Bruce Fisher, EdD, and Robert Stewart, MA
I thought everything in my life that could go wrong had. But now my kids are acting out. I really don’t know what to do.
—Corinne
Sure, single working mothers have problems—real ones. But what about fathers who have custody of their children after a divorce? If you’re a man trying to work and raise a child alone, you get no support from anyone. Women are uncomfortable around you—they either think you’re on the make or they want to mother you and your child to death. You can’t talk to other men: they think you’re a little weird if you’re worrying about toilet training while they’re planning a golf game or a camping trip.
As a single custodial father, I didn’t know:
a. What to do when my son woke up screaming with a nightmare
b. How to go about finding a good babysitter
c. How to plan my son’s birthday when he turned three
d. How to plan the weekly meals and bake cookies and cakes
e. How to answer questions like, “Why did she go? Where is she? Will I see her again? Does she love me? Will you leave me? Why do I have to go to the babysitter’s?”
Harboring all of these insecurities, we both cried a lot.
—Bill
Remember the good old days, Dad—the days before you left home?
—Sheila
Children go through an adjustment process similar to the adult process, but the feelings and attitudes of each rebuilding block may be somewhat different for children. It helps if we realize that our children are also in process, with a mountain of their own to climb.
As family therapists, we believe we are obligated not only to help children adjust to their parents’ divorce, but also to help them adjust to the transformation that took place while the parents were going through their own recovery process.
There is a great deal of research about the effects of divorce on children. Some studies say the children are scarred for life; others say the children can actually benefit from their parents’ divorce. The most solid research indicates that, while children are likely to experience modestly negative outcomes from their parents’ divorce early on, loving parents can help them to prosper in the long run. The people who have done a good job of adjusting are typically better parents. Their children reinforce what much of the research says: children whose parents are adjusting well tend to adjust better also.
Many parents try to make up for the guilt they feel about hurting the children with the divorce by playing “superparent.” This is usually not helpful to the children.
Kids tend to become stuck on the same building blocks as their parents. The nicest thing you can do for your child is to get your own act together—to work through your own adjustment process—so you can be the warm, supportive parent you are capable of being.
Many times, the children remain strong and supportive to the parents until the parents get their act together. Finally, when the children perceive their parents are strong enough, they take their turn at working through the adjustment process.
In almost every seminar, at least one person is working through his or her parents’ divorce of twenty to forty years earlier. We hope your children will not take that long to adjust to the ending of your relationship.
Adults who actively participate in a divorce recovery program often experience tremendous personal growth and change that can affect their children. The children have to adjust not only to their parents’ divorce, but also to the personal changes one or both parents have made. We need to do all we can to help our children adjust to what can be major changes in our lives. That’s the intention of this appendix.
We hope the material in this section, together with the earlier material on children in the chapters, will help both you and your children transform the divorce crisis into a creative experience.
Bruce’s experience as a juvenile probation officer in the early 1970s is mentioned several times in Rebuilding. When he began that work, he at first thought one of the major reasons teenagers got in trouble was because their parents had divorced. This was reinforced by the fact that 48 percent of the children he worked with came from other than a two-parent household. After he went through his own divorce, he recognized that he had been guilty of prejudice against divorced families. It wasn’t the divorce itself that was the major cause of kids having difficulties; it was the dysfunctional family that often ended up divorced.
More recent research shows that maybe one-third of children whose parents divorced are doing above average in school and adjustment, another third are doing about average, and the remaining third are doing below average—roughly the same numbers as for intact families. In contrast, children who live within a two-parent dysfunctional family are almost all performing below average. In short, kids are better off with divorced parents than with a high-conflict home life.
Adversarial divorces—and the custody battles that often accompany them—are another source of negative effects on children of divorce. Bruce, in particular, observed that the adversarial process in our courts, which is effective in criminal and civil cases, can feed the anger and vindictiveness of the divorcing parties; in one case he recalled, the judge allowed the noncustodial parent to force five custody hearings for the three children over a two-year period! In that case, the court’s handling of the divorce contributed to the children’s adjustment difficulties in a way that was almost abusive. Children’s pain is already magnified when their parents’ divorce is acrimonious rather than amicable; battles in court only extend their period of pain and uncertainty.
Fortunately, parents, and subsequently their children, have a much better opportunity of adjusting to the trauma of divorce today than they did forty, fifty, or sixty years ago. A headline from a Saturday Evening Post of 1948 read: children are semi-orphaned by their parents’ divorce. Hopefully, we’ve entered a time when children possibly having four parents instead of two is considered more than acceptable, if not favorable.
Yet we don’t want to minimize the difficult adjustment for children when their parents go through a divorce. The consequences of divorce can affect them for many years. Where do the divorced parents sit at their children’s weddings? Who brings whom to their graduations? How can the children maintain a close relationship with grandparents when the parents are locked in a divorce battle? How much more likely is it that children of divorce will themselves divorce later in life?
Nevertheless, a good divorce is better for children than living with parents in a destructive marriage. If the parents are able to adjust to their divorce, the chances of the kids adjusting are greatly increased. Many adults are able to be better parents after the divorce, and the children often benefit from this improved parenting. Still, divorce is often the most traumatic event in a child’s life, and we need to do what we can to minimize the emotional and psychological hurt and pain.
Maybe you’ve noticed this perplexing phenomenon: when we adults are in the divorce pits, why does everything seem to break down? Does the washing machine know we are going through a divorce? Can the car sense our anxiety? It’s completely understandable when people say a little prayer of gratitude or consider it a good day when their computer doesn’t crash and their phone doesn’t drop a call!
When we are experiencing technological breakdown all around us, our children are often emotionally supporting us more than we would like to admit. They often behave better so they don’t upset us. They often do things for us that they wouldn’t have thought of doing when we were married. They don’t let us know how much pain and anger they are feeling. In essence, they put their own adjustment process on hold as we go through ours.
When we parents begin to sit back and relax because we think we are adjusted, feeling stronger, and over the divorce, look out! That’s often when our children sense at some level that they can start working through the rebuilding blocks—that they don’t have to walk around on tiptoe anymore. Corinne, quoted at the beginning of this appendix, complained to her seminar group about her kids acting out. But maybe her kids were actually giving her a compliment! Finally feeling free enough to act up, what the children really might be saying with their behavior is, “You’ve adjusted and are strong enough that I can now work through my process. I need to cry, to be angry, and to act out my hurt. I think you’re finally ready to handle me while I work through my pain.” Parents’ faces light up with relief when they consider this possibility.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: kids are tougher than you think.
As your children make the climb up the divorce recovery mountain, there are eight stumbling blocks they may encounter, expressed as follows:
Stumbling blocks trip children up, but rebuilding blocks are the tools they use to get back on their feet. With the rebuilding blocks for children—which differ from those in the recovery model for adults—the experience of divorce is accepted and the foundation for recovery is built. The crisis becomes an experience that may actually encourage your children’s growth and maturity. As children change each of the stumbling blocks into the following rebuilding blocks, they become stronger:
Each of the rebuilding blocks represents an adjustment for children as they experience the stages of divorce recovery. It is likely that your children will gain in wisdom, strength, and maturity as they climb to the top of the mountain.
One symbolic activity you can do with your children is to take them on a hike. This is especially good if you live close to mountains or foothills, so you can pick a trail and climb to the top. Shared outdoor activities can really bring children and parents together. You and your children already know that adjusting to divorce is a lot like climbing a mountain. All of you can gain powerful insights by physically hiking even partway up. In urban areas, you could plan a challenging course in a safe neighborhood and include some stair-climbing along the way.
If you decide to do this activity, it will help if each of you pays attention to the feelings you notice on your journey. Which aspects of your hike were exciting? Which were frustrating? What challenges did you encounter? How did you feel at the end of your hike? How about when you reached your goal? What was it like for you and your children to accomplish this goal together? What are you learning about adjusting to the ending of your love relationship? What are you learning about your children? What are your children learning about you?