A survey fact quoted in Family First by Dr. Phil McGraw: The top three problems for blended families are discipline, resolving conflict and division of responsibility.
Many families who are trying a new start with kids from each parents' last marriage living together find it a constant battle zone. One thing that parents should remember is that all parties have just finished the battle of divorce or separation; no matter how long that took or how gently it was executed, there is still some battle fatigue for everyone. Discussion and acknowledgement of this is a good first step for parents to take to show the kids how they should be addressing these feelings with each other. What often happens instead of talk about how everyone is feeling, is the parents trying to pretend that life is the same as it always was while the kids fight with each other over everything under the sun. Those fights usually have nothing to do with what they are SAYING, and everything to do with how they are feeling.
So, why not sit everyone down and start asking the kids how they are feeling about the new family situation?
How often do you think the Hatfields and McCoys sat down to discuss their differences? If you recall the story, they shot first and blamed each other for all things wrong! They were not interested in finding a way to get along, but surely you can help your kids find a better way.

Division of responsibility is something that all of your kids are going to pick on you about, so make sure that you parents agree how that will work before you describe it to the kids! Remember Johnny & Janey? Johnny's garbage duty may only be a one day a week job, where Janey's pet feeding job is a seven day per week job! Johnny's job probably needs to be expanded to include scraping the dinner dishes every night after dinner to even things up in Janey's eyes. What do you think? There are far more than seven issues to "wonder" about in your situation. For more help in setting up your new SUCCESSFUL stepfamily environment, contact me.