Divorce & Separation Anxiety
While divorce is a difficult experience for any couple to go through, it can be even harder on their children. Children whose parents are divorcing may go through a period of deep separation anxiety, where they cannot bear to part with one or both parents. Understanding what children are going through regarding their separation anxiety can help a parent more deftly guide them though the transition.
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What is Separation Anxiety
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Separation anxiety is the distress children feel when forced to leave the presence of the main caregiver, particularly a parent. Though it normally peak in small babies around 18 months, the shake-up of a divorce can cause separation anxiety to reoccur in children of all ages.
Longing for Absent Parent
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In cases of divorce, children do not just feel separation anxiety when they are apart from their primary caregiver. It is common for children to long for whatever parent they are not with, especially if they feel powerless to contact that parent. This shows that even if a parent is not the primary caregiver, the children still think about and desperately needs that parent in their life.
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Keeping Contact
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Allowing your children as many avenues as possible to stay in contact with the absent parent is a good way to combat separation anxiety. This includes the standards, such as a phone number or email, as well as other forms of communication. Children will appreciate letters, cards, hidden notes and joint parent attendance at special events. Such contacts are not intended to sabotage the custodial parent's time with the children, but to allow the children to feel the united presence of both parents.
Parental Civility
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One way to help children combat separation anxiety is to keep hostility toward an ex at a minimum. If a children grow to believe that his parents hate each other, every interaction between their parents will cause more anxiety. Treating an ex with civility and kindness will assure children that their parents are rational, loving adults, allowing them to feel more secure under the care of either.
Routine
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Child psychologists are almost unanimous in their assertion that, although children are flexible creatures, they benefit tremendously from order and predictable routine. It can cause children a great deal of stress to have that routine altered from house to house in the case of a divorce. Parents should try to maintain as much sameness between their two homes as possible, at least in the initial phases of the separation. If the children have a special stuffed animal, a book, a beside lamp and a drink of water before bed at Mama's, it will comfort them greatly to know those same basic things are awaiting them at Daddy's. Consistency helps lessen separation anxiety.
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References
- Photo Credit happy kids image by Marzanna Syncerz from Fotolia.com
