HELPING YOUR CHILD DEAL WITH YOUR DIVORCE
By Daniel Gottlieb, Psy.D.
The child's voice is always the weakest. The child is never consulted regarding the parents decision and even were the parents to do so, in the overwhelming number of cases the child would express a preference that the parent not divorce. While this preference may not always dovetail with the child's best interests, it reflect he degree which the children value the stability of the relation between the parents and normalcy - even if only outward - of family life.
Herein the true challenge that divorcing parents face. In what may seem to be insurmountable challenge, they must preserve the efficacy of the parenting relationship with all its necessary negotiation, consulting and cooperation that is required at the very time when the dissolution of the marital relationship casts its painful pall over the parents very being. It is precisely at this point of the parents' personal weakness the child is most in need of the parents' ministering. It is important parents to remember that, for them, the process of psychological separation has generally been a gradual one in which they have had the opportunity to contemplate divorce and its attendant changes and difficulties. However, for many children - particularly the younger ones - the news of divorce comes suddenly and often unexpectedly creating for them a temporary upheaval. It is precisely at this point, as in other crises in the life of a child, that he requires the two people closest to him - his parents. However, when parents channel most o f there mental energy to the divorce process - the rage, the sadness, the sense of loss and sometimes the search for the illusory justice - the children may find themselves in a stage of psychological neglect. This situation may be compounded and confounded if the parents chose to involve the children in the process by generously proving them with all the juicy details - to say nothing of those situations in which a parent incites the child against the other parent thereby forcing the child to chose a side thus essentially robbing the child of other parent precisely at the juncture at which the child needs both parents more than ever.
Perhaps one of the least known problems of children of divorce is that of integration. From an early age a child is taught to integrate the sum of his experiences into a stable and coherent whole. The child learns that life contains things that are good and things that are bad, and even more things that lie somewhere between those poles. Moreover, the child must learn that good things - like a parent - can contain things that are bad - like anger - and that somehow in the final analysis these polar positions can achieve some harmony. The child who masters this developmental task is better able to live in peace in a world of contradictory forces and will not sink into a morose depression when faced with life's troubles and will not be carried away with a Pollyannaish elation when blessed with those good things in life.
Herein lays the potential problem of children of divorce. Their world may be divided into two camps - Camp Mother and Camp Father each of which encompasses the whole of the mother or father experience - the home, the family, the culture, the narrative the feeling, etc. To the extent the boundaries between the two camps can be porous and passable, the child will be able to experience his world in a healthy and integrated manner in which experiences and feelings from the Mother realm will meld and coexist with those of the Father realm. However, should each camp seal itself off hermetically from the other, the child will need to adopt a dichotomous way of life in which on Monday, Wednesday and every other weekend he is Mother's child while on the other days, he is Father's child. Beyond the obvious hardships to the child, one needs to be concerned that as this type thinking becomes ingrained, it may affect the other experiences and relationships in his life.
Parents who have taken the difficult decision to divorce must not, however, divorce themselves from their joint responsibility to raise their child in a psychologically healthy manner. Post-divorce parental cooperation allows the voice of the child to be heard.
Daniel Gottlieb, Psy.D. is a Clinical Psychologist and Family Therapist. He is Clinical Director of Shinui:Israel Institute for the Family and author of The Voice of the Child - What Children of Divorcing Parents Want to Say But Can't. He can be reached in Israel at +972-9-955-1973