• Try to maintain your routines and your children’s routines as much as you are able. Ease into any necessary new routines and living situations if possible.
• Avoid isolating yourself from people; build a support group and nourish your friendships already in place.
• Provide, and also eat, a balanced diet, get proper exercise and take time to have fun both with and without the children.
• Do not pry, but be aware of your children’s moods and feelings about their new lives, and be open for conversation whenever they approach you with the need to talk.
• Remind your children of your love.
• Don’t allow your stress or anger to affect your treatment of your children.
• Tell the children that your problems with the other parent are not their fault and make them understand that it is not their responsibility to alleviate them.
• Be respectful of your former spouse when speaking to your children.
• Be emotionally available to comfort them. Even if there has been much conflict in the home, children may grieve over the loss of the leaving parent.
• If the children express hope for reconciliation, which is not uncommon for children to do, gently tell them that this is not planned, but that they are loved and valued by both parents and the breakup will not change that.

Most parents are dealing with their own feelings of doubt, grief, shame, fear, anger, relief. They may project their feelings onto their children. Your children have different relationships, experiences and needs, and most of the time their feelings toward the other parent are very different from yours.  No matter how you feel about the other parent, it is vitally important that you do not place your child in the position of choosing allegiance.

Dissolution is a loss of the lives your children have known. Absent domestic violence situations or excessive fighting between the parents, the child will mourn the loss of their former life.

Your children may show evidence of anger and resentment to you and/or the other parent for destroying their sense of normalcy. This is an appropriate response to their loss. Although it may seem difficult, you can help your children through this.

• Give them opportunities to express their feelings openly and without judging them.
• Listen to your children, but do not react to their anger with displays of your own anger or by taking it personally.
• Resist the urge to try to fix situations that are not fixable, but let them know that you understand their pain.

  To help your children cope with anxiety, you can:

• Listen patiently as they express their fears and worries, even if they repeat them over and over again.
• Respond honestly and supportively to their concerns. If their worries are well founded and may occur, acknowledge that fact as gently as possible.
• Provide as much stability, security and consistency as possible. An anxious child often appreciates a consistent routine, seeing familiar people and going to regularly visited places.
• Provide choices for children whenever possible. This will help to re-establish a sense of control over their lives.

Prolonged anxiety can create additional problems and is sometimes associated with depression.  If they have become depressed, they may withdraw from their parents and/or other loved ones. Watch for these warning signs of divorce-related depression or anxiety:

• Normally playful children may become unreceptive or secretive.
• Exhibiting feelings of worthlessness, making comments about being stupid or unimportant.
• Poor grooming, progressive disorder in a formerly neat child’s room.
• Prolonged withdrawal from people or moodiness, disinterest in favorite activities.
• Fear or avoidance of normally safe people, places and things, or crying and separation anxiety when leaving family members or friends.
• Unwillingness to go to bed, difficulty falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night, nightmares, reoccurring bedwetting, refusal to wake up in the morning.
• Chronic forgetfulness, missed homework assignments, steady decline or sudden drop in grades.
• Excessive frustration, frequent angry outbursts, fights with friends or siblings, yelling at parents
• Drug or alcohol abuse.
• Sexual promiscuity.
• Self-injury, cutting.
• Talk about or making plans to end his/her life, or suicide attempts. Immediately contact a suicide prevention organization or a mental health organization in your area.

If you suspect depression, you should keep lines of communication between your child and yourself open, keep telling your children that the divorce is not their fault and that they are loved.  Also, promote physical activity. This is one of the best ways to combat stress and depression.  If depression continues, seek professional help. Short-term therapy can help children deal with depression and correct false perceptions about themselves and life.

Children also need skills to manage stress and cope with situations over which they have no control. Problem solving skills can help them adjust to the issues of divorced families. Additional skills and support may come from relatives, family friends, teachers or school counselors.

A judgment for dissolution of marriage or domestic partnership does not end your responsibility as a parent. Parents are forever. Both parents should make every attempt to not only be an integral part in their children’s lives, but also allow the other parent to do so. It is vital to children’s development to feel that they have two parents who love them, and even though the parents could not live happily with each other, they support their children’s feelings and their relationships with the other parent.

By following logical guidelines, you will minimize or even eliminate the damage to your children that could easily be caused by a dissolution.

 Guidelines for Parents

1. 1. As long as you have minor children, you will have the other parent in your life. You need to have a means of basic communication with the other parent which does not place the children in an uncomfortable position.

    

   2. Refrain from voicing criticism of the other parent, no matter how difficult this is to do. For a child’s healthy development and mental well being it is necessary to respect both parents.

    

   3. Continuing anger or bitterness toward your former partner can injure your children permanently. Try to remember that the feelings you show with your body language and your manner of speech are as important as the words you use.

    

   4. When you are having trouble trying to get along with the other parent, try to remember the best parts of the times you spent together. Focusing on good memories can help you to overlook bad feelings.  

    

   5. Don’t make your child choose between you and the other parent. Placing a child in the middle and trying to make him or her feel guilty for viewing the other parent positively seriously damages the child’s psychological well-being.

    

   6. Marriage breakdown is always hard on the children. Parents should be direct and simple in answering their questions about what is happening and why. Unpleasant events need explanation, which should be brief, prompt, direct, age-appropriate and honest.

    

   7. Assure your children that they are not to blame for the breakup. Children often feel that they have done something to cause the problems. Small children may feel that some secret wish or thought of theirs has caused the trouble between their parents. 

    

   8. Dissolution of a marriage often leads to financial pressures on both parents. When there is a financial crisis the parents’ first impulse may be to keep the children from realizing it. Often, they would rather make sacrifices themselves. The atmosphere is healthier when there is frankness and children understand. Simply explain that when one household becomes two households it’s harder to meet expenses. 

    

   9. Try not to upset a child’s routine whenever possible. Children need a sense of continuity; it is difficult for them to cope with too many changes at once. Separated parents should communicate frankly and directly with each other on disciplinary issues in order to provide consistent rules and limits for the children. 

    

   10. The guilt parents feel about the marriage breakdown may interfere in the children’s discipline. Over-permissiveness, indecisiveness and lack of follow through interfere with the children’s healthy development. Children need consistent control and direction.

    

   11. The other parent’s parenting time should be pleasant not only for the children, but for both parents. This time should help your children maintain a good relationship with their other parent, and give you some needed time to yourself.

    

   12. Be timely with your parenting schedule and inform the other parent when you cannot adhere to it. Missing time with the children without notifying the other parent may cause the children to feel rejected. Being late for exchanging the children is inconsiderate; dependability and punctuality are owed by each parent to the children and to the other parent.  

    

   13. Both parents may need to adjust the visitation schedule from time to time. Smaller adjustments such as last-minute schedule changes for emergencies, or schedule adjustments that are agreed to by both parents well in advance are not uncommon. Too many missed visits and schedule changes for one parent’s convenience or unpredictable whims, however, is detrimental to the children. 

    

   14. Often parents who have less custody time will feel they need to plan elaborate activities for the children. Remember that the parent’s involvement with the children is more important than anything else. Constant activities, special treats and gifts, without good attention and communication, will give the children the wrong idea about your role in their lives. 

    

   15. Your time with the children should not be used to check on the other parent. The children should never be pumped for this kind of information; this turns them into little spies, and is a cruel way to treat your children.

    

   16. Please remember that everything you do that involves your children or the other parent has an effect on your children. If you base all of your decision-making on this premise, you will be giving your children a precious gift.