Child Friendly Divorce
A Divorce(d) Therapist's Guide to Helping Your Children Thrive!
After deciding to leave her husband, to "find herself," Katie's mother all but abandoned her only daughter. The second oldest of their five children and the only girl in the family, Katie was used to spending special times with her mother, shopping, talking together and going for long walks and bike rides without "the boys". When her mother turned forty, she realized that her marriage had not been fulfilling for much of its twenty years and decided to make a change. She moved out of the family home and had only the most brief telephone conversations with Katie for the next several weeks. Two weeks later, her mother broke a tradition they had had for years, helping Katie with her hair and makeup for her dance recital. She did not show up even to watch the show. Katie, feeling abandoned by her mother, turned to her father, and asked, "Why doesn't mom care about me anymore?"
The following year, Katie quit taking the dance classes she had enjoyed for the past 7 years and started hanging out with a new group of friends. Previously an A student, Katie's grades dropped to C's in most subjects, because she didn't care anymore either. Before the first semester was over, she had been caught smoking on the school grounds, something she had done to fit in with her new friends, with whom she felt accepted and valued. She was on the road to becoming a statistic--something her parents could easily have avoided.
The number of families affected by divorce is growing every year. Of all children in this country under the age of 18, only 68.1% live with both parents. This number is down from 72.5% as recently as 1990. Given the magnitude of the effect that divorce can have on a child, on a family, on our society as a whole, this book is an essential resource for all divorcing parents.
Child-Friendly Divorce details for parents how children typically react to divorce at different ages and outlines how parents can help. Just as each developmental level of childhood has its own tasks to accomplish, each age group also has its own particular struggles in the context of familial divorce. Infants tend to have trouble eating and sleeping, toddlers exhibit more tantrums and aggressive behavior. Preschoolers show the most dramatic changes in behavior and school age children are the most openly grief stricken. Pre-teens struggle with identity issues and exhibit a great deal of anger, while teens and young adults struggle with their own values and choices in life. These areas are explored in detail for each age group. Typical reactions of children are discussed and specific examples are used to clarify what parents can look for as signs of trouble or struggle in their children.
How parents respond to these struggles plays a major role in children's successful adjustment to divorce and, also, in the damage that can occur in the process. Child-Friendly Divorce explores what children need from divorcing parents at the various developmental stages and how parents can best provide for these needs, both in the immediate crisis and in preparation for long term adjustment to the divorce. For Katie's mother, in the example above, it would be to stress how crucial their relationship, and her continued involvement in Katie's life, is to her daughter. That factor, more than anything else, will determine how Katie survives this life experience and the effect it has on the rest of her life. How to incorporate this into her own life plan for increased independence is one thing Katie's mother can learn from Child-Friendly Divorce.
Legal custody and physical placement are issues which raise the intensity of emotions between divorcing couples and their children. Definitions of these terms are provided and information is offered regarding placement and co-parenting schedules that take children's developmental tasks into account. Numerous examples are included to provide food for thought for parents making decisions about how each will spend time with their children. Suggestions are provided regarding how to make periods of physical placement easier for both parents and children, such as developing new rituals and traditions that incorporate the changed family status.
Seven year old Jamie stands behind the door as his mother is dialing the phone and lingers to listen to her conversation, yearning for some contact with his emotionally overwhelmed mother. He overhears her say, "It's so hard for me to see him that I keep thinking this would all be much easier if he had died in a car accident rather than leave me. At least then I wouldn't have to see him every other weekend when he picks up the kids!" Jamie turns and walks into his bedroom alone.
Perhaps the most important issue divorcing parents need to deal with is how to relate to the other parent. Though they are divorcing, the mere fact that they have children together means that they will be forced to deal with each other, in some manner, for the rest of their lives. This is no easy task, especially in the beginning.
This sentiment that life would be easier if the other parent had died is not uncommon among divorcing parents, and often a typical part of the process of adjusting to the end of a marriage. It does, however, have a profound negative effect on the children who are witnesses to it. It is a struggle to learn to deal with a former intimate partner who is still causing some pretty intense pain, and to do so in a way that is not peripherally harmful to children involved.
While much of any divorcing couple's required contact will appropriately revolve around the children, the transition of moving their relationship from one of intimate partners to one of partners in the business of co-parenting their children does not come naturally to many couples. Child-Friendly Divorce outlines strategies and techniques that one partner, alone, can use to make unilateral changes in the relationship in an attempt to make it more amicable, such as separating out the roles partners have played in their relationship with each other from parenting responsibilities, by paying attention to their expectations of the other parent. Achieving some emotional distance from each other can improve a divorcing couple's interactions and help to reduce expectations as well.
"Tell me a bedtime story, Daddy," begs seven year old Melissa, on an overnight visit with her separated father. Jim begins, appropriately enough, with "Once upon a time...", but in describing events experienced by the little princess in the story, who, not surprisingly resembles his daughter, he adds a dangerous element that is emotionally damaging to Melissa--an evil abandoning mother. The queen in his story runs away from the family and the princess and is never seen or heard from again, leaving Melissa feeling abandoned and frightened.
Another problem area is that parents often, under the guise of taking care of themselves and meeting their own needs, unintentionally engage in behavior that is harmful to children, regardless of their age or developmental level. These mistakes can take many forms, but one of the more typical examples is parents running each other down in the presence of the children--or to them as a direct audience.
One effect of this type of behavior is that the child internalizes the parents' negative comments, as, after all, one half of their physical makeup is provided by the denigrated parent. Another potential effect is to instill fear in the child of some terrible fate, such as abandonment by the other parent. One negative comment can have a lifelong effect on the child.
Parents who are struggling to deal with their own emotional turmoil, with little awareness of, or empathy for, the emotional experience of the child, can quite easily set the child up for a lifetime of difficulty in adjusting to the divorce. Child-Friendly Divorce assists parents with suggestions, examples and techniques on how to avoid harming their children in this manner as well, such as developing a strong adult support system, so that unloading on children will be less of a temptation.