Coping With Divorce: Cultivating Your Child’s Feelings

Published February 2011: eHow Family & Relationships

Coping With Divorce: Cultivating Your Child’s Feelings
Creating a United Front When Separation Occurs

Article Excerpt:

Divorce is never easy for adults. The stress of separation, emotional turmoil and physical loss often takes its toll. The reality, though, is that while adults are learning to cope, children are often left feeling confused, abandoned and even guilty about the family situation.

Learning to cultivate your children’s feelings during a divorce can make a significant difference in their emotional stability later in life, according to Dr. Jacqueline Simon Gunn, a Manhattan-based clinical psychologist and author of “In the Therapist’s Chair.”

“It is exceptionally common for children of divorce to blame themselves,” Gunn said. “In fact, this is so pervasive and inexhaustible that I have worked with adult patients who still blame themselves for their parents’ divorce.”

Parents can put a stop to the blame game before it starts by implementing coping strategies for the entire family. Finding the right words to say, the necessary actions to take to provide reassurance, and the most age-appropriate strategies to put the brakes on negative behaviors will not only help your child cope with your divorce but also help the entire family move forward.

– Shannon Philpott