Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

4-25-2025

Keywords

blended family, boundaries, child adjustment, family development, family structure

Disciplines

Developmental Psychology

Abstract

Blended families are more common than ever. Recent statistics show that more than half of marriages end in divorce, with the eventual merge of two new families. The families go through several stages to create their new family structure. Several models resemble the integration of family members into the newly defined family. In 2001, Braithwaite and his colleagues identified five developmental pathways or trajectories that blended families followed as they become a family: accelerated, prolonged, stagnating, declining, and high-amplitude turbulent.

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