My Booky Wook

I'm developing an idea for a book. Books on parenting and step parenting abound, but they're all from the perspective of the adult in the relationship, rather than the child. It's about time one was written from the perspective of the entity that is actually in control of the relationship - the child. The title of my book would be Step-Childing - How to Handle Your Step Parent. 

The main thesis of my book is the fact that a step-child cannot treat a step-parent like a biological parent and expect the same result, as the dynamic and psychology is totally different. The real parent is related to the child by blood and genetics, which gives the child special privileges in that transgressions are often ignored and forgiven - parental blindness, for want of an expression. The step-parent has no such genetic link to the step-child, effectively sees it as a cuckoo in the nest and is not so forgiving, especially if the step-parent doesn't have any children in the first place.

The upshot is, that to avoid strife, the step-child cannot afford to treat the step-parent with the same disregard, disdain and cavalier manner with which it treats the biological parent and expect the same outcome. 

There are two main weapons in the armoury of the step-child, i) spontaneous and gratuitous acts of compliance and. ii) expressions of contrition and apology. Both of these disarm the step-parent and I've seen them work, especially the latter. Admission of fault is the last thing an adult expects in a child and completely disarms the adult, even if the child doesn't mean it and goes on to repeat offend, as it invariably does. It throws the adult off-balance.

The same judo throws also work with a biological parent, but the imperative isn't as necessary because of the tendency of the biological parent to forgive just about anything, even murder, without the child having to resort to the tactics of psychological warfare.