Being Proactive: The effects of divorce on your child
Along with producing many meditation CD/MP3’s, such as Meditations for Abundance and Love: Volume I Deserving and Volume II: Manifesting (available here at: http://bit.ly/meditat3), I have also written a best-selling book, The 7 Fatal Mistakes Divorced and Separated Parents Make: Strategies for Raising Healthy Children of Divorce and Conflict, available in print or PDF at inlovewithme.com/books, or on Kindle through Amazon at http://amzn.to/TIRGz4. Individual chapters are also for sale on https://inlovewithme.com/books/e-book-chapters.
Here is an excerpt on being proactive with the effects of divorce on your child:
Some parents may feel bad that their child “has” to see a professional due to their divorce. You should only feel bad if you do not have your child see a professional. My model of working with families of divorce is a proactive model. I do not believe something has to be “wrong” with the child. Children need to process their divorce experience with a professional so that nothing stands in your child’s way of living to their full potential. Even in the best divorce situations, children still have huge feelings; acknowledging these feelings early on is healthy. With every child I work with, I work through the child’s concerns so they can let them go and move forward more easily in life. If they don’t acknowledge them now, they will have to do this work later and it will be far more difficult for them later in life. Give your child the gift of working with someone who can assist them now in living to their full potential. I prefer to work with children early on vs. later when they are having bigger issues such as failing in school, drugs, drinking, etc. I talked with a counselor who saw teenage children for many different issues. Her practice was not focused on children of divorce, its focus was teens with issues. She said, “Most of the children I see are children of divorce. That ends up being a focus of my practice by default.”
National studies report that children of divorce are referred for mental health visits about three times as often as children in two-parent, intact families. Please note, these are not proactive visits, these are children with issues after the divorce has occurred. This is my point. If we take care of children up front, they will struggle less and have to seek less counseling later as teenagers or in their adult years.
Shannon R Rios MS is a successful Life Coach and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She coaches parents as a life coach through her life coaching business www.inlovewithme.com so that parents can move forward and create healthy lives and relationships with themselves, their children and others. She is also the founder of www.healthychildrenofdivorce.com
If you enjoyed this article, her best-selling book on parenting after divorce and healing after divorce is The 7 Fatal Mistakes Divorced and Separated Parents Make: Strategies for Raising Healthy Children of Divorce and Conflict and can be found here: https://inlovewithme.com/books
What can you do to get started?
You can contest everything else, but one thing that we know to be true is your child did not choose this divorce. I believe that since this divorce or separation was the decision of adults, you have the responsibility to make this situation the easiest possible for your child. Sometimes, you may feel put out. I am here to tell you that your child feels put out a lot. It is important to realize how much your choices have impacted or will impact your child. Even if you feel that you did not choose this divorce/separation, you still chose this other person to have a child with. You must take responsibility and make this situation the best possible for your child. To do this, you must understand their needs…. Your child needs you to communicate with them… All children crave one-on-one time with their parents. This is so important to your children; it makes them feel special and loved. I advise parents to call this time “date night with the kids” or something similar.
It is time to lay down the weapons you are aiming at your co-parent. This is important so you do not harm your child in the crossfire. What weapons are you still holding? Weapons that hurt your child can look like anger, withholding visitation, child support arguments, old hurts, small issues you continue to bring up. We have enough war in this world, let’s not have war in our homes. You have direct control over this war.19 Take control and make peace for your child. Continued fighting is your inability to let go of this relationship emotionally. Make a choice to emotionally let all of this old anger that you no longer need to hold on to. Do not bring this anger into the new life you are creating for you and your child. Do this for your child. They deserve a peaceful life. If you are still fighting, you have not let go of this relationship on an emotional level. You must either make the conscious choice to let it go or seek professional assistance to do this.
Wow life has changed, eating has changed and they go hand in hand. Sometimes I fall off the wagon but each time I get back on the wagon and commit to my health, it gets easier and easier. Eating healthier is a way of life now. Do I emotionally eat once in a while, of course but it is nothing like it used to be.
Always remember you are a mirror for your child. They model your behavior. You are the person they will learn the most from in their life. They spend the first 18 years with you learning how to be successful in life. If all you demonstrate is fighting and conflict, this is all your children will learn. They learn no appropriate conflict resolution skills. They will not learn how to functionally express their feelings and emotions in a healthy manner… Children learn from their conflicting parents to deal with problems with verbal and physical aggression. In my home growing up, the conflict felt non-stop. My parents lived in continuous fighting and anger without ever issuing an apology. When I went off to live at college, what do you think I created with my roommates? I created all that I had ever known, fighting and conflict. I could not get along with anyone I lived with. I cannot even explain to you in words the heartache and pain this caused me. All I wanted was to live in peace after all the fighting I had experienced at home, yet I had no idea how to live this way. I had never been taught the skills to effectively resolve conflict. I still gravitate towards just one good friend versus a whole group of people. The dynamics of many people together as friends can still overwhelm me. I was and am an amazing person; however, I did not know how to effectively live with anyone.