Blended Family

If you're in one, how do you make it work?
Please share what works for you and your blended family.

Blended Family

We're not living together, but I've been dating someone over 2 years - he has 4 kids and I have 1. I switched my kid schedule during quarantine so my only has someone to play with and we stay at his house for 5 out of the 7 days I have my son (we're both week on, week off).

We have the same rules for all the kids - internet schedule, etc. And we eat 90% of the meals together. It's certainly a challenge b/c I'm not used to so much fighting (and neither is my son) but there are good times and bad times.

There's also an understanding between both adults that neither parents the other's children. We can step in occasionally, but it's left up to the blood parent to redirect or set boundaries/break up fights.

Re: Blended Family

We have been together for almost 7 years. We have been living together for I guess about 6 or so? I can't even remember

He has one and I have one. We blend pretty well. They're both boys and only 1 year apart so they usually are into similar things and get along. We were together about 3 months or so when we got them together for the first time.

I will only slightly disagree with one thing the PP said, and I will also say I think that it depends on the relationships involved, but we definitely parent each other's children. We used to "step back" but my SO's son has a lot of behavioral/emotional issues and our behaviorist strongly encourages me to parent as well as his father and his mother (she and I co-parent fantastically well, to the point that if my SO can't go to an appointment, no one has an issue with me stepping in to be there) but we are also careful to not step on the other parent (aka my ex husband or his son's mother) toes as well.