Stepparenting is an increasingly common experience, even in believing households. It has the potential to be a beautiful picture of God’s adoptive love in inclusion, welcome, and care, but it comes with unique challenges for parents and children. As a stepparent, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is learning the differences in parental control between stepparenting compared to parenting my biological children.
Pressure And Control in Stepparenting
The scope of what parents can control naturally decreases as kids get older. However, in stepparenting situations, there is much that parents can’t control right from the outset. Split custody schedules or full household changeovers pressure us to get things just right for our stepchildren or blended families. The parties involved can have conflicting opinions on how parenting should be handled.
It is so easy to think that every decision we make, every word we utter, every plan we attempt will have a major effect on our children for good or for ill. We fear that if we don’t say and do everything perfectly, our children will turn out messed up. Or worse—they will fall away from faith in God entirely, and it will be our fault.
But we must remember that God sovereignly charts our children’s course, not us. Our children’s spiritual journeys are their own; they must answer to God for their hearts and actions. Our kids’ time at their other parents’ house is between them, their other parents, and the Lord. We could be the most amazing Christian parents, but they may still choose to go down a path we don’t want for them.
No matter how desperately we want to have a tighter hold on our children’s decisions or the ones made for them, our control is limited. So we must, and we can only, entrust ourselves and our children to the Lord (1 Pet. 4:19).
My Experience Entrusting God With My Stepchild
A few years ago, our trust in God’s good, sovereign plan for our children was tested with my stepdaughter, now 15. For a number of complex reasons, we were always on the lower end of custody with her. As most children would, she struggled a lot with the disconnect of separated parents and even more so with very different approaches in parenting. We definitely weren’t perfect in compromising, but we did the best we could and always aimed to show her Jesus throughout.
One day it came to a point where visits felt forced, and her mental health was declining and affecting them. So we came to the difficult agreement with her to do visitations on her terms only. We felt that by allowing my stepdaughter the choice to see us, we could stay connected rather than inflicting potential harm and resentment.
Thankfully, we still see her, but it’s not frequent and definitely not the relationship we’d hoped for. For us, letting go of controlling that area of our lives was an exercise in trusting that God’s hand was over my stepchild’s life, even when it was hard to see. Now, we continually pray for her, her well-being, and her relationship with the Lord from a distance.
I realize that this situation is rather atypical for most stepparents. In most cases, visitation choices are not up to the stepchild. Living arrangements can range from full-time to fully blended. Maybe your situation calls for a different sort of action. But whether your stepchild is in the home on a regular basis or not, we all must entrust our children to the Lord. Stepparents, when we learn to hope in God’s grace rather than rely on our own control, we can have unique peace in trying situations (Phil. 4:7).
Entrusting Our Children To God
Choosing to entrust our kids to the Lord is not defeatist or doing nothing. We’re still responsible for parenting within the limits God has set for us. What are some ways to parent our children as we rely on God to chart their course?
The first thing we can do is pray. Pray for all the guardians of our children; pray for their friends; pray for their teachers. Pray that God would make his hand evident in every aspect of their lives and that they would learn dependence on him, no matter how their lives might look at present.
Point Them to Jesus
Secondly, we can continue to point to Jesus in our interactions with our children. Now, this may not always be easy, but it comes more naturally with practice. I’m not saying preach at your children for the error of their ways or to act superior. I mean to humbly point them to the Lord, his love, and his faithfulness in all things.
One thing I try to do periodically is to share my prayers and hopes for our stepdaughter through messaging every few months—not to convict, necessarily, but to remind her that she is cared for and has value in Christ, no matter what the world may try to tell her. Or if she asks for advice, I’ll share what God says about the issue or take the opportunity to pray together about it. You can share what God is teaching you or how he has brought you joy.
But when you feel your child has strayed from the godly path, especially when they are older, it is sometimes best to let the Lord work in their heart rather than intervene immediately. We can be assured that God sees all and works all to his will (1 Cor. 4:5).
Welcome Them In
Lastly, we can welcome. Not just in the basic sense of granting stepchildren access to our homes, but into the full inclusion that God himself offers us into his own household. We can treat both biological children and stepchildren equally as our own, wherever possible. Continue to extend invitations despite distance, as I mentioned earlier. Find ways to compromise routines and rules when families share time together. Maintaining your household’s boundaries while respecting the other can be difficult, depending on the coparenting situation. But it’s helpful for the children who transition between homes, who may feel like they’re living separate lives.
Our children—both biological children and stepchildren—are gifts from the Lord. He sets their paths. I’ve learned that “now is not equivalent to never,” and we don’t know what plans God has for our children except that he has created them for his own good and unique purposes. He will not let any that belong to him fall away (John 6:39). After all, he rescues the one out of the ninety-nine. He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.
We can teach, disciple, love, and pray for our children as best we can, but our own devices are forever insufficient in raising up children in him. Leaving our cares to him grants us a sweeter rest than any amount of personal control ever could.
Identity: Discovering Who You Are in Christ is a 31-day devotional for teenagers struggling with their identity. It points them to who they are in Christ so that they can live for him with confidence.
