The effects of remarriage on children

One-third of Americans are stepparents, stepchildren, stepsiblings, or some other member of a stepfamily.

While the number of children living with both biological parents has declined, the number of children living in a stepfamily has increased.

With changes in family structure such as divorce, single-parenting, or remarriage, a question many struggle with is how such changes affect children.

Any family form that differs from the traditional two-parent, biological family is assumed to place children at risk. Such changes require some adjustment time; however, it is inaccurate to assume that stepchildren have more problems than other children because of parental remarriage.

For many years research studies have examined the effects of remarriage on children, typically comparing them to children in other family structures - (e.g. biological two-parent families, and single-parent families).

Commonly, adjustment and well-being have been defined in terms of self-esteem, stress or anxiety, academic achievement, behavior problems, social relations, and attitudes toward marriage and family life. Overall, a review of the many studies reveals inconsistent findings.

In other words, some studies find children in stepfamilies are less well adjusted than children in other families and other studies find no such differences.

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