their journey as well as advice from family therapists, parenting experts, and other blending families, to provide an invaluable resource for blended families.

Single parents who are dating or want to begin a dating relationship wonder: How will dating affect my children and my parenting? They probably have figured out that "dating in a crowd" is complicated. Now they're looking for help. Ron Deal, who has counseled single parents and remarried couples for many years, helps single parents - as well as those who date them - navigate the potential pitfalls involved. He gives perspective on when a relationship may be harmful to the children as well as how it can be a blessing to all.

Based on 20 years of research at the University of Washington studying parent-child interactions, award-winning research psychologist John Gottman and his team have developed Emotion Coaching - a technique parents can use to teach their children self-awareness and self-control and to foster good emotional development. This proven technique has demonstrated a positive effect on children's physical health, academic achievement, and emotional well-being.

While most parenting programs are designed to coerce kids to change, Parenting Without Power Struggles does something innovative, showing you how to help your children awaken their natural instincts to cooperate, rather than employing threats or bribes, which inevitably fuels their resistance. By staying calm and being the confident "captain of the ship" your child needs, you will learn how to parent from a place of strong, durable connection, and you'll be better able to help your kids navigate the challenging moments of growing up.

As Dr. JoAnne Pedro-Carroll explains with clarity and compassion in this powerful book, parents can positively alter the immediate and long-term effects of divorce on their children. The key is proven, emotionally intelligent parenting strategies that promote children's emotional health, resilience, and ability to lead satisfying lives. Over the past three decades, Pedro-Carroll has worked with families in transition, conducted research, and developed and directed award- winning, court-endorsed programs that have helped thousands of families navigate divorce and its aftermath.

Our children can be our greatest teachers. Parenting expert Susan Stiffelman writes that the very behaviors that push our buttons - refusing to cooperate or ignoring our requests - can help us build awareness and shed old patterns, allowing us to raise our children with greater ease and enjoyment.

Open adoption isn't just something parents do when they exchange photos, send emails, share a visit. It's a lifestyle that may feel intrusive at times, be difficult or inconvenient at other times. Tensions can arise even in the best of circumstances. But knowing how to handle these situations and how to continue to make arrangements work for the child involved is paramount. This book offers listeners the tools and the insight to do just that.

It's a fact that parenting is hard enough in a family where two parents love and respect each other. After divorce, when the respect has diminished and the love has often turned to intense dislike, co-parenting can be nearly impossible, driving one or both parents to the brink of insanity. Joint Custody with a Jerk offers many proven communication techniques that help you deal with your difficult ex-husband or ex-wife.

Children today live in an unpredictable, disruptive, and often violent world. Many of them live in two different homes with different sets of expectations. They face bullying at school and online. They hear news of school shootings, and racially or religiously motivated violence. They may have lost a friend or a loved one. As parents, the impulse to protect our children is strong, but that very protection can end up handicapping them for life. Rather than seek to save them from the hard things, parents must teach their kids how to cope with and rise above their problems.

Psychotherapist and breakup expert Rachel A. Sussman, LCSW, reveals the secrets every woman needs to get her life back on track. Drawing on hundreds of counseling sessions she's conducted with women at all stages of recovery, Sussman developed a proven three-phase process for healing from a breakup.

Parenting isn't rocket science, it's just brain surgery. And Dr. Joshua Straub has good news for you: You can do it! You don't need to do all the "right" things as a parent. Both science and the Bible show us that the most important thing we can provide for our kids is a place of emotional safety. In other words, the posture from which we parent matters infinitely more than the techniques of parenting. Emotional safety - more than any other factor - is scientifically linked to raising kids who live, love, and lead well.

We have seen the enemy . . . and they are small. If anyone understands why children behave the way they do, it's psychologist and best-selling author Dr. Kevin Leman. Equipping you with seven principles of Reality Discipline, this father of five shows you how to get kids to do what you want them to do, foil finicky eaters, turn off temper tantrums, and minimize sibling rivalries, use authority and decisiveness to show your kids you're not a pushover, and know when to take the little buzzards by the beak.

Gary Chapman has helped millions prepare for marriage. Now let him prepare you for kids. Inside, Gary shares what he wishes he and his wife had known before having kids. For example: Children affect your time, your money, and your marriage - and that's just the beginning. With his trademark warmth, he offers practical advice on everything from potty training, to the importance of apologizing to your child, to keeping your marriage strong, all the while celebrating the great joy that children bring.

Popular parenting blogger Rebecca Eanes shares her hard-won wisdom for overcoming limiting thought patterns and recognizing emotional triggers, as well as advice for connecting with kids at each stage, from infancy to adolescence. This heartfelt, insightful advice comes not from an "expert," but from a learning, evolving parent.

We have a tendency today to over-parent, micromanage, and underappreciate our adolescents. Dr. John Duffy's The Available Parent is a revolutionary approach to taking care of teens and tweens. The available parent of a teenager is open to discussion, offering advice and solutions but not insisting on them. He allows his child to make some mistakes, setting limits, primarily where health and safety are concerned. He never lectures - he is available but not controlling. He is neither cruel nor dismissive, ever....

In I Love You, but I'm Not in Love with You - a real-life relationship guide from couples' counselor Andrew G. Marshall - partners and individuals who have "fallen out of love" or want to rekindle the love that once was will learn how to use Marshall 's program with impressive results. This is a much-needed book to help men and women of all ages in any type of committed romantic relationship to truly understand love and to point out the everyday habits that undermine growing together.

Based on the most detailed survey of long married people ever conducted, 30 Lessons for Loving shows the way to lifelong, fulfilling relationships. The author, an internationally renowned gerontologist at Cornell University, offers sage advice from the oldest and wisest Americans on everything from finding a partner, to deciding to commit, to growing old together.

Why do some children thrive and others struggle? The answers may surprise you. New research indicates that the seeds for adult success are actually planted in the toddler years. Dr. Tovah Klein's research and firsthand work with thousands of toddlers explains why the toddler brain is best suited to laying the foundation for success. Dr. Klein reveals the new science behind drivers such as resilience, self-reliance, self-regulation, and empathy that are more critical to success than simple intelligence.

Blended families face unique challenges, and sadly, good intentions aren’t always enough. With so many complex relationships involved, all the normal rules for family life change, even how you apply something as simple as the five love languages. That’s why Gary Chapman, the best-selling author of The Five Love Languages and national expert on stepfamilies, Ron Deal, join together in this book to teach you how the five love languages can help your blended family.

Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships draws on current research, a wide variety of clinical modalities, and 30 years of clinical work with stepfamily members to describe the special challenges stepfamilies face. The book presents the concept of "stepfamily architecture" and the five challenges it creates, and delineates three different levels of strategies - psychoeducation, building interpersonal skills, and intrapsychic work - for meeting those challenges in dozens of different settings.

In January 2010, founder of ArtLeadHer Mashonda Tifrere and music producer Swizz Beatz finalized their divorce. When Swizz married award-winning singer/songwriter Alicia Keys, a new dynamic was born - three adults who loved and were deeply committed to raising Mashonda and Swizz's four-year old son Kasseem. In Blend, Tifrere draws on the insights they gained from their journey as well as advice from family therapists, parenting experts, and other blending families, to provide an invaluable resource for blended families.

Love may be sweeter the second time around, but once the bliss of a newfound relationship wears off a little, the reality of being part of a stepfamily sets in. If you are one of the millions of remarried Americans facing the challenge of blending two existing families into one cohesive whole, you are part of a stepcouple - and you know all too well how hard it can be to make your marriage work in sometimes tough terrain. Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green provide tips and strategies on dealing with the issues remarried couples face, with a wealth of advice from real-life stepcouples.

What makes stepmothering so hard? And why are we, as people and a culture, so hard on stepmothers? How can we make it easier? Stepmonster is a truly unique and groundbreaking book for women with stepchildren, men with kids who repartner, adult stepchildren, and anyone who cares about them. It is a comprehensive, cross-cultural, research-based reconsideration of stepfamily dynamics - from the perspective of the stepmother.

Leading stepfamily expert Ron Deal offers a revised and expanded edition of his signature resource, which addresses key concerns and practical issues facing every stepfamily.

If you are a stepparent, you may know how challenging a role it can be. It takes more than the will to make it work. Stepparents must apply a range of skills to keep their families together, and they have to be prepared to be flexible in the process.

George Glass, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist, has designed an audiobook to help parents understand the challenges of beginning new lives with blended families, and to help their children make the necessary adjustments. He explains how to approach unavoidable dilemmas when they occur and offers invaluable lessons about the link between divorce and issues of self-esteem, depression, substance abuse, and relationship failures that often result from the breakup of a family.

The Step-Dad Playbook is a motivational and practical guide for step-dads woven together with an analogy men will understand: sports. From bonding with your partner's kids to combining your finances (or not), you'll learn everything you need to know to establish yourself as a strong, dependable head of household.

You found the love of your life, and you vowed to have, to hold, and to stepmother. You always thought that in time you'd grow to be the perfect, loving family. So why does it seem that the harder you try, the more unappreciated you feel? As a stepmother, therapist, and founder of the popular stepsforstepmothers.com, Dr. Rachelle Katz knows all too well how challenging stepmotherhood can be. Based on thousands of in-depth interviews and the latest research, she's created a powerful program to help you.