In Australia, around 21,000 divorces involving children occur annually. Separation and divorce can be an emotionally exhausting and difficult time, something which is recognised by the Family Court of Australia, which provides resources to assist people through the process.
Separation and divorce with children can be even more challenging, and many parents want to know the “right” way to parent now they’re no longer together.
A dominating narrative of children and divorce is around unfavourable outcomes of children whose parents have separated. But the assumption divorce is always bad for children is not correct.
Very little research has looked at “contented” separated parents’ experiences, so much of the negative outcomes for children are not based on positive post-separation parenting relationships.
Different possible arrangements
There are many ways separated parents arrange their living, and new terms are emerging to describe non-traditional arrangements. One such arrangement is “birdnesting” in which there’s a “family home” and a secondary home: the parents move between homes, with the children always remaining in the family home.
Birdnesting is dependent on financial resources though, and participants in our soon-to-be-published study into post-divorce relationships reported the choices about living arrangements were dependent on a range of factors such as work and educational requirements, and financial resources.
For most of the parents in our study, children split their time between two homes in a 50/50 arrangement across a fortnight. For some people, this meant “one week on, one week off” whereas other children moved from one parental home to the other mid-week.
Depending on the age and activities of the children, participants described being increasingly flexible in relation to the arrangement of care practices. As children age, their needs change. School holidays produce opportunities to be more flexible. New sporting or leisure activities out of school hours may require adjustments to existing arrangements to allow for travel.
For younger children, having their favourite toys with them in either parents’ homes was important so parents talked about always packing a bag with their favourite things to go across households.
What was evident in all of the positive care arrangements we examined, was that they didn’t stay static.
The degree to which parents in our study communicated with their ex partner varied: some described their ex partner as a “friend” or “family” and had a weekly social engagement with them. Others communicated via text or telephone. But all of the positive parenting arrangements described communication as important.
Advice for parents
Some of the first conversations separating parents have are around living arrangements and care practices. Who will take the child/ren to school? Who is responsible for transport? What happens on the child/ren’s birthday? These tangible questions are often useful to discuss at the first opportunity and provide a foundation upon which parents can negotiate when their child/ren’s needs change over time.
An optimal environment in which two people can parent is one where issues between them are set aside in order to see each other as allies in parenting. Given the lack of recognition positive post-separation parenting has in the research literature, we asked the participants in our study what was important for others to know.
While there were differences across the group in terms of specific parenting arrangements (around food, screen time, and so on) the parents had many messages in common:
- be child-centred. See the world from your child’s perspective and be mindful of their needs. For example, if one parent begins a relationship with someone new, decide together how this will be introduced and the role the other parent has in navigating this
- make decisions together. Decide together what practices and rules are important to keep consistent across households. Some decisions require a united front such as arrangements for birthdays, educational and other commitments as well as behavioural expectations
- create the right atmosphere for your children through the way you talk about their other parent and the way you communicate with them. Children are good at picking up non-verbal cues and are aware of tension between parents. Think about what kind of household will allow your child/ren to thrive and feel emotionally supported
- work at your relationship. Positive post-separation parenting relationships are not always evident in the beginning (after separation) but they can be something to work towards.
- Things can change over time and although there may be an acrimonious separation, parents can and do change their interactions over time to create a positive parenting relationship
- find what works for you. For some people being flexible and being friends works, whereas for others clear boundaries and expectations are important. Neither of these is the “right” way. Whatever works for you and your ex-partner is what’s important
- go easy on yourself. It gets easier the more time passes from breaking up to re-establishing a relationship as co-parents. Go easy on yourself and keep the focus on being good parents.
Separation does not have to negatively affect your children’s outcomes or well-being. If both parents are committed to putting their differences aside in order to be the best parents they can be, there’s no reason children of divorce can’t grow up happy, healthy and well-adjusted.
Source: https://theconversation.com/how-to-co-parent-after-divorce-101608
When divorce is an obvious solution to a disastrous marriage, it’s easier for kids to understand. If either parent is abusive to partner and kids, an addict whose habit has thrown the family into poverty, or a criminal in the world and a tyrant at home, it makes sense to children that the more balanced parent would want to take them away from all that. When home is a place filled with tension, where everyone has to walk on eggshells to avoid a blowup, where the primary contact between the grownups is fighting and violence or seething hostility, kids often want out as much as one of their parents.
But what can the kids make of it when the reasons for the divorce aren’t so obvious? Adult reasons aren’t always appropriate to share with kids. The reasons you can share may seem lame to them. You’re not happy. You and your partner don’t share the same interests, activities, or goals. You or your partner is attracted to someone else. Sex isn’t what you think it should be. Daily life is boring at best; clouded by low-grade hostility at worst. Little decisions get left to one or the other. Big decisions seem impossible. Maybe there is a hidden addiction (gambling, shopping, Internet porn) that is eroding the marriage but isn’t visible to the children. You and your partner aren’t a team. You aren’t in love. You think life has to be better than this. But you’ve been wise enough to shield the children from your growing unhappiness.
Adding to the kids’ confusion is that you and the other parent have managed to work out a way to be responsible parents in spite of growing apart from each other. Maybe you’ve divided the turf, with each of you taking on different tasks — one becoming the caregiver; the other doing specific routines. Maybe you can’t talk to each other but you can both talk to the kids. Most important, the kids know you both love them. Kids, being kids, think the way you are together is the way all parents live. They think your family is no different from anyone else’s. They think everything is fine.
Although an amicable divorce is what most adults would want and what is ultimately better for the kids, it only adds to their bewilderment. If you guys can get along so well, they think, why couldn’t you just stay married and keep our family together?
Make no mistake. For the children in such a situation, your divorce is their catastrophe. They can’t believe it. From where they sit, you’ve got a good family. They love you both and don’t believe that you don’t love each other. Their usual reaction is panic and protest. They don’t want it to happen. They worry it’s their fault. They fantasize they can do something to stop it or fix it. They worry their parents will divorce them, just as they are divorcing each other. They hate it. They may even hate you for disrupting their life, for making the other parent leave, for changing things that seemed just fine to them.
Helping your kids through your amicable divorce is a long-term proposition. Since there was no obvious blowup and blowout, the kids will return to questioning the decision at each stage of their development. If you expect it, if you respond with age-appropriate answers, if you can avoid being defensive, the issue will quiet down again until the next developmental milestone. It often takes until they are adults and have had experience with adult relationships for them to really understand.
There are some common and predictable issues at every “why did you have to go and get a divorce?” conversation along the way:
- The kids will wonder if somehow the divorce is their fault. Since they don’t understand adult reasons for separating, since they are by definition narcissistic little beings, they will assume that it is something they did or didn’t do that drove one parent away or made the other one unwilling to stay a couple. Little kids will think it’s because they did something “bad.” Older kids will think they didn’t do well enough in school or didn’t obey enough of the rules or weren’t the right kind of kid. Teens are especially vulnerable to thinking it’s all their fault. You and their other parent will need to reassure them many, many times that the divorce is not about them.
- The flip side is that they will fantasize that they can get you two back together. They may even try to engineer it. They will try hard to be extra, extra “good” so that you will want to be a family again. They will try to manipulate situations so that you and the other parent have to get together and talk. They may try to sabotage a new relationship. You and their other parent will need to relieve them of their imagined responsibility for recreating the family. You’ll need to explain many, many times that the divorce is permanent.
- The kids will worry you will “divorce” them too. Their reasoning is that since you once loved your partner but left, you could leave them too. You and their other parent will need to explain to them frequently that partner love is different from parent love and that there is nothing they can do that will make either of you stop loving them or being their parents.
- In their efforts to make sense of the situation, kids will sometimes decide that one or the other parent is really the bad guy. Sometimes in a moment of temper, they will say terrible things: “You’re such a ____, it’s no wonder my father/mother left you!” “My dad/mom must have an awful secret or you wouldn’t have left!” Whatever your own feelings about your former spouse, kids need to feel that they have two good parents. You both will need to explain many, many times that the other parent is a perfectly good person but wasn’t a good partner for you.
- Often kids will make threats in attempts to get their parents to stay together or reunite. “I’ll run away.” “I’ll hate you forever.” “I won’t cooperate with your arrangements for where I should live or who I should be with.” You and their other parent need to repeat many, many times that you understand why they are so upset but that threats don’t solve the problems. You’ll need to have many, many serious talks about what might make things work better for them.
There’s no such thing as an easy divorce when there are children. Divorcing amicably doesn’t guarantee that the children will go along with the new arrangement without turmoil. They need empathy. They need your support. They need you to acknowledge that you are disrupting their lives. They need to be validated that you are making the choice that, yes, you are really so unhappy that at this point your happiness comes before theirs.
When parents are honest about how hard the divorce is on their children, the kids usually eventually accept it. It’s unfair to expect them to like it. It’s unreasonable to look to them to support the decision. But when children and teens feel heard, they are more likely to join in constructing a new idea of their family. The parents’ job is to work very hard to be cooperative co-parents and to do as much as possible to accommodate the kids’ needs for predictability and stability in the midst of the major disruption that even the most amicable divorce creates for them.
Source: https://psychcentral.com/lib/helping-kids-cope-with-your-amicable-divorce/
Divorce can wreak havoc on a child’s world and affect her life at school. How much information should a parent give a child’s teacher and other adults in the child’s life, and how should the child tell her friends? Our experts provide tips and guidance for parents to help their children navigate this difficult life experience.
When a child’s parents divorce, the mix of emotions he experiences—sadness, frustration, guilt, anger, and confusion—can make school a tough place to be. For some kids, the entire school year is lost. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Rosalind Sedacca, a certified corporate trainer in Florida, and her husband divorced when their son was in middle school. As difficult as it was, Sedacca and her ex-husband decided to coparent—he chose to live nearby in the same school district, they both remained involved in their son’s education, and they worked hard to create a stable life for him. As a result, their middle school son remained the A student he had always been.
The experience led Sedacca to create a support network for parents with resources on how to have a child-centered divorce. Her message is clear: Parents must put aside their anger toward each other and create a secure, loving environment for their children at each parent’s home and at school. She describes the approach as cooperative coparenting.
Sedacca advises enlisting help from the child’s teachers early on. “I highly advocate that parents create a support team so everyone has an eye on the child,” she says. Guidance counselors, social workers, administrators, coaches, and scout leaders can all be part of the team.
Teachers can provide insight into the child’s behavior and performance that a parent might miss. “The parents are so caught up in their own personal drama, they may not be able to recognize everything going on with their child,” Sedacca explains.
Robert Emery, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and a divorce mediation expert, agrees that parents should tell teachers about a pending divorce or separation without going into unnecessary details. “And parents should avoid putting teachers in the middle, just like they should avoid putting their children in the middle,” he says. “The goal in talking to the teacher is to alert him or her so they can be sensitive to and on the lookout for academic or emotional struggles.”
Here are tips from our experts on navigating the emotional terrain of your child’s school life post-divorce.
Separate early in the summer if possible. January and February are the most popular months for divorce. However, separating during summer vacation gives everyone—but especially your child—a little time to adjust before returning to school. It’s not always possible to time a split, but the experts say parents should commit to keeping their child’s needs in mind at every juncture.
Tell your child first. Don’t tell anyone in your community, including school personnel, know about your divorce until you have told your child. Once one person at school knows, soon everyone will know. You don’t want your child to hear the news from his friends.
Attend parent-teacher conferences together. It’s fine to request duplicate communication from the school via email. But when it comes to the parent-teacher conference, attend together with your former spouse. Suppress your negative feelings toward each other and focus on your child’s educational and emotional development.
Put aside differences for school events. Both of you should attend graduation ceremonies, school productions, and other sports events, keeping the mood light and the focus on your child. You don’t have to sit together.
Create a stable home life even though two homes are involved. “Maintain a smooth, predictable, loving, and supportive environment in your own home and during transitions [to the other parent’s home],” Emery says. “Keep a clear set of expectations in your own home that includes time for your children to do schoolwork and for you to help them.”
Help your child figure out how to tell her friends. Some kids are embarrassed when their parents divorce. Others are afraid to talk about it for fear of crying in front of their friends. It might help to role-play or give her a simple script. Emery suggests something like this: “You know what really sucks? My parents are getting divorced....Thanks for listening, I really need a friend right now.”
Work out a general public statement about your separation. Emery suggests something such as “Things got really bad between us, so we decided to split, but we’re working to put the children first.” Resist the temptation to vent or go into details with teachers and other parents at your child’s school. It will only feed the gossip mill.
Don’t let your emotions cloud your behavior at school. The goal is not to get the teacher, the school, or your child on your side against the other parent. Those kind of tactics are all about you, not about your children and her school success.
Don’t confide in your child. Being a kid whose parents are splitting up is tough enough. Don’t inadvertently turn your child into your therapist, your spy, or your messenger. “These are complex issues for adults,” Sedacca says. “Don’t put the burden on your child.”
Remind your child that the divorce is not his fault. Children often feel they’re responsible for the failure of their parents’ marriage. “They think if they did better in school, it wouldn’t be happening,” Sedacca says. Remind your child often that you love him and that it’s not his fault. Sedacca suggests saying “We will never divorce you.”
Be up front with your child about changes. Divorce almost always means new living arrangements for a child. And since it costs more to maintain two residences, that might mean less money for activities and vacations. Set realistic expectations for your child. Switching off between homes might mean time away from a beloved pet. Try to find the best solution, and be honest with your child about what’s possible and what isn’t.
Minimize your child’s stress. Don’t badmouth your ex. Don’t fight with your ex in front of your child. Don’t use your child to get even with your ex. Don’t make her choose between you and your ex. The less stress your child is under, the better equipped she’ll be to stay on track at school.
Let your child express his feelings. Sometimes kids keep their feelings bottled up during their parents’ divorce. They don’t want to put extra pressure on their parents. They want to be good children. Look into therapy, peer support groups, or other resources for your child. He needs a safe place to talk about his feelings. Let him know you want him to talk to you about his feelings. Promise to really listen.
Divorce can feel like the end of the world for a child, but it’s really a new chapter, Sedacca says. Parents have a window of opportunity to minimize their child’s pain by putting the child’s needs first from the start. By working together to be involved in your child’s education, your child can thrive in the classroom. “It’s not the divorce that scars children,” she says. “It’s how we handle it.”
Source: https://www.schoolfamily.com/school-family-articles/article/10832-divorce-how-to-help-your-child-at-home-and-at-school
Divorce can be earth shattering for children. One of the biggest challenges divorced parents face is helping their kids through the process.
This is hard enough when the children are under the watch care of their father or mother. Once they head back to school and spend most of the day away from Mom and Dad, parents are often left feeling helpless.
Numerous studies have linked divorce to setbacks in school. One study even found that the actual breakup itself, not the discord leading up to it, led to lower math scores and poor interpersonal skills for children of divorce between the first and third grade.
Research has also shown that children of divorce are twice as likely to repeat a grade and five times as likely to be expelled or suspended. They often show more withdrawal, dependency, inattention, unhappiness and less work effort.
Perhaps a key reason why kids’ educational performance suffers so severely after their parents’ divorce is due poor parent-teacher communication. A recent survey of 689 parents and 174 teachers indicates that teachers feel parents are leaving them in the dark about major changes in the home that lead to behavior problems at school. On the other hand, parents feel teachers fail to reveal details about their child’s behaviour.
In the survey, 94% of teachers said they feel it’s important for parents to inform them of a divorce or other rupture in the marriage, but only 23% of divorcing parents surveyed say they actually disclose that information.
Although sharing details about your personal life to your child’s teacher might make you uncomfortable, it is relevant information for them to know. Without that knowledge, the teacher doesn’t know to be on the lookout for abnormalities in your child’s behavior. Your child’s disruptive actions might be treated as typical misbehavior when in actuality it is rooted in something much deeper.
This process is often exacerbated if your divorce occurred over the summer months and your child is suddenly forced to adjust to a new routine when his or her living arrangement has recently been turned upside down. They might also be struggling with the pressure of explaining to their friends and classmates that their parents are no longer together.
It is easy to see how all these factors can snowball and lead to an academic catastrophe. If not addressed, these issues can lead to even larger problems later in life.
There are a number of back-to-school tips for divorced dads to help make the transition easier for their children.
It is especially important to establish a routine. If at all possible, work cooperatively with your ex to make your child’s life as stable as possible. Set aside scheduled times for homework, personal time, dinner and bedtime.
Communicate with your child and find out how they are feeling. Make sure you know what is going on at school. Talk with teachers and school counselors and, as stated before, let them know that your child is dealing with a new living arrangement.
Although life after divorce does go on, you have to recognize that your child’s world has changed dramatically. It takes a team effort, but by communicating effectively with all the parties involved and putting your child’s interests above everything else, you can go a long ways to helping them get back on track and still have a great school year.
Source: https://dadsdivorce.com/articles/how-divorce-affects-kids-school-performance/
You're not alone.
Children who’ve witnessed their parents’ marital problems and divorce sometimes replicate those behaviors in their own relationships.
But they also tend to love smarter. They’re less likely to believe in “happily ever after” and know to keep their expectations about love reasonable. Below, kids of divorce open up about how their parents’ divorces have impacted their own love lives.
1. Not trusting that partners mean what they say and will actually follow through.
“I find it hard to trust they’ll keep coming back, which can lead to neediness if I leave it unchecked. My dad, who I adored, and who adored me, had a habit of trying to please me by making promises he couldn’t keep, and this means I often have doubt that anyone will stick to what they say. I used to keep my expectations too low to avoid the disappointment I expected to follow.” ― Reeyee Rockette
2. Fearing commitment and always making an exit strategy.
“Being a child of divorce taught me that ‘happily ever after’ does not really exist. I was always the cynic in the back of the theater who couldn’t buy into the idea of the couple riding off into the sunset. I knew that real relationships were layered and full of complexities. Growing up and watching the layers of a marriage peel off taught me to create walls and manage my emotional investment well. No matter how serious things became, I dated with an emergency exit strategy in place. My fear of heartbreak and divorce has made commitment both terrifying and difficult. So, despite the trail of broken hearts I’ve created, I find comfort behind the walls that keep me emotionally guarded.” ― Phoebe J. Mikneah
3. Being too much of a people-pleaser.
“As a child of divorce, I became the ultimate people-pleaser. Every relationship I have been in focused on me trying to please the other person with little to no regard of myself and my own needs. I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted or needed out of a relationship and then became upset when I didn’t get it. Then, I would never be the one to end a relationship out of my fear of abandonment, no matter how unhealthy it was. These are the core issues I still face in my thirties. Even though I am aware of them, it is a hard habit to break when it is ingrained in your psyche. The only way I’ve been able to overcome these struggles is by taking the advice of many relationship experts and to date myself. It felt selfish at first but now I am learning to do what makes me happy and not worry as much about trying to please others.” ― Adam Petzold
4. Dealing with abandonment issues.
“My parents’ divorce and the initial absence of my father caused me to develop severe abandonment issues not only within my love life but also within my relationships with friends. I found myself constantly double checking on the state of these relationships. I was very sensitive to little things that should not have mattered, such as needing reassurance that they loved me or still liked me. I found myself living in fear of offending someone or doing something that would cause them to not want me. These insecurities became severe during my college years and caused issues within my multiple attempts at relationships for years. It wasn’t until I truly did some soul searching that I recognized that the insecurity and paranoia had come from the trauma the divorce had caused me. It was only then that I was able to resolve them and became involved in a healthy, now long-term, relationship.” ― Jeaiza M. Quinones
5. Seeking out spouses with the same issues that broke up their parents’ marriage.
“I saw my mom in a relationship with a narcissist and didn’t know any different. They divorced when I was a child, but I remember it very well. I married one at 19 and we divorced nine years later, but it took several years to be brave enough to do so. I am a better person now but it took a lot of mending.” ― Lindsey Gail Wright
6. Struggling to discuss feelings.
“I struggle to discuss feelings and important issues in relationships. But it mostly taught me there is a way out and that I don’t have to put up with crap from a partner.” ― Tash Smith
7. Holding on to the idea that love must be difficult.
“When surrounded by tumultuous relationships, children yearn for the balance that is key in every relationship. The rocky and inconsistent behavior of watching two adults quarrel can sometimes result in this idea that love must be difficult or a battle in order for it to be considered love. This is commonly felt amongst children of divorce, which may cause them to recreate this behavior in their own love lives. The crucial decision to disown this pattern of dysfunction and develop a new set of ideals, boundaries and perceptions of love is fundamentally what helped me survive and thrive in relationships.” ― Zoe Bernstein
8. Coming on too strong.
“Seeing my parents divorce made me realize how badly I want a happy ending. I’m a hopeless romantic by nature and by my own admission, and that desire can come off stronger than intended when dating. Some people in my life seem to think that I have a ring in my pocket at all times, just waiting to give it to someone, but that’s not the case. I just know that I’d rather have one woman in my life than deal with the headache and drama that comes with dating different people.” ― Mike Zacchio
9. Not undestanding what behaviors are normal in a relationship.
“I grew up in a family of yellers. If we were stuck in traffic, my dad yelled and slammed his fists repeatedly against the wheel. If my mother burned dinner, she shouted in frustration until my brother or I came to comfort her. Now I realize they were taking out their frustrations with each other out on things they couldn’t control—broken ovens, car accidents. When I first started dating my future husband, we hit massive traffic on our way to a concert. I prepared myself for him to start shouting and yelling, just like my father. And... he didn’t. Instead, he invented fun car games for us to play while we wound our way through the inevitable cluster of cars. Only then did I realize that yelling like that, over such trivial matters, wasn’t normal.” ― Emily Ballet
10. Pushing people away.
“I think [the divorce] was the subconscious beginning to the unknowing wall of protection I built around my heart as a teenager and young adult. Once anyone got too close, I pushed them away first so nobody could break my heart, except me.” ― Jayne Schroeder
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dating-struggles-children-of-divorce-face_us_579a9b91e4b0693164c0a76d
