How do your kids feel about your divorce? Do they see it as a good thing for the family? Do they blame themselves for what went wrong? The answers to these questions depend on the kids and the situation. A child who has been exposed to a lot of arguments and violence may be happy to see the abusive parent leave. She may love the abuser, and worry about him after he's gone, but not being awakened in the middle of the night to screaming, and not being hit for no reason is a good thing. Kids don't like pain and stress anymore than the next guy. A child whose parents are "unhappy" or "bored" with each other may not be as content or relieved to see the family dissolve. Adult "unhappiness" is a concept most kids can't grasp. Sure, they do know what it means to be discontent. Teachers and other kids make them feel that way all the time. However, a long term disappointment felt by an adult for adult reasons is simply beyond the child's experience. The question is whether kids feel guilty, or like they did something wrong when Mom and Dad split up. Some kids might, because of the way their parents handle the break up. However, absent a parent's intervention, why would a child feel like they did something wrong when the parents split up anymore than he / she feels bad when the car breaks down or the TV goes on the blink? A self respecting, normal child will avoid accepting responsibility for things he does do wrong, let alone blame himself for some abstract adult event. Children may not feel guilty about their parents split, so much as they feel helpless. They aren't consulted, or even warned that a divorce is coming many times. Strangers in the form of judges and lawyers are suddenly deciding things for them that Mom and Dad used to control. The kids don't necessarily meet these people. Instead, they have to accept how some abstract, faceless adults arbitrarily force them to live their lives. Decisions are handed down to them by people whose existence they haven't even varified with their own eyes a lot of the time. Rarely are children allowed to express their feelings about the situation. When they are asked, certain answers are expected, and rather than take the chance of being wrong, they are inclined to say what they sense the adult wants to hear. After all, their teachers have trained them to believe there are wrong or right answers, and the last thing a kid wants to do is attract disapproval, especially since punishment often follows. Adults consider kids too young to have a valid opinion of what foods are good for them, let alone where they would be better off. Thus, they have no input in a scarey situation, not because they don't have feelings, but because they have no safe place to express them. It wouldn't be good to leave custody decisions up to children. Their choices would too often be coerced by circumstances. The parent who gives the most gifts may seem like the one who loves more at the time the decision is made, no matter the parent's true history with the child. There are also many other ways to wrongly influence a child. Kids assume adults know a lot more than they do. The adult who is recognized as an authority, such as a parent or teacher would certainly have credibility in a child's world. It is too easy for a parent to manipulate what the child says for her statements to be a reliable indicater of her needs. Parents often take advantage of the child's trust by focusing on what that parent believes is the other parent's shortcomings. The result is that the child joins in blaming the other parent just so he'll feel protected and approved of by someone. The truth or the exaggeration of the reporting parent's observations are not something a child can readily understand. Again, it is a kid's inexperience with the world and its ways that hamper his ability to see through a grown-up person's motives for lying, stretching the truth, or even seeing a given situation in an unfair or unbalanced way. Children need to have a forum to air their views in a divorce. What they say may not be deep, or even useful, but it may help them adjust to the inevitable changes they are about to experience. They need to know that someone hears their concerns, and will listen to what they have to say. They need to feel safe asking the kind of questions that may make parents feel stupid, or uncomfortable. They are entitled to honest, age appropriate answers, too. No child should have control over the family's fortunes. Kids just don't have the experience to decide whether it is in Mom and Dad's best interest to stay together, or to understand the many decisions about their welfare that must be made in a divorce. However, even though they can't row the boat, they should have life jackets, and should be taught how to swim so that they are not drowned in their family's disfunctions. Copyright (c) 2010 Lucille Uttermohlen
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