Many people who have attended Adele Cornish’s “blended families” course say it’s “the best thing that ever happened to our family”.
Adele says she suspects her work elicits such an enthusiastic response because of “the lack of support that was out there for blended families”.
A member of Lower Hutt’s Knox Presbyterian Church and a trained social worker, Adele’s interest in blended (or step) families comes out of her own experiences. She is a stepdaughter, and has been stepmother to husband Mike Cornish’s two children for 16 years, as well as mother to their three boys together.
Six years ago, Adele says she felt a calling to help blended families that were struggling. “I thought God wanted me to write a book on blended families, so I looked in bookshops in Lower Hutt to see if there was a need and found there was. A friend of Mike’s suggested I conduct a survey online to see if people would want my book. I had 500 replies, all positive”.
In 2008, Adele wrote and published her book Blended Family Success: Practical solutions to step family challenges and followed it up with her website “The Blended Family Resource and Support Network”, where people can sign up for weekly tips or for one-on-one, Internet-based counselling.
Adele says her Christian faith shines through in her work. “My seminars are based on Biblical principals for a secular world. For example, forgiveness is something that comes up when we talk about ex-partner issues.”
Adele runs her Blended Families courses through Parents Inc and at churches throughout the country, with participants usually charged about $10. She is assisted by Mike, who has led many Divorce Care courses.
A statistic that Adele would like to see turned around is the high rate of blended families that fail in the first five years. “Sometimes couples have come to the course as a last resort; they are ready to split up because as time goes by their blended family gets harder not easier. When the blending of the family goes wrong, coaching, counselling and seminars can help because blended families need very specific advice. Couples increasingly realise this and are coming along before they blend, so they can prepare for remarriage
with children.”
Some of the most common problems that blended families face are conflicted loyalties for children between the absent parent and the one with whom they are living, stepparents feeling as though they are competing with stepchildren for the biological parent’s time, parents allowing guilt about previous marriage breakdowns to affect their parenting, and parent and stepparent disagreements about discipline for the children.
Debbie, who attended two of Adele’s courses with her husband Tim before and after their marriage, says it is possible to avoid some of the problems.
“We began to live as a blended family last November - in the space of one year we had married, bought a new home and blended our family of five teenagers, who are all dealing with puberty. They all get along well, even though they are experiencing three different parenting styles.”
For ongoing support, Debbie says she and her husband lean on Adele’s book and the Parent Centre’s Toolbox resources. “We know we are fortunate to have blended our family in a time when there is support and I’m so grateful for people like Adele who have walked our path and have a heart to help.”
The desire to learn ways to support blended families in his work as a counsellor is what brought Frank Eijgenraam, a member of St Columba Presbyterian Church, Naenae, to a Blended Families seminar at St Columba last year.
Frank says he was impressed by the way Adele and Mike used their own experience to bring hidden issues into the open. “Some couples were dealing with anger around the other divorced parent. It was surprising for me to hear just how difficult it can be.”
Frank says that the course was not all serious stuff, “there was laughter and it was very interactive, not a talking heads situation. The best thing Adele and Mike do is provide hope that the family can move forward together.”
Adele says that some course participants are on track and come along to confirm this. Dara and her husband attended the Blended Families course to “get confirmation that what we were doing was right”.
Dara says she didn’t want to repeat the mistakes made in her previous step family. “I had to make sure that my new partner was right not just for me but also as a step- father to my children, because my children come first and I wouldn’t be with a man who would make me choose.”
Adele says that feedback from course participants is clear: they want more. “The two-hour course is a hand up but couples want hand-holding too, so in response we are trialling a six week follow-on course”.
*You can find more information about Adele’s courses at www.stepfamilyhelp.info/blog/ and sign up to receive free tips.
By Angela Singer