Divorce and children

Is a difficult and topical issue where one in five children or maybe more will experience having divorced parents

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What to do?

If they are older you talk to them, you explain

However if they are younger

Keep them busy with diversions and activities

Do not tell them stories about the whys and wherefores of the impending divorce

No stories of sexual misconduct or legal fights

No phone calls on this subject in front of them

Make your calls after the children have gone to bed

Children pick up on mood swings

Children notice things

Most difficult in a divorce is for the party looking after the children, which is usually the mother

Doing this while in the middle of a divorce requires great self discipline

Particularly when the two parties are involved in battles over money, custody and other disputed subjects

What can often get lost is that children have a right to two parents

More than a right they grow up more balanced where there is the influence of both parents

Male and female influences

Yes children with both influences benefit more than those having only the influence of one parent

Some contact with even the worse kind of addicted or inadequate parent is usually better than none at all

It helps the children to make sense and understand what has happened

Very few parents have nothing to add to the lives of their children

And yet reading articles in the media one would think that the world is full of heartless idiot parents

For most parents a divorce is a difficult experience

For the children often a divorce leaves life long scars

Controlled parental behaviour can make this much less so

Putting anger and fear on display in front of your children does not help

Put the children first and your needs second

Divorce touches everyone

As does selfish behaviour so controlling your own behaviour for their sake is the minimum required

Why do we write this?

Because we often have to deal with the consequences of divorce where one or both parents behaved as if their needs were the only ones important, casually ignoring the needs of the children they brought into the world