Most parents who have already gone through a separation or divorce may likely tell you that is was the most difficult thing they had to do. Not only is it exhausting to sift through the emotions and the household effects, but it is also tenfold worse when you are involved in a high-conflict separation or divorce. As a parent, it can be heartbreaking to hear your child’s anguish and see their face of discontent, hurt, and confusion. How do you, as a parent, protect and educate your child to deal with their world falling apart when you can barely hold yourself together?
Too often we see parents at their worst of times and when they are blaming their former spouse, it has a detrimental impact on their child’s development.
How Children Internalize Divorce
When the family is intact, a child has the freedom and liberty to love each parent equally. The child turns to each parent for their needs to be met, for love, for guidance, and for nurturing.
After a separation, especially during high-conflict, the child is often pulled in two different directions with each parent demanding the child’s sole loyalty.
A child does not have the emotional or developmental capacity to understand why their parents are not together anymore and may internally blame themselves for living between two houses. Small children often express wishing mom and dad would live together again, potentially resulting in one or both parents becoming more bitter and angry.
When parents continue to fight in front of their child after separation, name call the other parent, and openly blame the other parent the child not only continues to blame themselves, they start internalizing that their parents are also blaming them.
Continuing in the pattern of heated arguments in front of the child damages their inner sense of right from wrong and sets the example of what to expect in relationships as they mature.
Guiding Children in Divorce
Every child still has the basic right to be both loyal and hold love for each parent, even after separation. Providing your child with this opportunity at all times will encourage confidence, healthy self-esteem, a sense of self-worth, and stability in their now upside-down world. When they are placed in the position by either parent to choose sides, this interferes in the already demanding developmental tasks of learning to navigate their world and form healthy relationships.
The old saying ‘Children live what they learn’ is never more true than it is following their parent’s separation. When your child is on the other parent’s parenting time and they return to your home with negative words about you, your heart may sink and you may become angry. Typically this is due to the need to defend yourself to your child even if you have done nothing wrong. Children are not the only ones who need to know they are loved, parents need it too. There is nothing wrong with feeling the need to be loved by your child but when the other parent appears to be turning the tables on you, the worst possible thing you can do is ‘fight fire with fire’.
A child does not understand the complexities of adult decisions and the intimate details of why a marriage or relationship didn’t work out AND they do not need to. A child should be allowed to remain a child without the adult world influencing their young and impressionable minds or hearts.The only one that hurts when an adult introduces mud-slinging using a child as the liaison……IS the child. The adult doing the mud-slinging will eventually lose favor with the child, over time. If the healthy parent is honoring the relationship between the child and the other parent, the child learns to respect and freely love their healthy parent; therefore, there is nothing to be gained by responding in like manner in high-conflict situations. Although it may be tempting to show the other parent who is right or who is in charge, it rarely works in favor of the child or you.
Learning how to communicate effectively with your child and the other parent is only one of the key factors in supporting your child’s development through separating and creating a healthy co-parenting platform for their future. Separation and divorce is a complex experience that can be confusing when trying to remain a positive parent amidst the chaos but it is more than possible.
If you would like to explore more in creating a supportive, safe, child-friendly environment post-separation while working through adult difficulties, please do not hesitate to contact Separation and Divorce Consulting for more information.
NOTE: If there has been abuse against you or your child during your relationship, your child may be negatively influenced by the other parent in an attempt to control your environment following a separation. Understanding domestic violence, the forms of domestic violence, and domestic violence by proxy is a more in-depth discussion that cannot be exhausted in this post.
