Betsy’s 9-year-old son just wouldn’t talk about the divorce. He was angry, and that rage sometimes surfaced at school. But around his mother and big sister? Not a word. Even his therapist met with stony silence. Betsy figured it was time to take action. So she invented “sketch book” therapy: “Once a week we’d have an hour to kill and I’d take ‘dictation’ from him,” she says. She’d start out by asking fun, trivial questions such as, “What are your favorite TV shows?” and segue into, “What are you worried about this week?” Eventually she got her son to talk—about TV, about his pets and about the upsetting fact that “Daddy doesn’t live with us anymore.”
Divorce: Help for Parents and Kids
by Linda Morgan
By finding a way to let her child express himself, Betsy is going a long way toward helping him adjust to the divorce, according to Carl E. Pickhardt, Ph.D., author of The Everything Parent’s Guide to Children and Divorce. “A child needs to speak up to express the thoughts and feelings that make up his or her inner experience,” he writes. “Talking out hurt feelings allows the child to identify and process what is emotionally going on, and enables him to feel acknowledged and supported.”
Lyla Tyler is a Sacramento Marriage and Family Therapist who frequently counsels children whose parents are divorcing. She recommends moms and dads experiencing trouble in their marriage pay special attention to their child’s behavior and performance at school. “A sudden drop in grades, the inability to focus or acting-out behavior” can all be signs of stress, she says. Kids may get depressed, angry or forgetful and spacey. They may even become accident-prone or self-destructive, and their peer relationships may change.
“Anxiety is going to show itself in all aspects of a child’s life—at school as well as at home,” says Tyler. She adds that while kids can’t always articulate the connection between poor test scores and their preoccupation with the divorce, it’s a common struggle. So, should parents going through divorce talk to their child’s teacher—even before trouble arises? “Definitely,” says Tyler. “Teachers are often pretty astute at seeing changes going on in the classroom,” says Tyler. “I think the teacher needs to know what’s going on at home and what the visitation schedule is, so they can be a support person for the child during the day.”
7 Tips to Help Kids Cope
What kids worry about
“Children will often think it’s their fault,” Tyler says, though they may not voice that worry. Divorce also leaves kids with a lot of questions, says Tyler. “They wonder: Will they still get to have regular contact with both parents? What about their grandparents, or their favorite aunt? Where will they live? Will they have to move? Older kids, especially, wonder: Will they have to change schools? What about their activities, like scouts, ballet or basketball? Parents need to answer those questions for kids right away,” says Tyler. They also need to reassure kids that they are loved. “Many children wonder, ‘If Dad stopped loving Mom, does that mean he could stop loving me?’”
Some kids feel they should be taking care of their parents, says Jennifer Stoakes, a Seattle psychotherapist. “They assess the conflict and offer solutions.” They figure out—often on an unconscious level—that if they have behavior problems, their parents will have to work together. “That’s when you see things surface like eating disorders and bed-wetting,” she says.
What parents worry about
Parents often struggle to hide their own pain from their children. But the kids see right through that, says Stoakes. “Let’s say you’ve had a run-in with your ex. Then you go get your kids from school and you try to look cheerful. Your kids will pick up on that disconnect.” Kids “read” parents on many levels and can tell if there’s an inconsistency between what you’re saying and what you’re feeling, she says. “Better to say something like, ‘Mommy’s having a hard day.’”
Tyler agrees: “Parents need to be open and honest, but avoid turning their child into a little adult by sharing too much information.” Try to make sure the info you’re sharing is age-appropriate, she advises, adding, “Parents need to especially refrain from saying bad things about the other parent” (tempting as that may be at times). “That’s where it gets really nasty, when kids get caught in the middle,” says Tyler. “That’s when I see kids suffer the most.”
Dealing with those negative feelings takes skill, especially since your children (in most cases) need to have a relationship with your ex-partner. Of course, that means not telling your kids what a rotten so-and-so your ex is. And that means not recruiting your child to Team Mom, or using him or her as a sounding board.
It may also mean getting help. “If a parent is depressed or grieving the relationship, I absolutely urge them to get counseling or seek out a support group,” says Tyler. She adds that parents need to take care of their own health and well-being “so they can parent.” She explains that kids may already be reeling from the loss they experience with the divorce; losing a parent to depression compounds that pain.
With a measure of self-control, parents can put on a positive front, says Betsy, who regularly assures her children that their father’s a good guy. “I don’t believe it for a minute. But I feel the kids’ best shot at happiness in this life is to think their father is a good person.”
Linda Morgan is the author of Beyond Smart: Boosting Your Child's Emotional, Social, and Academic Potential (ParentMap.com/BeyondSmart). Part 2 of her 3-part series on divorce tackles the topic of Co-Parenting. Look for it in September.
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