OC HIGH / STUDENT NEWS & VIEWS : For Better or For Worse : Stepparents: It’s not easy for anyone when a new adult comes in. Communication and patience are the keys to adjusting.

When Molly threw a left hook, she was not in a boxing ring.

In fact, she was in her living room facing her adversary: the stepparent.

Molly, a junior at Troy High School in Fullerton, is one of many adolescents plunged suddenly into a new family, facing the difficulties that acquiring a stepparent may bring.

(Students who have requested anonymity are identified by first name only.)

Close to 7 million children live in step-families, according to Census information. And the majority have not adjusted easily, said Carol Silvergeld, director of clinical social work at the Reiss Davis Child Study Center and director of a divorce and step-family clinic in West Los Angeles.

“Kids never ask to become stepchildren. They’re just dumped into a step-family relationship. They’ve had something ripped away from them and then they’re expected to try out a new parent like an artificial arm, but the new arm doesn’t feel like the old arm,” Silvergeld said.

“It doesn’t seem right when the new parent is making rules or starts trying to be like the biological parent. It’s like ‘how dare they; they’re not my parents.’ It’s often very difficult for the child to adjust to the stepparent, and the child usually acts very negatively toward the stepparent.”

Since her father’s remarriage, Molly has had a hard time adjusting to her stepmother’s rules and admits that she feels extremely angry when her stepmother tries to “run her life.”

“She tried to make me do chores which I’d never done before,” Molly said. “One time she wanted me to bring my laundry down to wash, but I don’t do things like that. My dad’s always taken care of me, so it was like ‘No, you go get my clothes down; if you want to live here, you take care of me.’ So she went and told my dad.

“She was like whispering things to him, like I was bad or something, and I yelled at her and I said, ‘If you want to tell me something, why don’t you tell me? You can’t run my life, because you don’t have any authority.’ ”

Besides trying to adjust to the new rules and perspectives a stepparent may bring into the family, the child has to learn to give a little in the tug-of-war relationship with a stepparent, making allowances for clashes in personalities, says Jim Pierce, the Southern California contact for the Stepfamily Assn. of America.

“By the very nature of the word step-family, you’re one step removed,” Pierce said. “You don’t automatically have the same affection and relationship with a child that a biological parent has. When Mom gave birth to the child and Dad was there, Mom and Dad had a chance to get ready for it; they’ve gone through the child’s growing up.

“They have adjusted to how the child has developed, and the child’s and the parents’ personalities have molded to fit each other. But when you have a stepparent, you may have a totally different personality than the stepchild. There has to be compromising or else there could be some big trouble,” Pierce said.

Mary, a Troy sophomore, has tasted some of that trouble along with its consequences.

Her stepmother “expects us to be like miniature adults,” she said. “I don’t think that she likes children. If we do something wrong, instead of punishing us like a normal parent would by grounding us or something, she charges us money.

“One time we were cleaning the back yard, and we thought that there weren’t people living behind us, so my brother threw dog messes over the fence, and he got charged $3 by her and she was really mad. She was yelling at him, and it was like ‘you don’t have a right to yell at him; he’s not your son.’ ”

But Mary realized that something had to be done to ease friction between her stepmother and herself if she didn’t want to undergo emotional trauma.

R.E. White, dean of schools for Placentia Unified School District, says that deep-rooted psychological problems can arise in the child due to conflict with his stepparent.

“The child grows up to be very insecure and very needy in emotional fulfillment. They don’t trust as much and, sometimes, they build a protective shield around themselves. They tend not to form friendships easily, becoming very withdrawn,” White said.

Professional help is available, and there are several ways to resolve conflicts between the stepparent and the child. Silvergeld said that communication and patience are key.

“Communication is a building block,” Pierce said. “The adults have to actually work on their communication skills to make sure that they have common values and common expectations.”

Said Silvergeld: “If they can start talking with each other about their problems and differences, acknowledging how each feels about the other, that would be great. They can’t expect their conflicts to disappear overnight, however. They have to take it slowly, step by step.”