One common ACOD challenge is that typical sibling-to-sibling relationship “issues” can be impacted by the family upheaval, and relationships between step-siblings bring fresh challenges, which sometimes can make a bad thing (divorce) worse and can cause even further alienation and discouragement between existing and new family members.

In addition to this invaluable spiritual support, we need to shore up strengths and acquire new skills to heighten and expand our ability to love. Understanding our temperament can help us do this. This is not a theory of fixed personality traits identifying unchanging characteristics that put people in a box. Rather, understanding temperament helps us identify our strong and weak tendencies to react in certain ways in certain situations.