Discuss how children typically respond to being raised in a blended family

What will be an ideal response?

About 60 percent of divorced parents remarry within a few years. Parent, stepparent, and children form a blended, or reconstituted, family. For some children, this expanded family network is positive, bringing greater adult attention. But most have more adjustment problems than children in stable, first-marriage families. How well they adapt is, again, related to the overall quality of family functioning, which depends on which parent forms a new relationship, the child's age and sex, and the complexity of blended-family relationships.
Because mothers generally retain custody of children, the most common form of blended family is a mother–stepfather arrangement. Boys tend to adjust quickly, welcoming a stepfather who is warm, who refrains from exerting his authority too quickly, and who offers relief from coercive cycles of mother–son interaction. Girls, however, often have difficulty with their custodial mother's remarriage. Stepfathers disrupt the close ties many girls have established with their mothers, and girls often react with sulky, resistant behavior.
Remarriage of noncustodial fathers often leads to reduced contact with their biological children, especially when fathers remarry quickly before they have established postdivorce parent–child routines. When fathers have custody, children typically react negatively to remarriage. Girls, especially, have a hard time getting along with their stepmothers, either because the remarriage threatens the girl's bond with her father or because she becomes entangled in loyalty conflicts between the two mother figures. But the longer children live in father–stepmother households, the closer they feel to their stepmothers and the more positive their interaction with them becomes. With time and patience, children of both genders benefit from the support of a second mother figure.