As the product of a dysfunctional marriage and a difficult divorce, and very soon after, separated from a stepfamily, I was not there happiest child. To be honest, I DID NOT like my parents or my new mother-in-law. As I have had life experiences and matured a little, I have seen my once strained relationship with my mother-in-law blossom into an open, loving, healthy, supportive and kindergarten. I am now grateful for our relationship and for her accepting my brother and I as her own. However, our difficult beginnings got me thinking about how children of divorced parents are affected by family reunification. Children from divorced families are certainly affected by divorce behaviorally, emotionally and psychologically. What if these factors don't exist for some families, so do all divorced families increase the risk of poor emotional, educational, and psychological health in the future? In Crohn's reading, “the risk of negative outcomes in children's adjustment resulting from divorce and remarriage can be mitigated by resources that engender resilience. Furthermore, positive relationships are means of rectifying risks, particularly with the custodial parent and, for girls, with the nonresident mother-in-law (Crohn 1997). According to Rebecca Ryan of Georgetown University, depending on the age group of children, their risks of poor emotional and academic outcomes may also decrease or increase. The "research implies that any reduction in household income, parenting quality, or caregiving time resulting from family change should influence child behavior significantly more during infancy, toddlerhood, and preschool than during middle childhood (6 to 9 years) or preadolescence (10 to 9 years). 12) (Ryan and Claessens 2013). Ryan further claims that blended family households have not shown any negative long-term results, but rather have had positive benefits, especially coming from a single-parent household. Ryan says that when stepfamilies are needed, single-family families can escape poverty. Additionally, stepfamilies may mask the negative consequences associated with divorce and separation (Ryan and Claessens 2013). Ryan argued that family or domestic instability was a single interrelated factor suggesting negative outcomes for children in divorced and stepfamilies. Additionally, Mason says studies have shown that a significant number of children from two-parent families with stepfamilies have recently performed well or better than children from traditional two-parent homes (Mason