Every parent has the responsibility of teaching children how to behave and correcting children when they misbehave. This job is daunting for every parent and even more complicated for stepparents. Still, the mainstays, the predictable elements of behavior management work for everyone, including stepparents.

The first principle of behavior management is: behavior that is rewarded is more likely to be repeated, behavior that is punished is less likely to be repeated. As an example, let’s take the situation in which a child who has been told to stay in bed continues to get out of bed and join you or other family members. A common pattern is for a child told to stay in bed in accord with his or her bedtime, repeatedly returning to the room where others are watching television or using computers. What happens when the child appears?

Figuring out whether or not a reward or a punishment follows an unwanted behavior is simple, right? In psychological studies, a “reward” is only labeled a reward when there is evidence of increased frequency of the behavior. For us at home, we can start by observing behavior and making a few guesses as to outcomes. If the child, on coming into your room after bedtime, receives an offer to sleep with you or watch television with those who are still up—clearly the behavior has been rewarded and is more likely than before to be repeated. If the child immediately loses a privilege he or she is expecting the next day—say having a story read before bedtime or watching a favorite show—the behavior has clearly been punished and is likely to recur.

Of course, variations on this simple scene will pop up for all parents and right away the situation is more complicated than seen at first glance. We are human, our spouse is human, and so are the kids, which means we are rarely consistent in how we react to misbehavior. The very nature of our inconsistency results in children frequently experiencing the “reward” of no punishment often enough to make trying the behavior “worth it.” The same situation occurs when we choose to jaywalk instead of bothering with the crosswalk. We know that occasionally we will meet with an oncoming car and the driver will honk, or we’ll have to scurry to the curb, but most of the time we can “get away with” the misbehavior. Thus, every time we jaywalk without punishment—in a way, we’ve been rewarded.

This element of behavior management is particularly important in blended families. The less lenient parent (almost exclusively the step parent) is more likely to notice and be concerned about inconsistent rewards and punishments, while the biological parent is more likely to “cut the kid a break.” This feature makes step parenting frustrating at times, but it’s the nature of the beast.

Rather than use your time and energy trying to talk the other parent into a behavior management project that isn’t working, develop your own project and state clearly, but not angrily what you will and will not do. In the above example, you may have discovered that the other parent doesn’t “get it.” When the child gets out of his bed and climbs into yours, the parent spends a long time explaining “why” the child must sleep in his own bed (reward), then takes the child back to bed and stays with him until he goes to sleep (reward.) In this situation, you may be tempted to lecture on behavior management (just like you have over and over), your spouse experiences your lecture as a punishment, and all that has taken place is your spouse doesn’t want to talk about the situation anymore.

You can decide what you will and will not do, and let people know—cheerfully—using an if-then model. If you do ______, then I will (or will not) do ________. Don’t cut yourself out of activities you would enjoy with the family the next day. Possible examples include: If you get out of your bed and come into our room, I will start your bedtime thirty minutes earlier tomorrow. Better still, put together a positive reinforcement plan. If you stay in your bed tonight, tomorrow night I’ll watch a rented movie with you.

Step parents should avoid setting up punishment as much as possible, because, like it or not, the margins are not as wide for step parents. Children are quicker to anger at instructions or punishment when meted out by step parents. Let the biological parent have the punishment side of the parenting job.