How to Introduce Your Teenage Kids to Your New Partner

After her divorce, Oksana Marafioti, 49, a writer in Las Vegas, spent 10 years dating for fun. Then, in 2021, she met her current partner, Tyler. “This felt different,” she recalls. A few months in, she told her two sons that she wanted them to meet her new beau. “Great,” the then 14-year-old son responded, only half joking. “You are going to ruin my life!”

It’s a common dilemma among single parents: how to introduce a partner to a skeptical or reluctant teenager.

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According to pediatric health psychologist Emily Edlynn of Oak Park, Illinois, your split from your child’s other parent can influence how the introduction goes. “If there is a lot of unresolved emotional distress, adding a new adult to the mix will be more complicated,” she says.

Your child’s developmental stage makes a difference as well, says Samantha Rodman Whiten, a clinical psychologist and host of The Dr. Psych Mom Show podcast. Teens can be leery of anything that might shake up their own day-to-day lives. “There’s something called healthy adolescent narcissism, which is a stage that any parent knows,” Whiten says. “They can be really self-centered.”

That said, conflict is not inevitable. We asked experts to share guidelines for negotiating this transition. ​

Test the waters​

“Kids this age pick up on everything,” says Elizabeth Cohen, a clinical psychologist and author of Light on the Other Side of Divorce. Assume your kid knows there’s a new person in your life, and follow their lead on how much detail they want, Cohen suggests. ​​​

Don’t jump the gun​​

“You don’t need to introduce your teen to every one-date wonder,” says Ann-Louise Lockhart, a child and adolescent psychologist and parent coach in San Antonio. Still, make the introduction before years go by. John McElhenney, 61, a life coach in Austin, Texas, had an agreement with his ex-wife to wait six months before introducing their two kids to anyone new. ​​“I didn’t want to wait forever,” he recalls. “When I met my now fiancée, it was important to see how she would get along with my daughter and son. If she resented the time and attention I spent on them, I knew it wouldn’t work out.” ​

Keep things light

​A first meeting should be brief, with low stakes. Think smoothies in the park, not an all-day beach hangout. “Awkward but funny” is how Marafioti describes the first meeting between her partner and her sons, at a breakfast spot. “My older son asked my boyfriend, ‘What are your intentions with our mom?’ That cracked all of us up.” ​