HOME

BOOKMARK

NEWSLETTER

Join our newsletter to receive news of offers and discounts

Search

AS FEATURED IN...


Lucy Siegle On Eithical Living: Sunday March 5, 2006 The Observer

Weight Watchers®.co.uk. Now with an online plan.

Navigation


Parening Books

Search Now:
Amazon Logo


What Parents Should Do For Children To Do Their Best After Divorce?


Why do some children still do best after divorce and separation? Is there divorce parenting approaches that really work? Read and learn the divorce parenting approaches that really work.

Going through the process of divorce is a challenging life transition for both parents and children. During their parents' divorce, children often feel a wide variety of conflicting emotions. It is very important for parents to provide their children with understanding and support. Overall, the children who do best after divorce and separation are those whose parents dominantly employ 5 divorce parenting approaches. They:

  • Listen to children and nurture an independent and empathic relationship with each of them.

  • Fully support the children's relationships with the other parent making them feel loved and wanted in both homes.

  • Develop positive strategies for setting limits and imposing appropriate discipline.

  • Continue to hold reasonably high expectations for the children, regardless of trying circumstances.

  • Shield the children from their parental disagreements and resentments.

    Each of the above is presented here below in great detail.

    1. Listen to children and nurture an independent and empathic relationship with each of them.

    To better help our children we must first understand them. To be able to understand them completely, we need to listen and create an environment favorable for them to speak out. To make things happen, you need to:

    • Encourage your children to talk about how they feel. Let your children know that they can openly talk to you about their feelings of your separation or divorce.

    • Keep lines of communication open and answer all questions about the changes. Make sure your children feels like they can ask you questions and get answers about why the divorce happened and what to expect.

    • Convey that you are genuinely interested in their input. This will make your children feel they are participating in contributing to the process of recovering from the divorce.

    2. Fully support the children's relationships with the other parent making them feel loved and wanted in both homes.

    Research tells us that children benefit from keeping the familial ties in their life that were meaningful and important to them prior to the divorce. Of these familial ties, the most important are the child-parent ties. Remember that divorce does not end children's need for parents or it ends your role as parent. You should:

    • Recognize that for your child to have the best chance of growing up to be a functional human male or female, he/she will need both parents as role models and nurturers. This means that there should be some pathway of getting through to the child whatever good that parent has to offer.

    • Respect your child's needs to have both parents there for them, without having them worry that they are going to die of embarrassment if you both start to fight in public. Encourage the other parent to stay involved in the children's school and extra-curricular activities.

    • Allow the children to enjoy the time that they spend with each parent. Encourage your children to spend good times with the other parent. Don't be jealous or upset, as children do not want to take sides and love one parent more than the other.

    • Help your children and ex-spouse have a successful relationship as just as you would help your children to succeed in school or sports. Remember that your ex-spouse is an important part of your child's life. Just like you, your children have a shared history with this person as well as the present and future.

    3. Develop positive strategies for setting limits and imposing appropriate discipline.

    Often after a divorce parents will either become stricter or more lenient. Some parents feel like the other parent is letting the child get away with everything; therefore, they attempt to enforce discipline across both homes. Other parents do not want to spend the limited time they have with their child punishing them and tend to be too lenient. It can be difficult for children when their parents have drastically different rules and expectations. To give the child a sense of stability and security, you should do the following:

    • Maintain consistent routines. Children feel more secure when there is a standard routine. At times, some parenting issues require communication and coordination between parents, if the child spends time with both parents. Both parents don't have to do things exactly the same way, but it is easier for children if most things are similar at each home.

    • Set limits and rules clearly, and enforces them. But within these limits do allow leeway for your children to be children.

    4. Continue to hold reasonably high expectations for the children, regardless of trying circumstances.

    Help your children have positive feelings about themselves. Children who feel good about them usually succeed. They seem to get better grades in school, they are better at taking on hard jobs, and they try their best. Also, they tend to make better friends because they seem surer of themselves. As parents, you can play an important role in helping children have positive feelings about themselves. Here are some ways you can help your children to feel good about them.

    • Help them learn to set realistic and reachable goals so they can regularly achieve success. Praise them for success.

    • Give your children responsibility so that they feel useful, and valued. Asking nothing of them implies that you think they are not capable of doing a job well, which is demeaning.

    • Encourage them to make decisions, and teach that they must accept responsibility for those decisions.

    5. Shield the children from their parental disagreements and resentments.

    Stop fighting and work hard to get along with each other. Rumbles of discontent between parents leave children feeling insecure. It is therefore so important for you and your partner to try to agree on matters related to children and their needs. You can employ strategies such as:

    • Be able to step back and keep your feelings about your ex-spouse separate from those you have about your children's parent. Many people make lousy husbands or wives, but they are terrific parents.

    • If you cannot be civil with your ex-spouse, then work out a plan and set up rules so that your child does not have to witness your wrath. Let your children feel with ease rather than going through a gauntlet of your venom for each other.

    • Get to work on resolving your feelings about your ex-spouse. That means if you can't get over this yourself, get some help. Other people are suffering besides you, and those other people are your children!

    Certainly, some children still do best after divorce and separation. All their parents did were employing tested divorce parenting approaches that really work. You can raise healthy, happy and successful children even if you're divorced. Follow the above approaches for your children sake.

    Copyright by Ruben Francia. All Rights Reserved.

    Publishing Rights: You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your website, free of charge, as long as the author's information and web link are included at the bottom of the article. The web link should be active when the article is reprinted on a web site or in an email. Minor edits and alterations are acceptable so long as they do not distort or change the content of the article.

    About The Author

    Ruben Francia is an author of an indispensable divorce parenting guide ebook, entitled "101 Ways To Raise Your 'Divorced' Children To Success". Discover the ways to raising healthy, happy and successful children even if you're on divorced. Visit his web site at http://www.101divorceparenting.com; marketing@101divorceparenting.com


    MORE RESOURCES:

    KNWA

    Jardine, Regulators Expand Baby-Crib Recall
    Wall Street Journal - 9 hours ago
    The cribs in the original recall were sold at various stores nationwide, including KidsWorld, Toys "R" Us, Babies "R" Us and Geoffrey Stores. ...
    More China-Made Baby Cribs Recalled AHN
    Baby Cribs Recalled Due To Strangulation Danger WHIOtv.com
    Jardine Expands Recall of Cribs Sold at Babies 'R' Us Consumer Affairs
    The Associated Press - WMUR
    all 82 news articles


    BBC News

    Baby dies as bug strikes hospital
    BBC News, UK - 7 hours ago
    A baby has died and six others are in an isolation ward after an infection struck at the neo-natal unit of a Birmingham hospital. ...
    Neonatal ward sealed off after baby dies Times Online
    Deadly bug kills baby and puts seven more in isolation in hospital Telegraph.co.uk
    Baby dies in hospital bug outbreak The Press Association
    The Birmingham Post - EditoWeb Magazine
    all 149 news articles


    Police found body of baby in trash
    Seattle Post Intelligencer - Jan 5, 2009
    Authorities combing through 60 tons of trash, searching for the body of a baby allegedly dumped by his 16-year-old mother, found a dead infant in the ...


    Kids alone for days, parents dead in locked room
    The Associated Press - 22 hours ago
    "How could they leave the babies?" asked neighbor Ashley Barker. "If something was going on, an argument, why didn't they send them to the neighbors? ...


    ABC News

    HORROR: Dead Baby Thrown In NJ Hospital Garbage
    WCBS-TV New York, NY - 21 hours ago
    Read more in our Privacy Policy A shocking story came out of Jersey City on Monday night: the remains of a baby were thrown out in a hospital's trash. ...
    Video: Baby's Corpse Thrown Out With Hospital's Trash AssociatedPress
    Hospital throws a babies body in trash ShortNews.com
    all 318 news articles


    Sisters close out '08, ring in '09 with babies at West Valley Hospital
    Arizona Republic, AZ - 7 hours ago
    But the Southwest Valley's first baby of 2009 was born at Banner Estrella Medical Center in southwest Phoenix. Alexander Camacho was born at 12:47 am New ...


    Briefs | Fatal wreck, arson fire, babies injured
    Kansas City Star, MO - 19 hours ago
    Babies injured in two cases A 37-year-old man has been charged in connection with injuring a 2 1/2 -month-old girl and her mother Sunday in Kansas City, ...


    WELT ONLINE

    As Babies Are Being Slaughtered, Where Are The Western Human ...
    Turkish Press, MI - 12 hours ago
    If the slaughter of civilians, babies and the elderly in Gaza is just being watched today, then no world statesman has any right to talk about democracy and ...
    Video: Israeli attack on Gaza school kills 30 RussiaToday
    Guest Columnist: Hamas' war against children Seattle Post Intelligencer
    UN official rejects Israeli view of extent of hardship Irish Times
    Periódico 26 - The Australian
    all 36,056 news articles


    TopNews

    Long leave helps baby's health and mom's
    The Oregonian - OregonLive.com, OR - 2 hours ago
    Taking many months of maternity leave improves the health of working women and their babies, two new studies report. But the authors say such leaves are ...
    Maternity Leave Good for Mother and Baby MedPage Today
    Long maternity leaves increase breastfeeding Times of India
    all 24 news articles


    Sydney Morning Herald

    Hollywood Baby Roundup: January 6, 2009
    VIP Breakdown, WA - 2 hours ago
    Rebecca Romijn: Despite being pregnant with twins, Romijn was able to deliver her babies without being noticed. The Ugly Betty star and her husband, ...
    Baby Photos: Rebecca Romijn Hubby Jerry O'Connell Shows Off Twins ... National Ledger
    Rebecca Romijn Gives Birth To Twin Baby Girls E Canada Now
    Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell Have Babies LimeLife
    Celebrity Baby Blog - RTE.ie
    all 389 news articles

    babies - Google News