VP Articles | Family Fun Calendar | Advertising | Find VP | Be In VP | About Us

by Jackie Titus

You May Be Getting A Divorce, But Your Children Are Not

Since 1970 at least a million children in America have experienced their parents getting a divorce. In the 1990s, 40 percent of all married adults had already been divorced. Divorce has become so common that all of us know people who are divorced. Chances are we are one of them, or are a child from a divorced family, or have close relatives or friends who are divorced. Because divorce happens so routinely, we may have become numb to the effects of divorce on families, even when it is our family. We may just think this is something we have to endure and may not think about the possible long range consequences of it.

Divorce is one of the biggest stressors that any family ever has to deal with. It brings many significant changes to a family’s life and change and stress are synonymous. It means changes in finances, in the organization of daily life, in the most significant relationships and in individual identities. Life is turned inside out and nothing appears to be as it once was. For most families the changes and feelings brought about by divorce are extreme enough to result in a crisis.

When going through a crisis like divorce, it is normal to experience intense feelings, such as anxiety, sadness, grief, anger and hopelessness. When you are filled with emotion, it is almost impossible to think clearly. Recall a time when you were worried about something and sat down and tried to read. You read the same sentence over and over without understanding it. That is because when you are filled with emotion, you cannot focus or concentrate. Therefore, it’s important to have an outlet for dealing with your feelings, such as talking to a trusted and understanding friend, a member of the clergy, or a mental health professional. Not dealing with our feelings impairs our ability to handle the daily demands of the situation. Also, the feelings will interfere with our getting on with our lives in a healthy way.

Adults going through a divorce usually feel overwhelmed trying to deal with the demands of the situation and cope with their feelings. But what about when there are children involved? Regardless of the child’s age when the parents divorce, it is a life shaping event. You can bet that the children are also experiencing a crisis. The children’s lives, as they have known it, are also coming to an end.

There is a great deal to be learned from the research that has been done on the effects of divorce on children. All of it emphasizes the importance of parents never losing sight of the long range consequences their behavior and decisions can have on their children. Longitudinal studies show that the effects of divorce are not limited to the time period in which the divorce occurs. Rather, it continues to have consequences on the functioning of the children well into adulthood. In a landmark 30-year study done by Wallerstein, Lewis& Blakeslee (2000) 93 children from families of divorce were followed into adulthood and compared to a control group. The conclusion was that the strongest impact of divorce is during the child’s 20s and 30s. The results that manifested in early adulthood were fear of relationships failing, fear of change, and fear of disloyalty and abandonment. These fears seriously impact the person’s ability to establish a lasting, intimate relationship. Well, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Children learn to have a successful relationship mainly through what is role modeled for them.

How parents choose to end their marriage can affect their children for the rest of their lives. Parents need to remember that although they will no longer be married to each other, their children will continue to be sons and daughters. And although they were unable to make a success of their marriage, they still need to make a success of being parents. It is not too late to role model how to treat the other parent with respect and decency and how to cooperate in solving problems. Think what this would teach children about how to have relationships and what it would do for their sense of security, as compared to seeing their parents continue to be enemies. While dividing up the financial assets, deciding who gets the house, etc., are important, the most important decisions have to do with how to nurture and sustain the relationship of each parent with the children.

When I was a child, about all that was known about raising children were platitudes such as “spare the rod and spoil the child” and “children are to be seen and not heard.” Fortunately, that has changed and today much is known about what children need when going through a stressful time. In Thomas Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat,” he makes the statement: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” This is good advice. We should not waste the opportunity divorce presents us. We need to look at it as an opportunity to learn and solve our problems in a way that minimizes the negative consequences on our children. Here are some guidelines for trying to do that.

• Communicate to the children that you are getting a divorce. Do not keep it a secret. Children know when things are not right with their parents. It is better to be honest with them and help them begin to prepare for what is to come.
  
  
• Emphasize that the divorce is in no way the fault of the child. Do this often.
  
  
• Give the child as many details as possible about what changes will come and what solutions have been worked out to handle the changes.
  
  
• Never use children to get at the other parent. Never put them in the middle and expect them to take sides.
  
  
• Never bad mouth the other parent. This can result in making children feel bad about themselves.
  
  
• Try to maintain as much continuity as possible. Divorce is filled with change, so minimize it where you can. For example, unless it is absolutely necessary, do not move. Children will need the familiarity of their home, school, teacher, neighborhood and friends.
  
  
• Reassure children that they are loved and that everything possible is being done to ensure their well being. Do this often, also.
  
  
• Educate yourself about the behavioral changes you need to watch for, depending on the age of the child, and be ready to take steps to help the child deal with the impact of the divorce in a positive way.
  
  
• Do not confide in your child as if they were a friend or rely on them to meet your needs for companionship.
  
  
• Avoid giving children adult responsibilities. It is common in divorced families for at least one child to have to quickly grow up and take on responsibilities that are inappropriate for their age.
  
  
• Do not lower the bar. While it is important to understand that a child may be going through a very difficult time, it is essential to help the child learn healthy ways to cope, rather than make excuses for, or to overlook inappropriate behavior. Remember a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Just as the parents can grow and learn, so can the children. They can learn skills that will serve them the rest of their lives.
  

If you or the children are having trouble adjusting and need outside support, do not hesitate to get it.

Talk to the child’s teachers and make them aware of the situation. Find out what resources are available through the school to help during this difficult time. Many schools have mental health professionals and guid- ance counselors. Some even have support groups for children dealing with crises.

In general, parents must work together to ensure the children’s needs are met. The consequences of not doing this are just too great. There is ample evidence that a bitter divorce, where parents continue to fight or one parent is alienated from the children, has the potential of being disastrous. According to Celia Solomon, a licensed professional counselor in Columbus, it is vital that the parents work together without competition and put the children’s needs for wholeness first. She feels this is a must if parents are to see their children thrive.

Unfortunately our traditional court system is set up to emphasize the differences that a couple has. It almost requires that they continue to be enemies and is structured to bring about a win/lose situation for the family. When a couple goes to court, they focus on the negatives of the situation, and a judge decides the outcome. The couple may leave the courtroom with anger, bitterness and resentment, and yet still be required to have a relationship and share in the rearing of their children.

Most people do not know that in Columbus there is an alternative to getting a divorce in the traditional way. Nolan Murrah, director of the Office of Dispute Resolution, heads up a program called “Collaborative Practice.” This method encompasses many of the positive points stressed above. Collaborative Practice is different from traditional divorce in that no lawsuit is filed. Parents agree that they want to end their marriage as humanely as possible and in a way that takes into consideration the best interests of their children. They agree that they will strive to resolve their differences without going to court.

Murrah said that in his experience it is not unusual to see parents enter into a divorce with hostility toward each other. Because of their hostility, they forget that their spouse is their child’s parent and they are unaware of what their hostility does to their children. Going to court does little to resolve these hostilities. Rather, it often exacerbates the situation. However, when a couple decides to participate in Collaborative Practice, the emphasis is entirely different. From the beginning the parties are focused on working together to find solutions.

In Collaborative Practice each party is assigned a lawyer trained in collaborative law. The couple and their lawyers meet, identify the issues and negotiate the settlement of the issues in a way that is best for all parties involved, especially the children. The goal is a win/win, rather than a win/lose outcome. The couple is guided by their lawyers to focus on the long term effects of their decisions, not just on getting as much as they can out of their former partner.

Another benefit of Collaborative Practice is that in addition to trained lawyers, there are also financial and mental health professionals trained in this method. If additional help is needed in resolving any of the issues identified by the couple, an appropriate professional is called in to lend their expertise. These professionals can work with the couple or with an individual spouse or child.

Reduced cost is another benefit of ending a marriage through Collaborative Practice. Joseph L. Waldrep, a trained and registered collaborative lawyer, assured me that divorces obtained through Collaborative Practice are at least one-third less expensive than divorces obtained by traditional means. This is partially due to the shorter amount of time required when from the beginning the focus is on finding solutions, rather than finding fault.

A.E. Daniel III is another lawyer trained in Collaborative Practice. Just like Murrah and Waldrep, he is passionate about the process. During Daniel’s 38 years of practicing law he has witnessed over and over how traumatic divorce is for families, especially the children. Through Collaborative Practice he has seen the families have a different experience. When asked to describe the differences, he said those families have a calmness about them that families going through the traditional divorce process do not have. He attributes this to their having participated in a process where the goal is to find solutions, rather than tear each other down.

Katherine Bowden, an elementary school guidance counselor in Virginia, observes that a child’s recovery from divorce is based on how the parents handle the divorce. She commented, “The more the parents work as a team for the children, instead of against each other, the less traumatized the child is and the more the parents fight, the more paralyzed and stuck the child becomes.”

Daniel would like to see our court system changed so that judges are trained in family relations. He would also like to see a Domestic Relations Court established. In this court families going through a divorce would work as a team and participate in Collaborative Practice. Maybe for the sake of the children we should all join Daniel in trying to make these changes a reality.

CHILDREN’S REACTIONS TO DIVORCE

AGES 3 TO 5 Likely to exhibit a regression of the most recent developmental milestone achieved; sleep disturbance; exacerbated fear of separation from the custodial parent, and yearning for the non-custodial parent.

AGES 6 TO 8 Tend to react with great sadness; openly grieve for the departed parent; may feel fearful, insecure, helpless, and abandoned by the missing parent; often express guilt and blame themselves for the divorce; preoccupation with fantasies that their parents will happily reunite; have an especially difficult time with the concept of the permanence of the divorce.

AGES 8 TO 11 Anger and powerlessness are the predominate emotions; grief for loss of previously intact family; greater tendency to label a “good” parent and a “bad” parent; very susceptible to attempting to take care of a parent at the expense of their own needs.

AGES 12 TO 18 Prone to responding to their parent’s divorce with feelings of loss, sadness, anger and pain; a typical adolescent reaction to parental divorce often involves acting-out behaviors, such as sexual promiscuity, delinquency, use of alcohol and drugs and aggressive behavior; tend to focus on the moral issues surrounding divorce and will often judge their parents’ decisions and actions; many adolescents become anxious and fearful about their own future love and marital relationships; this age group has the capability to perceive integrity in the post divorce relationship of their parents and to show compassion for their parents without neglecting their own needs.

Source: Helping Children Cope with Divorce: The School Counselor’s Role by Nancy Beckman