🙄 Just stepkid things

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that kids — including stepkids — will always act like kids. And kids can kind of be the worst. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Dan & I were out running errands the other day when he nudged me and pointed at a car next to us: “There’s someone with kids.”

I looked and the back passenger window was plastered with stickers… applied from the inside, probably from a carseat.

“I appreciate those parents just letting their kid go hog wild with their stickers,” I laughed. “That’s exactly the kind of thing that would’ve made my folks livid when I was a kid.”

Sometimes parents are not great at letting kids be kids — and this is one of those statements that goes double for stepparents. We get all hung up on rules and structure, like the world will end if someone doesn’t clean their room. Or we get paranoid that the kids’ behavior is because of us… like we’re messing up somehow as stepparents and thus causing irreparable damage to our stepkids’ childhood, and that’s why they’re acting out.

The truth is, kids will be kids. Even stepkids.

Little kids will never be excited about early bedtimes or eating their veggies. Older kids will never remember to tell you when their swim meets are or want to practice piano. And good luck finding any teen on the planet who actually wants to sit down to a family dinner; they’re way too committed to being sulky and angsty and telling us how WE JUST DON’T GET IT.

Embarrassingly enough, they’re right — we don’t seem to get it. Even though we all remember being sulky angsty teens ourselves, for some reason we think our teen kid or stepkid acting that way is not normal and certainly not okay.

While stepfamily stuff can definitely be a contributor to the ways our stepkids choose to act out, acting out is part of childhood and not necessarily a red flag that you’ll never feel blended. Even if you weren’t in the picture, even if their parents were still together, I guarantee you these kids would still go through the full spectrum of growing pains.

We have to remember that our stepkids, first and foremost, are kids. And kids have a real knack for being inherently irritating. Especially when they’re not your own kids.