Divorce can be an extremely difficult time in an adult’s life but we can protect the children and support their emotional well-being to ensure that the changes that are inevitable in their family lives are smooth and less harmful.
The question is how do we support children through divorce?
Children can go through many emotions and can present with different behaviours that you may find challenging or upsetting.
Children can blame themselves at times believing they are responsible for the separation. Therefore it is essential that you do not reconfirm these thoughts by using negative language to describe either parent.
Children develop their values from their environment. If you consider a mother of a young male who consistently hears that his dad is useless, a good for nothing human being, this will influence the child’s beliefs on how a male is perceived or should behave. This works in the same way also if the child hears his father state that women should stay at home, clean the house or just uses men to buy them things.
This will become part of a child’s belief system that they take into adulthood. What we do today can have long lasting effects that may prevent your children from developing positive relationships in the future.
The following sections will look at the average child’s development; the importance of contact with both parents and extended family; behaviours that may arise as well as strategies to manage these behaviours effectively.
The information should also assist in helping the transition of children living between both parent’s addresses.