Children of divorced parents

By Rachna Buxani, Counselling Services Coordinator, GEMS group of schools

Divorce is not a pleasant situation.  It is one of the most traumatic and devastating things to endure.  Parents are as emotionally wounded as children.  The family unit is the most important part of stability of young children. 

Parents give love, provide emotional support and teach their children skills and knowledge about life, as well as serve as role models.  The break up of the family unit through divorce can be a heart wrenching experience for children. Divorce can adversely affect a child in terms of their behaviour, school, relationships, and self-esteem.

Every child experiences a range of emotions during the course of his or her parents’ divorce.  Children experience feelings like grief, sadness, anger, guilt and confusion.  As a parent, it is your job to make sure that your child’s emotions are validated and dealt with in a healthy manner. It can be helpful to simply acknowledge that you understand that your children are upset that you are getting a divorce, and that they are in some distress. You can let them know that it's okay to talk to you about it, and even if they feel very angry at you, that you will still listen to them. You can also offer that if they don't want to talk to you, there are other people they can talk to including school counsellors, social workers, psychologists and other professionals.

Don’t bad mouth your ex-spouse

Since the children are the ones most closely connected to the ex-spouse, it is easy to vent negative feelings against the other parent to them.  However, this behaviour almost always backfires and may result in your child alienating you.  If you cannot say anything good about your ex-partner, don’t say anything.

Divorce can throw the child's entire life into a whirlwind. There will more than likely be financial instabilities due to loss in income of the parent who has moved out. There may be a change in residence or schools. Also, for both parents and children, holidays and birthdays after a divorce can be some of the most difficult things to deal with, traumatic even. It is important that as many things as possible in the children’s lives, remain the same. Familiarity with as many things as possible, with the least amount of disruption, is crucial to minimizing the emotional damage divorce causes to the children. It is also important that the parent living away is still actively involved in the child’s life.  The ideal relationship for children of divorce with the parent who has moved out is to have them close by and be there at anytime the child wants or needs them. Both parents should be at all important events in a child’s life including parent/teacher conferences, ball games, plays, dance recitals and proms.

Work together for the well-being of the children

Some other things to keep in mind are that a child in the midst of a divorce situation needs to be reassured that he/she is loved. Next, the child needs to know that he/she is going to be taken care of and will still have a home. The child also needs to be told repeatedly that the divorce is between mommy and daddy. Many times children end up feeling that the divorce is their fault or that the parent is leaving because they do not want to be with the child anymore.  Children must be told and made sure to understand that this is NOT true. Do not assume that your child knows this.

Children handle divorce most successfully when parents work together for the sake of the child they both love.  It is critical for the well being of the children for both parents to continue to play important roles in their lives. The most important thing for you, as a parent to remember, is that even though divorce may be difficult on you, you owe it to your child to minimize the effects it has upon you’re his or her life!!

Photo courtesy: news.bbc.co.uk

Rachna Buxani, with an M.Ed in School Counseling from Suffolk University in Boston and a B.A. in Psychology with a concentration in Child and Youth from Eastern Connecticut State University, USA has specialised in Middle and High School Counseling. Rachna's expertise is in assessment and management of problems related to adolescence. She writes regularly on parenting issues on womenone.or, and answers to readers' queries related to it.

Have something to say about the article? Say it here
 

*************