How does counseling help kids of divorce?
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 about counseling kids of divorce:
Spending time with a counselor provides your child with one-on-one time with an adult who is focused on them. This can be especially crucial if parents are struggling emotionally. When I work with children, we sometimes discuss and process difficult things. We also have fun together. I always spend some time with each child doing something that they enjoy doing. There is always time in my sessions where the child has complete control. Children can sometimes feel out of control during the divorce.
Children thrive when they feel that they are the focus of the session and this is special time just for them.
Someone to Share Their Feelings With: Children can share with counselors what they may be afraid to share with their parents. Your children may not want to share certain things with you for various reasons. The biggest reason is that they do not want to hurt you or your feelings. They want to protect you. Children are so amazingly intelligent. They have so many amazing thoughts and concerns going through their minds. You would not believe some of the concerns I have heard. I would never believe them had I not heard them directly from the children as I worked with them. Children may be afraid to share these concerns with you. They also may have been asked to keep secrets by one or both of their parents. Once your child trusts their therapist, they can share these concerns with the therapist. I tell all the children I work with that they can tell me anything and I will not share it with their parents unless it is a life-threatening situation and I have to tell. I do tell them that if I think we should share it with their parents, that we will discuss this. This gives children a lot of freedom in being able to work with me to process some deep fears. I want children to trust me because my goal as a therapist is to be there for them. If they can share something with me, and choose not to share it with their parents, I still believe that it is healthier because the child and I can process through the concern. They are able to release a lot of stress in sharing their fear with me. This promotes healthy development for your child.
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.