Get help to understand the needs of 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 understanding the needs of your child:
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.
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
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.
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.
Recently, I read about a 10-year-old child whose parents were in the middle of a terrible divorce. The book’s author had interviewed the child due to parental allegations of abuse. The author revisited the child 2 weeks after their initial meeting; this time in the hospital after the child had surgery to remove cancer. The sobbing child said, “I need a rest. Can I stay here?” I’m not saying that her cancer was directly related to her parents’ divorce. What I can tell you is that this child preferred being in a hospital to being in the middle of her conflicting parents’ divorce. She was crying out and clearly the stress was negatively impacting her life. Don’t allow this to be your child. I know you love your child. If you are in conflict with your former partner, make the changes you know are necessary to end the conflict now and improve your child’s environment, before it is too late.
Why is this true? Because your child loves this other person. They are physically and emotionally related to him or her or has a history with their other parent. They identify with their other parent on a physical and/or emotional level. What this means is that every time you lash out at their other parent, they feel that what you are saying applies to them, too. Your behavior directly effects your child’s self-esteem. If your child hears again and again how horrible their other parent is, this person who they are half of, over time, the child will begin to believe they are also bad. It also makes your child feel very sad inside to hear a person they love talking negatively about another person they love. This hinders their ability to feel they can freely love both of you.