Parenting Tips For Divorce And Beyond
A divorce will have a direct impact on your children’s emotional health and well-being even after the decree has been signed and you and your ex-spouse have moved on with your lives. Here are a few steps you can take to prevent your children from feeling caught in the middle of the divorce.
- Do not use the children to deliver messages to the other parent.
- If you pay child support, do not give your child support check to one of your children to deliver to the other parent.
- Do not discuss how much support you are paying or receiving with your children.
- Do not grill the children for information about what is going on in the other parent’s home. Your children may want to talk about their life at the other parent’s home. If they initiate a conversation about the other parent, it is best to listen thoughtfully. If they bring up an issue they are having at the other home, suggest they discuss the issue directly with the other parent.
- Do not show the children copies of divorce paperwork or discuss the case with them even if the case is over.
- Do not do make comments to the children, which suggest they are not safe at the other parent’s home. If there has been domestic violence in the family, you should disclose this to your attorney at the beginning of the case.
- Do not attempt to influence the children’s preference by offering them incentives such as cell phones if they come to live at your house. In short, do not offer bribes to your children.
- Do not disparage the other parent to your children. Disparagement can be overt. It can also be quite subtle. For example, disparagement can take the form of negative body language or facial expressions while you are talking on the phone to the other parent even if the content of your conversation is neutral.
If you follow these suggestions, you will be making an important contribution to your children’s long-term emotional health and self-esteem:
Remember that children who have strong loving relationships with both their mother and father grow up the healthiest. Absent some very unusual facts, every parent has the responsibility to help their children to have positive feelings about both their mother and father. Your child’s emotional development needs to be priority number one.
Robert L. Mues, Father’s Day Reflections, Including Freud and Tongue Biting, The Ohio Family Law Blog June 15, 2008.
