Manual № 85 · Stepfamilies and blended families

More Than One House

The manual for stepfamilies and blended families.

A stepfamily is not a first family with new members. It is its own shape, and it takes years.

12 modules · for the stepparent, the parent with a new partner, or the couple building a family that includes children from earlier relationships

  1. 01A Different Shape of Family
  2. 02When This Is Not a Family-Dynamics Problem
  3. 03Insiders and Outsiders
  4. 04Years, Not Months
  5. 05The Shoulds That Make It Harder
  6. 06Ally Before Authority
  1. 07Children in the Middle: Loyalty Binds and Grief
  2. 08The Couple Without Asking Anyone to Choose
  3. 09Two Households: Co-Parenting and Parallel Parenting
  4. 10Money, Rooms, Holidays and Names
  5. 11A New Baby, and Stepchildren Who Are Grown
  6. 12Keeping It Going, and When It Is Not Working

Two editions

The manual, or the manual and the toolkit.

Standard edition

$39

The full program: all 12 modules, with the exercises, logs, and checklists that save as you go. Everything you need to do the work.

Elite edition · most complete

$69

Everything in Standard, plus The Toolkit, 14 techniques drawn from across the evidence base, each labeled with where it comes from and how good the support actually is, to use alongside this program rather than instead of it. With original diagrams throughout.

Start with Standard if you would rather. You can upgrade to Elite at any time for the $30 difference, and nothing you have written is lost. And once you own one manual, every other one is 20% off.

Inside The Toolkit

  1. 01The Two-Household Map
  2. 02ABCDE for the Stepfamily Shoulds
  3. 03Trading Places: Insider and Outsider
  4. 04Speaker and Listener
  5. 05Asking Without Blame
  6. 06One-on-One Time With Your Own Child
  7. 07Naming the Bind: Emotion Coaching
  1. 08The Short, Neutral Co-Parenting Message
  2. 09The Parallel Parenting Plan
  3. 10Monitor, Not Enforcer
  4. 11Rituals: Keep, Adapt, Invent
  5. 12Willingness at the Edge of the Circle
  6. 13What Is Yours to Do
  7. 14Scaling and Exceptions

Close to this one

Educational content, not therapy, diagnosis, or treatment, and not a substitute for a clinician when one is needed. Every manual opens with a safety page. If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 now.