The 6 Platinum Principles Of Shared Parenting During Divorce · 7 III) View the other parent as...
Transcript of The 6 Platinum Principles Of Shared Parenting During Divorce · 7 III) View the other parent as...
The 6 Platinum Principles Of Shared Parenting During Divorce:
I. Protect your child from parental conflict, whether subtle or overt. Take the high road even (and especially) if the other parent doesn’t. Civility is a choice.
II. Do your own work to fully grieve the marriage and the loss of traditional family life. Divorce is not a single event to “get over” but a long process of integration.
III. View the other parent as both an integral part of your child’s
life and your life-‐long business partner – it’s a package deal. And a critical one.
IV. Commit to a schedule and establish a parenting agreement.
Give your child the gift of certainty during this painful and disruptive time.
V. Identify and honor healthy emotional boundaries with your
child. They are not your confidante, surrogate spouse, pawn, messenger or spy.
VI. Commit to staying out of court and chart your own future. The judicial system isn’t designed to produce two winners.
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“Experts now have verified that children can get over the injury of divorce itself, but they cannot adjust to chronic expressions of anger, blame, and constant disapproval of the other parent.” -‐ Shirley Thomas, Parents Are Forever
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I) Protect your child from parental conflict, whether subtle or overt. The research is clear. Children who are protected from the bickering and fighting that accompany divorce fare the best. If you and your former partner cannot commit to doing anything else, this is the one principle to hold sacred. The best way to avoid conflict in front of the kids is to schedule a time to talk when the kids aren’t present. Only participate in a conversation when you are confident you have full privacy. While discussing things in front of the kids can be efficient (for example, during the transition from one house to the other), limit yourselves to a quick hello if you are at all likely to end up bickering or sneering. Making disparaging comments about the other parent in front of your kids is off limits. This is so tempting when you are hurt and angry, and depending on the circumstances, might be quite justified. Don’t do it. You have a huge influence over your child’s attitude about the other parent, so use it in a positive way. Save the negative comments about your former spouse for a close friend, a well-‐hidden journal or your therapist. It’s important to hold friends and family to the same standard. To quote a lesson learned in kindergarten or before, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. And be aware of those underhanded comments that don’t directly disparage but hold equal negative weight. Subtle comments and innuendo have a power that should not be underestimated. Civility is a choice, and one that is especially important when dealing with a difficult former spouse. It’s no real challenge to be civil in the face of civility, but it can take Herculean effort to respond to nastiness and negativity with a detached calm. Whether difficult or impossible in your mind, take the high road when dealing with your former mate. Do it for your children.
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“Anger is a medicinal balm. It dulls the ache in the gut.”
-‐ Lois Gold, The Healthy Divorce
“When you forgive someone for hurting you, you perform spiritual surgery on the soul.”
-‐ Lewis Smedes, Forgive & Forget
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II) Fully grieve the marriage and the loss of traditional family life. Divorce is a death and must be grieved. Whether a long, slow death or a sudden smack in the face, it is the death of dreams, fantasies and expectations for the future. Regardless of the shift in feelings or circumstance, and whether you are the leaver or the left, no one escapes the grieving process. The five stages of grief are the well-‐documented denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Unfortunately, this is a non-‐linear process so you may visit the different stages more than once and in no particular order. Worse yet, you and your former spouse are unlikely to travel this road at the same pace. Be aware that many people get hung up in the anger stage. Habitual anger locks you in a state of negative intimacy with your former mate and prevents both of you from moving forward. Loneliness. Disorientation. Sense of failure. Lack of self-‐confidence. Helplessness. Fear. These are extremely common states of being during the divorce transition and will improve in time. Practicing radical self-‐care, participating in a grieving ritual(s) and trusting in the grieving process go a long way toward healing and feeling whole again. To the extent you actively grieve your marriage you are doing a great service to yourself, your children and any future partners. While the temptation to distract yourself tirelessly is huge, pick your poison carefully. People who remarry in short order often live to regret it. Untangle as much as you can from the life you have shared with your former mate before you start to build a new life with someone else. Give grief its due respect. Kids need their parents emotionally well enough to function as the parents they have always been. Seeing Mommy and Daddy handling this transition well gives kids hope that things will be okay and can serve as a model for handling difficult/unwanted change. It’s not required that you fully shield them from your grief, but it’s critical to do your own inner work so you can be a fully engaged parent.
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“The most important gift you can give your child is a healthy attitude about the time that he will spend with his other parent.”
-‐ Philip M. Stahl, Parenting After Divorce
“When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.” -‐ Bernard Meltzer, radio host
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III) View the other parent as both an integral part of your child’s life and your life-long business partner. Divorce is a long-‐term relationship, so acceptance of this principle is critical. Because being a parent is forever and because kids need both parents in their life, your former mate will be in your life…forever. While some people patently refuse this concept and work overtime to avoid its reality, practicing this principle is a huge gift to your child. Help your children develop an independent, loving relationship with the other parent. This is especially necessary for the parent with whom the child spends less time, often the father. Children should not be made to feel guilty about time with the other parent, even if the parenting skills or atmosphere in the other household are less than ideal. Other than in the case of abuse or neglect, you can’t protect a child from who the other parent is. Kids love both their parents and deserve to have a viable relationship with you both. Even if you have to dig deep, identify some good qualities about the other parent and keep the focus on their strengths instead of their deficiencies. Research states that there are many different healthy parenting styles and that kids of divorce often end up more resilient having been exposed to multiple styles. Talk about the other parent to your child in neutral or positive ways. Don’t take the topic of the other parent off the table as if they no longer exist. They are a huge presence in your child’s life and shouldn’t be an off-‐limits subject. Be proactive in cultivating and maintaining the relationship with the other parent on behalf of your child. Encourage your kids to do the same by suggesting they call or text the other parent when something big happens so they can share the moment with both parents.
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The simple (but by no means easy) key to treating your former spouse as a current business partner is to separate the marital relationship from the parental one. Regardless of what was done or left undone in the marriage, it’s imperative that you communicate regularly and respectfully about your children. If it helps, think of it as being co-‐owner of a new business venture called ROC (Raising Our Children). You both have the same mission and the same precious cargo at stake, so it only makes sense to work together. Suspend your low expectations of what is possible for the restructured relationship. In the same way that civility is a choice, cultivating a cooperative and collaborative business relationship with your child’s parent is a choice as well. When you are no longer in the position of having to meet each other’s personal needs, there is greater possibility that you will be able to work together in a collaborative way for ROC. And the benefits package is unrivaled. In the disappointing case where only one of you is committed to the partnership in ROC, stay the course. You may or may not be able to influence the other parent with your healthy modeling, but you are doing the right thing by your kids. Don’t keep score. Keep up your end of the (desired) partnership regardless of the behavior of the other party, much as you would in the workplace. And as you would with a business partner, stay out of the personal affairs of the other parent. You are both “free agents” now, so the way they choose to spend their time and with whom they spend it are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. You are welcome to your opinions and even your judgments, but keep them to yourself. Resist the urge to take a stab, even a subtle one. Respecting boundaries goes a long way in maintaining good will and good emotional health for you both. In reweaving the family tapestry it is imperative to view the other parent as equally important to the equation as you are. Because children see themselves as half of mother and half of father, they need you both to be major players in their life. And the best way to be in their life is as cooperative and collaborative colleagues, functioning as a team to raise them.
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“Perhaps it is best to acknowledge that on some level the skeleton of the emotional connection with your former spouse will always be there. It doesn’t have life, but it also doesn’t disappear. The presence of children is a continuous reminder that there will always be blood ties. A deep connection exists even as you create healthy emotional distance, because no one else shares with you the depth of feeling for your children as does the other parent.”
-‐ Lois Gold, The Healthy Divorce
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“You obviously can’t do anything to ease the pain or conflicts that your children feel when they see or hear damaging things from the other parent, but by doing your own individual best, and by taking responsibility for your own behavior and acting in your children’s best interests regardless of the other parent’s actions, you can help meet your children’s need for peace.”
-‐ Philip M. Stahl, Parenting After Divorce
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
-‐ William James, psychologist/philosopher
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IV) Commit to a schedule and establish a parenting agreement. Because there is so much uncertainty swirling about, especially when you first separate, it is essential to create a parenting schedule that makes sense for your family’s lifestyle. Consider your children’s ages and temperaments when setting up this arrangement and know that it will evolve as they get older. Once set, stick to it…especially for the first year. Children do best when they know what to expect, so it’s far more important to get the calendar in order than to figure out who has the children which percentage of the time. Don’t get hung up on your parental rights, the cost of child support, or how the arrangement is going to look to other people. Instead, focus on what is in the best interests of the kids. There are many books outlining age-‐appropriate parenting schedules that can offer you guidance. A parenting agreement includes the weekly schedule for the children and much more. Issues like holiday schedules, major decisions for children (medical and otherwise), schooling, moving, introducing kids to dating partners, discipline of the children, protocol for problem resolution between parents, etc. are also covered. The idea is to anticipate things that invariably come up before they actually surface. This agreement serves as a road map. Now is not the time to merely wing it. Ideally you will develop a parenting agreement with a mediation professional and/or a family counselor trained in this area. While many books offer templates that can be used if you and your former spouse work well together, this is a time when professional help is well worth the investment. However, you can begin brainstorming your preferences over the kitchen table to cut back on billable hours. Commit to a weekly parenting schedule before ever telling the kids you are separating, if possible. It’s only fair for kids to know when they are going to be seeing their parents. It eases their anxiety and gives them a sense of rhythm in an otherwise chaotic time.
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“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” -‐ Elizabeth Stone, author
“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”
-‐ Robert Fulghum, author
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V) Identify and honor healthy emotional boundaries with your child. Healthy emotional boundaries between parent and child can start to blur during the divorce transition. Loving and well-‐meaning parents sometimes slowly, and often imperceptibly, begin to lean on their kids in ways that can be damaging. Awareness of these boundaries is the best way to ensure you aren’t crossing them. Kids need to be kids and not stand in as your confidante or surrogate spouse. Children are not appropriate sounding boards for your hurt and anger. Even teenagers, who can at times seem incredibly mature, need to be protected from this. Be careful not to pigeonhole a son as “man of the house” or a daughter as “caretaker.” Being too blunt, providing too much information or choosing to gloss over a subject can be damaging. Don’t rob your child of their childhood. Using kids as messenger and/or spy is putting your child in a very difficult position. Because they love you both equally and identify so much with both of you, it’s terribly unfair. Encourage your kids to share freely how they spent their time with the other parent, but don’t do it to gain information. And when you share information with the kids do it with purity of heart, not as an attempt to make something known to your former spouse. Children are not to be used to fill your loneliness, assuage your guilt or as ammunition against the other parent. Actively search out ways to meet your emotional needs through avenues other than your children. In the same way you are shielding your kids from the conflict of divorce, protect them from fuzzy emotional boundaries. The one question to ask of yourself over and over again is, “What is in the best service of my child right now?” Remember, this isn’t about you. It’s about the kids.
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“Most post-divorce parenting disputes are not really about the children, but about the relationship between the parents. Couched in terms of the children’s needs, these conflicts mask fears of being alone, ambivalence about the divorce, continuing emotional dependencies and attachments, and efforts to assuage wounded pride or punish a spouse. For some, keeping anger stirred up staves off the temptation to get back together or wards off terrible feelings of emptiness. Others simply don’t know how to extricate themselves from destructive patterns of interacting. Concentrating on the faults of or fights with your ex is a good excuse not to look at yourself.” -‐ Lois Gold, The Healthy Divorce
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VI) Commit to staying out of court and chart your own future. Plan to mediate instead of litigate, and start at the kitchen table. While there are varying degrees of conflict in divorce, there is a phase called the “divorce honeymoon” which is a short but potent time to get things accomplished. Once the decision has been made to separate, get to work on the logistics. To the extent you can use mediation professionals, family counselors, certified collaborative law attorneys and/or mediation-‐friendly attorneys, you will be less stressed both emotionally and financially, and far less likely to end up in a court battle. There are many resources to help you through this transition, and a judge should be a last resort. Whether you hire an attorney immediately or don’t secure one until near the end of your process, don’t get into the habit of talking to your former spouse through your attorney. You will be in a parenting relationship with one another for the life of your child, so there is no need to suspend personal communication at the outset. This is also a pragmatic choice economically. There is no meter running when you talk directly to the other parent. Taking the other parent to court is an extremely expensive route, both emotionally and financially. And the outcome is seldom satisfactory to either party. The judicial system is not designed to produce two winners. And no matter who appears to “win” the battle in court, often your children’s primary gain is the ongoing animosity that typically follows. Only you and the other parent know what is best for your kids. You should be charting your own future, not a judge who doesn’t know anything about your family. Judges are charged with making a permanent and legally binding decision for your family with precious little information, so commit to staying out of court unless things have irretrievably broken down.
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Postscript Divorce is a difficult and stressful path, made both richer and more painful with the blessing of children. Because they are a gift to us and their childhood is so fleeting, it is our moral obligation to make the transition as easy on them as possible. While every divorce has it’s own texture, the best way to ensure a positive outcome for your kids is to practice the art of co-‐parenting, focusing on progress and not perfection. While few people would argue with the validity of following some basic ground rules during divorce, and books abound on the topic of healthy co-‐parenting during divorce, the task remains a difficult imperative. If you and your former partner are struggling to develop or maintain a positive co-‐parenting relationship, know that it can improve over time with your focused attention and not a little effort. Healthy divorce is not an oxymoron. There are no shortcuts to a cooperative and collaborative relationship with your former spouse. And for some, such a relationship seems wholly out of reach. However, there is reason to remain optimistic. The poet Mary Oliver stirs a great sense of hope in this line from her poem “Evidence:”
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.
Cathia Friou is a professional coach who helps clients grow and transform through self-‐awareness. A divorced mother of two daughters, she practices the art of co-‐parenting with the father of her children. For more information please visit:
www.cathiafriou.com
© 2012 Cathia Friou