Step Children - confusion with my son

[cdmj2111]

My son is 3 & a half. He has a 2 step brothers from my partners earlier marriage. After a while of not seeing his children they are now back in our lives which is wonderful. My son is finding it all a little confussing and saying things like "he's not your daddy, he's mine". "Are you their mummy?" and being quite clingy to my partner.

The marriage break up was nothing to do with me. His ex wife and I are friends now. I think everything is going well, except his confusion. Any tips on how to explain it to him

[ann_h]

I think it seems worse because this has co-incided with the age at which a child first starts working out family relationships

If I remember rightly, all 3-5 year olds ask constantly about aunts, cousins, who is who's mum etc.

 

You can try to explain about step-brothers, half-brothers and so on, but be prepared for the where-babies-come-from questions to follow!!

 

I think so long as he's still getting your partner's attention, and the older boys are nice to him, he'll work it out pretty quickly.

[Grimalkin]

I am also my parents only child with 2 older half brothers from my dad's 1st marriage.  I don't ever remember not understanding, but I did used to keep asking my mum how we were all related (I did used to say that their mum was my step-mother though, which I think used to annoy my mum).  I would just keep quietly explaining and correcting him that his dad had two children before he was born, but they had a different mum - that made sense to me when I was little.  I think my understanding just accumulated over time.  Now that my brothers have children we are trying to explain to them who's who with their 4 paternal grandparents!!

 

(I think 'step' is usually used when the children are not actually related by blood, just marriage