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CHILDREN OF DIVORCE, CUSTODY, TRANSITION AND STEP UP CUSTODY PLANS, PARENTING PLANS
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Children and Divorce
Your children will need your help more than ever during divorce and its resulting transitions. This may be an enormous task for you, especially because you are anxious, sad and angry. The negative impact of divorce on your children is, to some extent, within your control. Place their needs at the fore by following some basic guidelines. It is very important to explain the divorce to your children with reassurance and compassion. Children need the truth and it should be given in a blame free way. It is usually a good idea for the parents to plan how they are going to tell their kids and to do it together:
THE EXPLANATION: Parents should tell the children together whenever possible. This is the best way to provide reassurance. Honesty is essential. Take cognizance of your child’s personality and individual needs and make sure you have all the support you need in place. Validate your child’s feelings by saying it is okay to be sad. Explain that it is not their fault and that the failure of the marriage is between Mom and Dad only. They are not at fault. This needs to be repeated often, for years. They need to witness your respect toward each other as disparaging statements can impact their self esteem. There is no need for blame. There is every need for reassurance. “Mom and Dad will love you the same; we will always be there for you when you need us; we will be living separately, and you will be with both of us consistently and regularly.” Encourage questions and listen carefully. Therapeutic support is always helpful. This can be done through Art Therapy, counseling and workshops.
THE PITFALLS AND TIPS: Divorce is traumatic and will rock your child’s world. There are many things you, as a parent, can do to mitigate the potential for harm. The impact on your child will include fear of abandonment, loss, change, and parental sadness and tension. Make it easier for them by:
Refrain from talking to others about the divorce within ear shot of the children.
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Be patient, listen and be observant and take the time to respond to their needs.
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Address changes in behavior, anger, school problems as soon as they manifest.
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Instead of denial take action to help your children.
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Children can be embarrassed and ashamed of a divorce status. It is helpful to attend workshops with other kids. Arguing with your ex in front of children is unacceptable. If communications are sensitive email may help improve the atmosphere.
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Show respect for each other - remember your kids love both parents;
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Be adults and behave as your kids will learn to model your behavior;
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Maintain your dignity;
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Teach your children that conflict can be resolved by settling your divorce amicably;
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Place co-parenting at the fore;
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Parents should keep each other posted of all important occurrences, share information and work hard to make decisions together;
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Avoid bringing your personal issues and power plays into this decision making process;
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Both parents should stay fully involved in their lives;
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There should be consistent and similar plans for discipline and routine in both households Be reliable and always on time, as lateness can be a trigger for your child’s fears;
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Do not rely on kids for emotional support; and
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Do not compromise your discipline and routine standards, out of guilt.
The impact of divorce on your child depends almost entirely on how you, the parents, conduct yourselves during the process. While you may not be able to save your marriage, it is possible to end it with integrity.
415. 488.1611
nathan@privatecourts.com
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Melanie's choice of helpful reading for Parents:
1) Children's Adjustment in Conflicted Marriage and Divorce: A Decade Review of Research. Research Update Review Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 39(8):963-973, August 2000. KELLY, JOAN B. Ph.D.
2) Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. Dillon PA, Emery RE. -Separated parents randomly assigned to either mediation or traditional adversarial methods for resolving child custody disputes were surveyed nine years postsettlement. Noncustodial parents assigned to mediation reported more frequent current contact with their children and greater involvement in current decisions about them. Parents in the mediation group also reported more frequent communication about their children during the period since dispute resolution. PMID: 8720650 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
3) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 500 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA. bausermanr@dhmh.state.md.us Bauserman R
The author meta-analyzed studies comparing child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody with sole-custody settings, including comparisons with paternal custody and intact families where possible. Children in joint physical or legal custody were better adjusted than children in sole-custody settings, but no different from those in intact families. More positive adjustment of joint-custody children held for separate comparisons of general adjustment, family relationships, self-esteem, emotional and behavioral adjustment, and divorce-specific adjustment. Joint-custody parents reported less current and past conflict than did sole-custody parents, but this did not explain the better adjustment of joint-custody children. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that joint custody can be advantageous for children in some cases, possibly by facilitating ongoing positive involvement with both parents. PMID: 11915414 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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| Children will be hurt more by an abandonement than by the divorce itself. Both parents, as long as fit to be parents must remain a consistent presence in their child's life. |
Divorce, if concluded with dignity, could turn out to be an opportunity to redefine one's relationship from spouses to co-parents. Ultimately as time goes by you will probably realize that the children are better off with the love of happy parents than the trauma of a fighting couple, who by virtue of their animosity are inessence failing in their parenting.
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HELPFUL TIPS FOR PARENTS OF FOUR-YEAR-OLDS AND UNDER
The next few months will be difficult ones for you and your child as your family restructures itself. Know that how a child reacts varies according to developmental level and each child should, therefore, be treated differently. The degree to which divorce has a negative impact on your child is in your control. While that may seem daunting and/or unbelievable, there are very specific things parents can do that will radically alter your child(ren)'s experience of divorce.
First and foremost, please recognize the four-and-under crowd (for the most part) lacks the cognitive ability to both understand abstract concepts and contextualize what is said to them. For this reason, you cannot expect to talk to your child about divorce the same way you would an even slightly older child. Nor can you expect your child to talk about her/his feelings or ask questions the same way an older child could.
Understand your child’s temperament. Is she/ he flexible and/or easy, fearful and/or slow-to-warm or feisty and/or difficult? Each of these groupings will need different kind of parenting and the more you understand about your child’s response to change, the easier it will be to help her/him.
Parents can take certain steps that will help significantly with how their child(ren) will experience the divorce. Within the first five years of a child’s life, the primary developmental tasks move from attachment formation and development of trust as an infant, to an emerging sense of independence and ability to self-soothe as a toddler. This stage is marked by exploration. As a child grows older, the independence stage becomes primary; children in this stage are also developing verbal skills for the expression of feelings and needs.
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Do not think because your child(ren) cannot understand your words they do not understand the intensity of your emotions. Babies and toddlers are reactive to the emotions their parents are experiencing and may, in fact, feel flooded with painful feeling and emotions they are unable to express. This may result in increased crying, apathy or clinging, as well as disturbances in sleeping or eating patterns.
All children need to hear and understand they are not the reason for the divorce. Because young children are developmentally so ego-centric, it is quite typical for them to make the association between something they did that made a parent angry and that parent’s departure.
Be sure to remind your child the divorce is not her/his fault—and accompany it with lots of physical affection and reassurance. Let your child know you will always love her/him. These messages bear frequent repetition.
It is absolutely essential to protect your child from conflict. Be sure to reduce the level of inter-parental hostility as much as possible.
In order to reduce the level of conflict, it may be helpful to work on your own level of acceptance—try to think of your new relationship with the other parent as a business one and observe the same rules of conduct you would with a co-worker.
Finally, do not think of your divorce as something for which there is a "better" or "worse" time, in so far as your children's development and response to it is concerned. With divorce, there is no "better" or "worse" time, just different issues that will surface for your child (remember, those issues will surface differently), depending on her/his age.
| Remember, one of the most difficult jobs about being a parent is you are modeling everything for your child(ren). While divorce is tremendously painful, it is also an invaluable opportunity to model both how to nurture and take care of yourself, as well as healthy emotional responses. Pain and anger are normal feelings—it is what you do with them that determine how your child will experience her/his environment, and in turn, learn to respond. As difficult as it may be to accept, a happy, stable, single parent has infinitely more to offer a child that one embroiled in pain, uncertainty or a loveless relationship
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