Being a successful stepparent - helping to nurture and sustain a stepfamily - can be a challenge. In cases where husband and wife are of different races and religion, the adjustments can be even more difficult, more complex. Children often prove to be one of the most complicating factors in a stepfamily.As a minister and marriage counselor, James Eckler has been helping step-parents raise successful families for years. In this book he examines every aspect of step-parenting: the power struggles between the natural parents and stepparents, the manipulative games children play, the rights of the stepparent, name changes, the pros and con of adoption, the role of grandparents and much more. Anyone involved in a stepfamily or contemplating forming on through a second marriage will benefit from his far-ranging counsel.