My small children have a step parent but I’m not sure how to bring this up to them.

So a little background my ex was not a very good influence, he was angry all the time, constantly returned to his addiction. I helped as much as I could throughout 7 years we were together. My 3 year old at the time developed a lot of anxiety induced behaviours and some other things were starting to delay developmentally. Currently I have a 4 year old almost 5 and a 2 year old almost 3.My 4 year old is doing a lot better behaviour and development wise. My ex and I broke up almost 1.5 years ago. About a year ago i started becoming very close with a high school friend I had my kids had met him. And we’re good friends with him all around, well we started dating and my kids absolutely adore him.In the beginning my oldest would mention his dad and say he missed him, I would tell him his dad is not making good decisions, and when he starts making grown up decisions they’ll be able to see him again ( this is the only way I could put it to not make his dad look terrible but also be as truthful as possible, I will not lie to my kids no matter their age). But not he hasn’t mentioned him in almost 7 months.The advice I’m wondering about is how do you bring up so-and-so is now your step parent and when is a good time to do that?At first I wanted to wait until my oldest made the decision himself to call him his step dad/dad. But looking back at my childhood that may be awkward for him when he’s older and I want him to be comfortable with expressing this when the time comes. He already refers to all of us as a big family and I’ve known this man for over 10 years so I know it’s going to last.He’s only 4.5 so I don’t want to push anything on him but I also want him to know that my SO is a father figure and I want him to see him as that more so as he grows up.I want to reiterate that I am not in anyway trying to force my children to call him dad or step dad. I am only looking for advice from people’s experiences in a situation like this with young children so I can form a plan to address this in the coming years. Any advice is appreciated from all perspectives! Thank you in advance ! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/36jZdlg