What if I don’t like my stepkids?
Here’s something I wish I would’ve learned much earlier in my stepparenting adventures: not liking your stepkids is totally, completely normal. You’re not an inherently bad stepparent if you’re not crazy about your stepkids. The stepparent-stepkid relationship is a complex one, and love between a stepparent and a stepkid isn’t instant or automatic.
Not liking our stepkids is a loaded topic. We should like our stepkids, shouldn’t we?! Surely we’re monsters if we don’t love our stepkids! We must be the only stepparents who ever felt this way.
Because we’re positive we’re the only stepparents to feel like this, we don’t admit we have these feelings — maybe not even to ourselves. And then we never realize just how many other stepparents feel the same way.
So I’ll just say again: not liking your stepkids is totally, completely normal. If you don’t like your stepkids, you are not alone.
Dan & I came up with 5 common, valid, totally legit reasons why stepparents might not like their stepkids:
Our stepkids’ personalities clash with ours
We’ve turned our stepkids into symbols — like they’re what’s standing between us and the family we always envisioned for ourselves
Our stepkids remind us too much of our partner’s nightmare ex
We don’t like the way our stepkids treat our partners
Our stepkids have actual behavioral issues
Did I miss any? Let me know! And in the meantime, let’s take a deeper dive into these one at a time.
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1. Our stepkids’ personalities clash with ours
Kids, just like adults, have personality traits that fall on a spectrum ranging from likable to unlikable. My stepdaughter had so many quirks that set my teeth on edge… like her constant baby talk, or the way she’d regularly interrupt our conversations and then get sulky if Dan didn’t drop everything to give her his full attention.
These are not endearing qualities in any kid, let alone your own stepkid — I was not her biggest fan.
To be fair, though, she wasn’t my biggest fan either. And I get that. I can be prickly. My sense of humor isn’t for everyone. And of course I came into her life armed with all kinds of rules and structure that didn’t exist before (and that she was firmly against).
My stepdaughter and I have very dissimilar personalities; finding common ground has been one of the biggest challenges in our relationship. We get along fine now, but our personality differences took us a long time to work out.
2. We view our stepkids as a symbol
Stepparents have a tendency to see our stepkids as a symbol for all the complexities of stepfamily life that we're not really on board with yet. It's as if our subconscious decides to make them the bad guys and starts blaming them for everything.
Stepkids are walking, talking, daily reminders of the life your partner had before you met — a past that’s affecting your present in all kinds of unexpected and intense ways. I’ve talked to so many stepparents who say they actually really like their stepkids on a personal level… yet simultaneously kinda sorta wish the kids didn’t exist so they could just plain enjoy a simpler life with their partner.
It’s all too easy to transfer our mixed feelings about stepfam life directly onto our stepkids. Sometimes spending more time 1-on-1 with your stepkid can help with this — we then get to know them more as an individual human instead of a symbol. Which also helps us stop viewing them as a problem that needs to be solved, and start viewing them as an integrated part of our lives and family.
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3. Our stepkids remind us too much of the ex
If your partner’s ex is high conflict and their toxic behavior is drastically interfering in your ability to live a normal life, managing to separate your feelings for your stepkid from your feelings for the ex can be a real friggin’ challenge. This goes double for stepkids who’ve started to mimic their toxic parent’s behavior — yikes! 😱
If the ex’s presence already feels oppressive and inescapable, your stepkids can feel like an extension of that. No wonder you struggle to feel positive about them! This is such a common reason why stepparents don’t like their stepkids that I have a whole separate blog post on it: ➡️ WHEN YOUR STEPKID REMINDS YOU TOO MUCH OF THE EX 👀
4. We don’t like the way our stepkids treat our partners
The way my stepdaughter treated Dan used to make me wild. She spoke so disrespectfully to him, and a couple times even slapped him right in front of me. (I mean, half-hearted semi-playful slaps but… still. And he would just sit there!! Omgggg)
Dan would bend over backwards trying to make his kid happy. He fought in court for years to maintain a relationship with her. Meanwhile, she’s refusing to answer his phone calls for days on end. 🤦🏻♀️ And when they did finally see each other, she’d give him the cold shoulder.
Logically, I understood this was the parental alienation talking and she was a kid being manipulated by her mother. On a more personal level though, I felt protective of Dan and wanted nothing to do with someone who seemed hell-bent on breaking his heart— even when that someone was my own stepdaughter.
Eventually I realized that Dan’s relationship with his daughter was his to manage. I couldn’t control it, and I couldn’t fix it either. All I could do was try to support him in his own mixed feelings and parenting challenges. (And if SD’s behavior bothered me too much, I’d disengage by quietly leaving the room.)
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5. Our stepkids have actual behavioral issues
As a little kid, my stepdaughter used to throw crying, kicking tantrums that took Dan hours to calm down. In her teen years, she was diagnosed with 3 different mental disorders… and received treatment for 0 of them. Spending time with her could feel volatile, intense, and draining. I felt exhausted living around so much angst.
Significant behavioral concerns can make any kid — including stepkids — difficult to like. Stepkids lying or spying between houses is not uncommon, and those actions can cause varying degrees of damage. Emotional manipulation and dysfunctional relationship dynamics (like mini wife syndrome) are also not uncommon. Mental health issues like autism, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, or even anxiety/depression can all make connecting with your stepkid tougher than you expected.
Additionally, sometimes stepkids try to make themselves purposely unlikeable in an attempt to drive their stepparents away. Or even their parents! And sometimes… well, they succeed. 🤷🏻♀️
Finally, if your partner’s ex is high conflict, then your stepkid has likely grown up with childhood trauma that can impact their ability to form healthy relationships — including with stepparents. If that applies to you, go read this: ➡️ STEPPARENTING A STEPKID WITH CHILDHOOD TRAUMA 👀
Will I ever love my stepkid?
So you’re a stepparent who doesn’t like your stepkid. Now what? Will these feelings go away? Will you ever feel more positive about your stepkid? Is there any hope you could have a real relationship with them at some point?
The answer to all of these questions is yes. With time, feelings of not liking your stepkid should start easing up. For one thing, stepkids get older and their behaviors change as they learn more about themselves and the world.
Yet even if their behavior worsens with time instead of improving, we keep growing in our own ability to juggle all these conflicting emotions along the way. We learn how to pick our stepparenting battles — how to better accept (or at least live with) what we can’t change, and become more comfortable in the stepparenting role. All of this can help our stepkids’ less-than-ideal behaviors start affecting us less.
If you find that dislike or resentment of your stepkid persists or worsens, I encourage you to work with a counselor or stepparenting coach. Not because there's anything wrong with you (there isn't — I can't say enough times that mixed feelings are totally totally normal!) but because a pro can help you talk through why you feel that way and give you some specific coping tips and such.
Finally, remember that adjusting to stepparenthood and blended family life literally takes years. We can start out not liking our stepkids and end up feeling like they’re family, even if that doesn’t happen till way down the road. So give yourself a break, give your stepkids some space, take a deep breath, and keep reminding yourself all of this is normal and okay.