Coping within the Stepfamily Context in Ghana: Experiences of Stepchildren and Stepparents

Living in a stepfamily can be stressful due to several challenges that confront individuals within stepfamilies, hence adaptive coping is vital for wellbeing. Nonetheless, little research focus has been devoted to understating how individuals within stepfamilies cope with family-related distresses. Using a qualitative exploratory approach, this study explored coping strategies used by 11 stepparents and 22 adolescent stepchildren in the Ghanaian context. Findings show that whereas stepchildren adopted a wide range of coping strategies which were mostly emotion-focused, stepparents used less diverse strategies. Nonetheless, both groups used strategies that were both emotion-focused and problem-focused although, for stepchildren, two of the problem-solving strategies were maladaptive. Findings reflect the imbalanced power hierarchy that exists within the stepfamily household that tends to disadvantage stepchildren. Implications of the findings are discussed.