There is no “best way” to help kids through divorce, but there are things you can do to make “less worse” The below are lines I’ve heard from parents of divorce, divorce lawyers, and therapists working with families in divorce:

1. Love your kids more than you hate your former partner

I went out for coffee with a friend this week and asked her how she managed to be friendly with her former husband at concerts and performances of her children.  I noted that she made it look so easy.  Her answer?

“I decided a long time ago that I loved my kids more than I hated him”

In a bit of field research this week, I asked a son of a divorced friend what he would recommend to parents who are divorcing.  What he said was profound:

 

Kids really want to hear the message from parents that the kids are more important than the fighting. It is a powerful and important thing for a kid to see that his parents are willing to rise above their conflict for the sake of the children. The kid wants to feel like the parents love the kid enough they can figure out how to parent the kid together…that’s an important way for the kid to feel loved.

 

Whew…can I suggest a harder task for parents in the middle of separating…to get along with the person who you are dismantling your life with (at great cost) because fundamentally you can’t get along?!?!

 

What I’m suggesting is a lot to ask for from a parent in the midst of rage, betrayal, disappointment, terror etc. It’s being mindful that your children are watching the situation, and experiencing it, are gathering information about the world and their place in it.

• Children desperately desire the love and connection from both parents.  That means that not only do your children desperately want to continue a positive life giving relationship with you, they also want it from the other parent. When you give your child your blessing and support to love the other parent, you give them a gift.
• Children want to know that they are loved as your children, because they are your kids.  It’s very confusing for them to be put in the middle, used to send messages to the other parent, or fought over like property. They are sensitive to feeling like pieces in the ugly game of divorce, rather than precious beings that they are.

Things to think about:

• Be creative in deciding what effective communication can look like. Maybe have a brief weekly meeting to plan schedules and coordinate driving for the kids works…sticking to business and collaborating together so the kids know you’re a team for them. Maybe it’s sticking to email, and choosing to wait several hours to cool off and edit nastiness out of responses to keep the children’s interests front and centre–email as a tool to reduce the reactivity and maximize cooperation and safety.
• Find ways of actively supporting your child’s positive relationship with the other parent. Help your child prepare a birthday celebration for the parent, or fuss some on Mother’s Day/Father’s Day.  This is not about whether the other parent “deserves” a hand made card, so much as it is helping your child feel the joy of celebrating. Encourage your child to call the other parent after the game. Remind your child to speak respectfully about the other parent, even if the child is upset or mad about something the other parent has done.

2. Imperfect parenting is better than no parent

No parent is perfect. It’s tempting to vilianize the other parent in the midst of a divorce, and the pain of divorce tends to put negative filters to see another’s actions. However, the literature is clear.  Children love their parents, and want relationships with their parents.

There are absolutely cases in which you want to ensure safety of children…out of control drug use, threat of violence etc., it’s important not to be the “gatekeeper” that limits access between a child and the other parent when the threat of danger isn’t there.

Aside from cases of overt danger, which absolutely do exist, but far less often than the keeping of children from the other parent in our culture would indicate–open the space in your lives for the relationship with the other parent.  Yes, it will hurt if he shows up late, or she doesn’t show up at all, or if drops the kids off with a babysitter while he goes back to work. But it will create confusion and a different sort of pain to prevent the hurt by preventing the contact.

You are not responsible for the relationship of your child with the other parent–allow the children (provided there is no overt risk of harm) to experience the relationship with the other parent for what it is…don’t fix it, don’t cover for it, let it be. (And this can give space for the relationship to be a good one)

You can’t prevent hurt by limiting contact with the other parent.  That just changes the hurt.

3. Major on the majors: Secure attachment

Divorce rocks the foundation of a child’s life. One parent moves out and lives elsewhere…maybe down the block, maybe across the country.  The child now often has two homes. The child spends time with one parent or the other, alternating. Schedules have to be coordinated, and inevitably there are errors, miscommunications, and disappointments. Sometimes, there have been issues of addiction or other factors that create patterns of disengagement between child and one or both parents.

Mental health professionals talk a lot about the value of “secure attachment” between parent and child.  A secure attachment gives a child a safe haven–a space where they can relax and be safe, ask questions, feel their feelings, express confusion, be silly and try out new behaviours without fear of criticism and judgement. When the base of a child becomes split over two homes, the parental unit is not longer united…the stable base becomes sharply shaken.

Add to this the fact that the parents’ worlds are undergoing major transition…there is often significant grief, rage, betrayal, and simply exhaustion. Financial stressors, lawyer’s appointments, and reorganizing schedules can be overwhelming for newly single parents. It’s a real danger that the children will emotionally lose one or both parents as a safe haven, with the parent becoming preoccupied with their own stuff, and be less available to a child who needs attentive parents more than ever.

Think about simplifying life to focus on being together with your child/ren. Less activities running here and there, and more chance for building cozy forts together, more time for cookies and colouring and casual conversation at the table after school, and extra snuggles and stories at bedtime.  Give the child a chance to see that there is time for questions and sadness and struggles with yourself as a parent. (Noting that often people are starting new jobs or packing or working more hours as part of the changing circumstances of separation make this an extra challenge)

Allow for extra resources to deal with extra nightmares, more irritability, more defiance at chores, and more fights between siblings.  What has happened is upsetting and frightening for children…and this will be expressed in behaviour.  These are times when the child may need a “time in” rather than a “time out”…misbehaviour is one way of saying, “I’m scared and worried and not handling it well.  It doesn’t feel like things are OK” and a response that says, “I’m here, you’re safe, and it’s gonna be OK” is just what’s needed.

4. Deal with your s$#t. With grownups.

Many parents will tell their community, “The divorce is amicable, we’ll be fine”. That may be true…but I have worked with many people during and after divorce.  Divorce sucks.  It hurts. That amicable line…it sounds nice, but usually is a veneer for profound pain.

No one gets married intending to divorce.  It hurts to have the dream die.

Even when there is relief at leaving a painful relationship, there is pain of loss, the fear that inherently comes with transition and new routines.

Almost always there is some anger and disillusionment with the former partner…the very person with whom you now seek to co-parent.  And what went wrong in the relationship will likely to continue to rear its ugly head as you seek new routines to co-parent.  And that will further scrape and scratch at fresh wounds.

It won’t be easy to co-parent. it won’t be easy to single parent.

Supporting your child when they are having a rough time, supporting their relationship with the other parent (when everything in you says the other parent does not deserve your support in any way), and being a centred and warm parent will require you to dig deep and draw on resources you may feel you don’t have, when you’re being drained in your own life. 

Find ways to fill your tank so you have something to give your kids

Give yourself allowance for how hard divorce will be…and know that as a parent, the best gift you can give your children is an available parent (see point 3 about attachment above).  You are your child’s most important resource to get through their difficult adjustment…that behooves you to be kind and compassionate to yourself to help yourself through your difficult adjustment:

• work to get adequate rest. Divorce is exhausting.  Parenting kids after divorce is also exhausting. Compensate for that with extra rest.
• find some good friends who will listen to you rant and rave, swear and rage, sob and weep. Friends who will be sad with you, and angry with you, or rage for you.  Friends who will offer to do something rash to the other parent before dissolving into understanding/commiserating laughter.
• see a good therapist
• let yourself be sad and a mess. Don’t expect yourself to “have it all together”.  Give yourself permission to struggle
• be mindful of the pull to numb yourself by drinking/eating/shopping/working/gambling/spending too much. Notice those pulls and name them out loud…and create a space to find ways of comforting without numbing
• be mindful of the temptation to short circuit the pain by re-partnering quickly. Engaging in a romantic relationship as a way of coping with the pain of divorce may seem like a sure way to find happiness again. Generally, be mindful that dating happens after you’ve done some healing after the divorce, rather than as a means to healing. Dating needs to be done without involving the kids for months–which will create some perceived instability for the child. Dating with kids is complex and needs to be done sensitively

As you deal with your stuff with other grown ups you will be available to be there for your kids, without asking them to be there for you.  It’s not fair to ask kids to parent their parents.

5. Be carefully honest with your kids

Kids don’t need to hear “grown up stuff” at any time, including during separation/divorce…something referred to as “GUS” in our house. In the absence of information, kids will make up stuff…which can be worse than the truth.  And kids will have questions…and need to be allowed to ask questions, because parents don’t always know what they are wondering about.

When kids ask, “Why?” about the divorce, what they are often wondering about, is, “What did I do? Is there something I can do better to stop this?“. So…kids don’t need to know details about who did what to whom, but they do need to know it’s not about them. Kids may be wondering about need to move, change in schedules etc.  If you don’t know, say so. Avoid making promises you may not be able to keep.

Be real with your kids, at an age appropriate level.  Kids can smell dishonesty a mile away…and that breeds instability…so to cover for your partner by saying they had to go away on a long trip, when he is really in prison…you are setting up an environment of distrust. If mom doesn’t show up to pick up the kids for the weekend, you don’t need to make up elaborate stories when you don’t know.  Simply acknowledge the disappointment the child must feel, and say you don’t know why she didn’t show up. (See point 4…this is not the time to vent to your kids about how upset you are about this) Part of being honest is to acknowledge to the child that the child deserved to have the weekend with the other parent, and the child is so special, it certainly isn’t anything about them not being sufficiently loveable!

Avoid “jollying” up the situation.  A parent may experience significant relief at the end of a marriage…but to present divorce as something that is no big deal, or a brand new exciting adventure in this fabulous new apartment…well, yeah, a kid is not gonna buy it, even if they catch on that you want the child to pretend enthusiasm.

Keep your relationship with your child stable and safe by maintaining trust with age appropriate and careful frankness.

6. Shame will be the hidden gremlin for all

All of us struggle with shame, that feeling or experience of being flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.

• Shame will impact your parenting as you deal with your sense of failure, of being “not good enough” in marriage…”Am I parenting well enough?”, “What are other people thinking about my failure to make the marriage work?”, “What is the other parent thinking about me?”, “I bet I won’t matter to my kids much now that I’ve moved out.”
• Shame will impact your former spouse… “Others must think I’m terrible for leaving”, “What if my kids hate me?”, “How can I make sure that my child still loves me?”
• Shame will impact the kids…”What will my friends think?”, “What’s wrong with me that my parents didn’t love me enough to find a way to make it work?”, “How good do I need to be to make sure that another parent doesn’t leave me?”

No one likes to talk about shame…but the more we tell the story of the shame we experience, the less the power of the shame.  Shame drives behaviour…and compassion (which can be difficult in a divorce) is the antidote for shame.  Shaming shame escalates behaviour that arises out of shame…i.e.  Telling your former spouse that s/he is silly and ridiculous for buying extra toys to secure the child’s love won’t actually facilitate a positive outcome.

7. Throw spaghetti on the ceiling. Regularly.

A friend of mine talked about this being her words of wisdom to newly divorced parents.  When you get home from work late, after you pick up the kids from the new daycare, and you’re all tired and fried and on edge with each other…when you are trying to decide if the spaghetti you’re prepping for dinner is al dente…throw it on the ceiling to see if it sticks.

And the tension will be broken because you chose to switch a tense space up into a fun, joyous space.

Divorce is serious, and it’s a drag  But kids are kids.  They play…and they need the grownups to play with them.  During times of distress, one of the important ways to make a child’s world safe is to play.  Create opportunities to have fun with your child.  

Experiencing laughter/song/dance with your child/ren will centre all of you…remind you of the family that you are now.  Will remind you that there continues to be goodness and love in your home.  You are all more than your divorce.  Fun will remind you of that.

• when it rains, all go splash in the puddles…get thoroughly wet and dirty and giggle like crazy
• put the tunes on after dinner to clean up the kitchen…turn up the dance music to blaring to turn clean up into a dance party
• when the home is untidy and overwhelming, set the timer for 10 minutes and have a contest of cooperation…see how much you all can get done in a short period of time
• have campouts in the living room in sleeping bags when the kids find it scary to sleep in their own beds