Faced with a divorce, the first thing parents have to think about is how they are going to organize the issue of custody. This depends a bit on the age of the children. It is very important to take it into account because, for example, joint custody if the children are very young (under one year old, I do not consider it appropriate because at this age children need their mother a lot. The best in these cases if possible, is to make a custody where the father is present but not joint custody; not 50% the mother and 50% the father. After a year and a half, the father is more important and you can start talking about joint custody.
The feelings that parents have during the divorce while they go to the judge, while they process the papers, while all those things are established and during the first years, those feelings of anger, resentment, and frustration disappear over time..
However, the attitude of parents towards children will remain with the children. That is why I always advise parents to try to control that anger and hatred towards the other parent in front of the children so that it does not manifest itself in adulthood, both on one side and on the other..
Regarding children, there is one thing that must be clear and that is that children feel guilty in general, they feel guilty about the separation; They think that when they have behaved badly, when they did not do their homework, when they have done something bad without wanting to, when they did something and the parents scold them and at that moment the parents argued about how to punish, how not to punish, who put the punishment, who lifted the punishment, all these kinds of things children think is the cause of divorce.
That is, the children feel very powerless and think that they are the ones who have caused the divorce and they also think that they are responsible for uniting the parents..
Children can become ill because in this way they manage to unite parents again and again in the hospital, they unite parents in conversations about the health of the child. Children can do things to bring parents back together, and they always maintain that hope as well as maintain the feeling of guilt that they have separated..
This must be discussed with them and it must be explained to them without accusing or belittling the other party, since mom and dad no longer love each other as they used to, that it is better for coexistence, that they will understand it when they are older, that is, give the necessary explanations and explain that they have nothing to do with the separation from their parents.
We must try to protect them in this sense and from time to time return to the subject and ask them how they feel, what they think about the separation of mom and dad, and of course always make it very clear that mom and dad are not going to be together again, and that it has nothing to do with him or her and that they will understand it when they are older. But above all, repeat that mom and dad are not going to be together again.
Yet No Comments