How to Help a Child Cope with Divorce

Divorce is a stressful and hurtful time for everyone that is part of the family experiencing the divorce, but it is especially hard on the children. It is all to common for parents that are divorcing to forget about how it will affect and effect the children that seem to be caught and straggling in the middle of this uncomfortable situation. No matter what brought this couple to the stage of divorce, it is essential that they assist their children in coping with the divorce.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Make sure both mother and father remember that there are children involved with the situation you are in. This will help you to be sensitive to what they may be going through at the moment and long after the divorce papers are signed.
2. Help the children understand that the divorce is definitely not their fault. This has to be stressed to the children on every occasion both parents have. Put aside the pettiness that often accompanies divorce and marital breakdown and choose to not allow the children to feel like they did something wrong that caused the marriage to end.
3. Put down all animosity that is felt toward each other. Once you have decided to get a divorce and deem the marriage “over”, it is time to let go of the past, the blame and the causes that brought you to divorce. Learning to let go of the animosity will help both parents move forward with the best interest of the children as their new focal point. Sure, it is easier said than done, but realize that all the animosity that is felt will spill over into how your parent the children and how sensitive you will be to their feelings. It is important that your feelings come second, and the children come first.
4. Do not make the children into bargaining chips or tools of spite. This will do more damage than good and will hinder them from coping with the divorce at all. Making the children feel like they are a “tug-of-war” rope will place more stress on to them. Remember, they had nothing to do with the breakdown of the marriage, and therefore should not be used as weapons to hurt the each other. Be parents and act like mature adults.
5. Try to be fair about visitation. Unless one parent was known for violence and abuse, visitation should be fair and the encouragement of quality time with each parent will help your children settle in to the new changes to the family dynamics.
6. Limit making your children feel like they have to choose one parent over another, or that they must show more loyalty to the one parent that may feel they were most wronged by the other parent. What transpired between the marriage that brought it to the end and divorce has no bearing on the children taking sides. Encouraging them to take sides will make them feel bad and stressed out. It no longer matters that dad had an affair, or that mom was a shop-a-holic that squander lots of money, the marriage is over, but the children are still the mutual outcome of the relationship.
7. Eliminate all conversation about the divorce, the proceedings and the “he said, she said” business. These conversations should not be had in front of the children or in their earshot.
8. Pursue an amicable approach and relationship. Remember, you two as a couple cannot go back and erase whatever brought you to end the marriage and it is really water under the bridge once you have made the decision to divorce. Getting on to an amicable playing field will help the children cope and adjust to the decision you, as adults, have made. This does not mean you have to be best friends, but it does mean you have to be socially positive in order to keep the well-being of the children an important factor. Children that see their parents getting along will cope better.
9. Never bicker in front of the children. It may have been something done when the marriage was still ongoing, but it was not good to do then and it is still not good to do now.
10. Leave insults and ill words toward the other parent out of communications with the children. The other parent may totally be what you feel they are, but they are the parent of your children. Children that hear “put-downs” and “insults” take them personally, as if you have called them the name, because all they see is that they are part of the person you are insulting. To a child, their mom or dad can do no wrong, and it is not fair to make them feel like a parent is bad. It can damage their personal self-esteem.
11. Communicate with the children. Ask them how they are feeling and encourage them not to bottle up what they are feeling. Also, let them know that they can talk to either parent at any time. Each parent should try to be easily accessible to the children while they are learning to cope with divorce.
12. Initiate family counseling for all parties involved in the divorce. Through family counseling you will be given tools and information that will help both parents assist their children in coping with the divorce. When there is unwillingness for parents to seek out this helpful form of counseling, then they should at least initiate it for the children to have a neutral mediator help them communicate what they are going through.

Tips & Warnings

• The best way to assist a child in coping with divorce is to put down the anger, and remember that the children are the best part of what came out of the marriage. Remembering that will help you put their health and wellness above the destructive tendencies that seem to go along with divorce.
• Children that are watching and living through a divorce tend to feel depressed and helpless. When a child displays signs of depression or possibly begins to act out negatively, it is important that you seek out therapy for the child. It just may head off a more serious issue and problem that result from the stresses a child lives with during divorce.