How to Help Your Child Accept a Second Marriage

On announcing your forthcoming second marriage, your 6 to 11 year old child has reacted negatively - what should you as a parent do to make it easier? When you're faced with your child's pain and anger during a time of your happiness, it can be a turbulent time. This article presents some ways to help your child come to terms to the new arrangements and learn to accept your impending blended family.

Steps
Reassure your child. Even if your child gets along well with your fiancé, remarriage often revives the pain of divorce. Also, through loyalty or fear of betraying his father or mother, your child might want to refuse to participate or help. It is important to reassure him, to tell him that you understand and respect his decision. Prepare him for a solution that lets him off the hook; such as going to his father's place or a friend's place during the wedding. He mustn't feel abandoned but it's important that his refusal to attend won't influence your decision to go ahead. Whatever happens, your marriage will occur because it's a matter for the grown-ups to make decisions about their own lives.
Understand her worries. She may be afraid that perhaps she'll be called upon to move, to share her room with a half or step-sibling. She may be worried about what will happen to her daily play routine, vacation plans and general activities. On the other hand, it may well be that a new marriage will bring about an ease in financial constraints so it is important to be honest and explain how change is always hard for everyone but that there will be some very good changes that come out of the new family situation. Point out how there will be easier ways to do things with more people on board to help out. It is important to be frank, because she will feel betrayed if you try to gloss over the challenges. Reassure her that despite the changes, her relationship with both her parents remains one of love, support and respect for her. And let her know that despite the new marriage, you will be still be there for her, together planning the future, with her as she grows up and supporting one another.
Make it clear that love between adults is not something a child can change. Gently help him to understand that whilst he can manage his toys, homework and choice of clothes, he cannot influence his parent's love life, whether it be divorce or remarriage. In discussing this, never use negative words about him - a child all too easily assumes responsibility for the single parent and can feel a sense of personal blame. Ensure that he does not have any such negative feelings and reassure him that when it comes to affairs of the heart, feelings and love, much cannot be explained and that things just "are". Tell him also that the joy of one person does not equate with the sadness of another - there is room for all the family to feel joy at the coming marriage.
Approach new names with great care. Unless there are very good reasons, it is not a good idea to change a child's last name; it is a threatening challenge to both her personal identity and her connection with her father. It is better to reassure your child firmly that she will keep her father's name and that nothing changes. In terms of a name for the new spouse, discuss this directly with your child and let your child come up with a nickname for her new parent. Finally, explain to her that she has the right to love her new parent without this love taking the place of her love for her father. There is room for both people in her life and if both her father and new parent take their roles seriously, she'll discover the delight of having more people caring about her welfare and needs.
Be patient. A very stubborn refusal that includes rebelliousness and anger won't be resolved overnight. Talk to your ex-husband to get support for helping your child through this transition. If he hasn't remarried before you, odds are he will be in the future, so either he'll have already been through it or he'll be open-eared about what he will experience should this happen to him as well. Show openly to your child that you and your ex-husband still have your child's concerns at heart first and foremost in your discussions; this isn't the time for dragging through old hurts but it is a time for putting your child's concerns first.

Tips
Although this article has been written primarily for women seeking to remarry, many of the concerns will be the same for a man seeking to remarry and facing the reactions of his children.

Warnings
Most children of divorced parents exhibit many more behavioral/discipline problems if their parents remarry when parents do not take the proper steps to ease the transition. This is partially because less loving time and attention is focused on the child in lieu of the new spouse and any new children they make. The very best way to help your child accept a second marriage is to wait until they are ready.

Related wikiHows
How to Tell Your Kids You're Getting a Divorce
How to Stop Your Kids From Using Your Divorce to Their Advantage
How to Cope with Divorce as a Child
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How to Get a Man to Marry You

running habbits can give you long and healthy life.

People who want to live a long and healthy life might want to take up running. A study published on Monday shows middle-aged members of a runner's club were half as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run.

Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers at Stanford University in California found.

"At 19 years, 15 percent of runners had died compared with 34 percent of controls," Dr. Eliza Chakravarty and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Any type of vigorous exercise will likely do the trick, said Stanford's Dr. James Fries, who worked on the study.

"Both common sense and background science support the idea that there is nothing magical about running per se," Fries said in a telephone interview. "It is the regular physical vigorous activity that is important."

The team surveyed 284 members of a nationwide running club and 156 similar, healthy people as controls. They all came from the university's faculty and staff and had similar social and economic backgrounds, and all were 50 or older.

Starting in 1984, each volunteer filled out an annual survey on exercise frequency, weight and disability for eight activities -- rising, dressing and grooming, hygiene, eating, walking, reach, hand grip and routine physical activities.

Most of the volunteers did some exercise, but runners exercised as much as 200 minutes a week, compared to 20 minutes for the non-runners.
At the beginning, the runners were leaner and less likely to smoke compared with the controls. And they exercised more over the whole study period in general.

"Over time, all groups decreased running activity, but the runners groups continued to accumulate more minutes per week of vigorous activity of all kinds," the researchers wrote.

"Members of the running groups had significantly lower mean disability levels at all time points," they added.

The team also set out to answer whether taking up running late in life would benefit, and whether people who stopped exercising began to pay a price as they aged.

Most of the runners have stopped running as they reached their 70s, Fries said. But it was difficult to find people who totally stopped exercising. "Almost all of them did something else. They continued their vigorous exercise," he said.

People who took up exercise when they were older also improved their health, he said.

The study also showed that people cannot use the risk of injury as an excuse not to run -- the runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including to their knees.

Jogging into old age reduces deaths and disability
Jogging through your 50s and into old age reduces the chances of disability and death, scientists found.

Members of an over 50s running club who went jogging regularly were two and half times less likely to die in the 21 year study period than non-runners of the same age, American researchers found.

Disability levels were also lower in runners showing they stayed healthier for longer.

Runners were less likely to die from coronary heart disease, stroke, all cancers, neurological problems, and infections.

One of the biggest effects was seen in deaths from breast cancer, with non-runners 4.2 times more likely to die over the study period than runners.

The study carried out by a team at Stanford University School of Medicine in California is published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

Author Dr Eliza Chakravarty said: "Age-adjusted death rates have reached record lows and life expectancy has reached record highs in recent years, likely due to a combination of behaviour and societal changes as well as improved medical and surgical therapies.

"With the rise in life expectancy, it becomes necessary to focus on improving the quality of life and functional abilities as people reach older ages. Regular exercise, including running, may contribute to improved health among older adults."

The Federal Government has welcomed the National Audit Office's report into problems with Tourism Australia

Govt welcomes Tourism Australia audit

The Federal Government has welcomed the National Audit Office's report into problems with Tourism Australia.The Audit Office found that Tourism Australia does not systematically evaluate the effectiveness of its projects and is risking its reputation because of board members having conflicts of interest.


Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson says in March this year the Government demanded that Tourism Australia maintain the highest standards of corporate governance.


He says Tourism Australia has accepted the Audit Office's three recommendations aimed at avoiding conflicts of interest and better managing its projects.