Children of divorce face different challenges that other kids don’t have. Kids of divorce travel between homes and spend extended time with each parent between visits. For children, divorce can be very stressful and sad. At any age, kids may feel uncertain about how things will work when mom and dad split up. As a parent, there are things that can make the process a little less painful for your children. It isn’t always going to be a seamless process, but these tips can help your children cope.
What I need from my mom and dad: A child’s list of wants
- I need both of you to stay involved in my life. Please write letters, make phone calls, and ask me lots of questions. When you don’t stay involved, I feel like I’m not important and that you don’t really love me.
- Please stop fighting and work hard to get along with each other. Try to agree on matters related to me. When you fight about me, I think that I did something wrong and I feel guilty.
- I want to love you both and enjoy the time that I spend with each of you. Please support me and the time that I spend with each of you. If you act jealous or upset, I feel like I need to take sides and love one parent more than the other.
- Please communicate directly with my other parent so that I don’t have to send messages back and forth.
- When talking about my other parent, please say only nice things, or don’t say anything at all. When you say mean, unkind things about my other parent, I feel like you are expecting me to take your side.
- Please remember that I want both of you to be a part of my life. I count on my mom and dad to raise me, to teach me what is important, and to help me when I have problems.
Source: University of Missouri
Today’s technology makes staying involved much easier than it used too! Email, texting, and smart phones can help build bridges with parents at a distance. With technology also comes some parental stress to make sure that even though you are connected to your child, how do you ensure that your child is safe while using email and social media?
- Are your children being protected from spam, vulgarity, viruses and predators while on the internet, smart phones and tablets?
- Have you lost parental control over who they contact and what they say?
- Do you feel your children are safe when communicating with you, their other parent, family and friends?
KidsEmail is great tool for families of divorce. It provides safe email on any device along with email monitoring so you always know who they are contacting as well as who is contacting them.