Helping Children Through the Holidays After the Divorce

When Mom and Dad divorce their children are faced with many life changes. As loving and concerned parents we try to minimize the pain and reduce the chaos brought about by new routines and schedules. We also try to focus on making this new chapter in life as positive and supportive as possible for everyone in the family.
One of the toughest transitions for children is often coping with the first holiday season. Our challenge as parents is to create new traditions and activities that can replace the memories of family holidays in the past. Here are some suggestions on how to help your children through the holiday season in the best possible spirits.
• Show compassion:
Talk to your children about the holidays. Listen, rather than lecture, and let them vent about their feelings, regrets and frustrations. Acknowledge what they are expressing to you and be understanding. Be aware that some children will hold their feelings in as an attempt to protect you. Reassure them that it's okay to talk about their sadness as well as apprehension about what they will experience this year.
Remind your children that what they are feeling is natural and normal. Be there for them with reassurance and hugs. Also let them know that some activities will still be part of their holiday celebrations so they understand that much of life continues in the same way, despite divorce.
• Model Responsible Behavior With Your Ex:
Studies show that children whose divorced parents get along with one another adapt more easily to the divorce. So talk to your ex about giving your children a happy holiday season in every possible way. If you can both spend some family time together with the children, without discord, they will appreciate your efforts. If you can't, at least strive to make the drop-off experience peaceful and harmonious. Never bad-mouth your ex to the children, make them your messenger or have them spy for you at their other parent's home. Model your best, most respectful and mature interactions with your ex in front of your children so they can enjoy their childhood, especially at this time of year.
• Start Creating Wonderful New Memories:
This year will lay the foundation for many holidays to come. So think about new ways to celebrate, new places to visit, new foods to prepare. By creating a fresh set of traditions you will give your children something to look forward to. By replacing old memories with the new, you can make the holidays special again for them. And if they do the same in their other parent's home, they can enjoy an even fuller experience of celebrating the holidays.
By acknowledging your children's feelings with compassion while offering them new options for keeping the holidays special, you are giving your children an important gift: the love and support they need to overcome the challenges of being a child of divorce.
Recognized as The Voice of Child-Centered Divorce, Rosalind Sedacca, CCT is a divorce coach and author of the internationally acclaimed ebook, How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children - with Love! She is also the founder of the Child-Centered Divorce Network where you can get her free ebook on Post-Divorce Parenting as well as her free weekly ezine, blog, useful articles, valuable divorce resources, coaching and other services for creating a child-centered divorce.

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How Does Divorce Affect Children? Introspection Through Their Drawings

Divorce affects children in various ways, depending on their age, personality, family reactions and support, responses from their peers and so on. The mother of John, who is 7½ years old, wanted to check her son's emotional status following her divorce. She sent us his drawings from the last year, asking for guidance based on his specific personality.His drawings showed a reality of running away, which is not progressive or positive, but keeps the child from coping with his difficulties and receiving support from his close surroundings.
In one of his recent drawings, the flowers are not a bloom, the sun is distant and seems not to provide any heat and there is no interaction among the various elements on the page, as typical of his age. Consequently, we assumed that John perceives his world as cold and remote, lacking happiness and social life.
Social rejection, as in this case, is one of the effects divorce can have. Studies show that children of divorced parents tend to be socially rejected more than their peers. Therefore, they require close attention and support in order to build healthy relationships that will improve their mood and general functioning following their parents' divorce.
Children's reactions to divorce
About a year after the divorce, studies identified successful emotional working through of the divorce among most children: the pain and the suffering weakened, and were replaced by acceptance of the new reality. However, while most children accepted the divorce as final, younger children in particular tended to continue clinging to their fantasies of family reunion.
During the first year after the divorce most families are in the first stages of dealing with the change.
Studies have specified several key negative reaction patterns which characterize this period:
Aggressive reactions enable the child to vent feelings of anger and helplessness, and in many cases take physiological form as in vomiting, facial spasms, weight fluctuations, sleeping disorders, and depression. These actually represent emotional adjustment difficulties. They are designed, in most cases, to signal overwhelming stress and distress he is experiencing in the aftermath of divorce. In some cases they are also unconsciously designed to force the parents to cope with the child's health problems rather than focus on their own emotional conflicts.
Attempts to mediate between the parents. This reaction is combined with the intention of returning the family to its previous state, and development of age-inappropriate dependence on one of them.
The development of such dependence is contingent on the child's age and personality, but it finds its expression in emotional patterns (emotional regression and need for intimacy that is not age appropriate), negative social reactions such as withdrawal or materialistic compensation mechanisms (like excessive demand to buy toys and the like).
Identification with one of the parents. Children who identify with one of the parents do so to gain power and meaningfulness. In general, absolute identification with one of the parents requires the child to detach himself from the other parent or to reduce the frequency and quality of contacts with him.
Escapism. Physically running away from home is characteristic of adolescents. It enables some children to avoid direct coping with the implications of divorce and consequently to evaluate the events around him from a more distant and objective perspective. There are children whose temporary escape from home enables them to find a supportive environment where they can cope emotionally with the divorce.
Another, more subtle form of escape is cramming the day with a great variety of activities, to reduce the time spent at home to a minimum.
Preoccupation with an imaginary world is another, more cognitive form of escape. This form of escape enables the child to avoid the painful facts of the child's daily life. The imaginary world serves as a haven in times of distress.
It is important to remember that for children of separated parents, entering the imaginary world is therapeutic and therefore must not be prevented. Therefore, we must carefully assess the proportion of imaginary elements in the drawing, and remember that they comfort the child by providing protection and a safe haven.
Michal Wimmer invites you to learn more about children's drawings analysis.
Get our FREE guide to interpreting children's drawing at: http://www.roshida.com/Drawing_analysis/newsletter.html
Roshida specializes in training and providing individual analysis based on children's drawings. http://www.roshida.com/

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The Best Way to Support a Friend Through Their Divorce

Divorce is nowadays such a frequent occurrence that many of us are going to find ourselves needing to be supportive of a friend who is struggling to come to terms with their breakup. We may be in the unfortunate situation of needing some support ourselves.Everyone is different and each of us experience loss and hurt in our own way. For some people they may be devastated that the love of their life has left them. Others may be relieved that their loveless ordeal is finally over. For some the breakup may mean public humiliation or financial hardship. There are many personal considerations that are unique to each situation.
Friendships can be severely tested when one person is dealing with the trauma of a breakup. They may become preoccupied, bitter, distraught as well as having many practical matters that take time and drain their emotional energy. Emotions often run high, tension can seem to be constant factor and it can feel like a never-ending crisis. It can be especially hard if you have been friends with both parties or appreciate the other person's point of view.
Let's look at some ways you can help a friend through their divorce.
- Listen. Sometimes it is important to let your friend have their say. They may need to vent and get things off their chest. People often feel better for simply having verbalized their distress. You may need to nothing except listen.
- Call time on the talking. If a friend becomes obsessed or preoccupied with their ex and constantly repeats old grievances over and over again, there can come a time when it is important to introduce other topics into the conversation. This does not disrespect their hurt. It simply allows them and you to have a break from the relentless hurt and pain and start to become more receptive to outside life.
- Encourage them to try counselling and hypnotherapy. If you feel that your friend has issues or bad habits that have been a factor in the divorce it can help to suggest that they address those problem areas. Counselling and hypnotherapy can help them start to resolve those areas, improve their understanding of the situation and have better prospects in any future relationships they may envisage.
- Try not to take sides. Being supportive and empathising with you friend is important but joining in and fuelling the situation is of no benefit to anyone. It may simply succeed in prolonging the anger.
- Consider the children. If your friend has custody of the children they may need help with entertaining them if they are unused to being with them alone. Fathers often find that having the children for set visitation periods is quite stressful at first. They want to make the times together as fun as possible but are inexperienced at entertaining the children alone and struggle with such an artificial situation. Mothers may need additional babysitting support at times, especially if they need to start working or want to go out for an occasional evening.
- Encourage good habits. When a person is distressed they may forget to take proper care of themselves. Encourage them to shop, eat, wash, sleep. It may help to invite them to stay with you for a little while if you are in a position to do so. Try to discourage excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a depressant and can become a bad habit when a person is feeling low.
- Give support to outside interests. Healthy outside interests like sport, volunteer work, interests that include other people can be an important distraction. Often divorce gives people more free time which can mean more time to think and feel miserable.
Supporting a friend through their divorce can be an intensive time and quite draining. The phrase 'start as you mean to go on' can be useful to remember. In the initial days a person may need a lot of support, but as time goes on encourage them to become more independent, involve other friends and interests. That way you support a more positive basis for your friendship that respects both your lifestyles.
Susan Leigh is a Counsellor and Hypnotherapist who works with stressed individuals to promote confidence and self belief, with couples in crisis to improve communications and understanding and with business clients to support the health and motivation levels of individuals and teams.
Further help, advice and articles are available.
For more information see http://www.lifestyletherapy.net/

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