[9:00 AM] The step-mother shrugs as she backs out of my office, apparently resigning her duties for an hour to me, the child’s counselor.
Briefly observing the girl for a moment to gauge her status; I notice that the eleven-year old, slumped down in her seat, will not return my look. I can’t recognize if she has any more bandages over her wrists, hands or neck since last week. She might be cutting herself in the same places. Or, she may have finally found a better way to vent her anger.
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[1:30 PM] I wonder if this is becoming a pointless exercise. Every time the mother leaves her five year-old daughter with me, the girl simply throws a fit- -just like this! They must hear her crying throughout the whole building. And there’s her mom, coming back and bawling as well.
We need to find a different place to meet so the girl can see her mother, but she has become so insecure since her parents divorced. I don’t know if I will ever get time alone with her.
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[4:00 PM] I watch him looking at the book titles on my shelf. Perhaps he is getting interested in child psychology. He is certainly getting some first-hand experience. However, I realized his gaze is fixed only on the picture of my son.
“Yours?” he asks.
When I answer in the affirmative, he turns to me only to say, “So how long you keeping him?”
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These three cases, a few examples from a counselor’s day, allow the reader to view some of the effects of divorces that are not being handled in the best interest of the children.
While it is commonly held that about one-half of all marriages will end in divorce, the less familiar number would be how many children are affected. Newsweek stated recently that as many as 1 million American children each year experience their parents’ divorce. Moreover, “these children are twice as likely as their peers to get divorced themselves and more likely to have mental health problems” (April 21, 2008, pp. 48,49).
Measuring the impact more clearly, the National Institute of Mental Health shows, in “Preventive Sessions After Divorce Protect Children into Teens,” that although most children are able to handle the divorce, a quarter of teens have serious difficulties in adapting to the new relationship (www.nimh.nih.gov). In “Coping with Divorce,” the author directs parents to realize that, “Your attitude shapes your children’s attitude.” From this point, the parents “words and actions” strongly influence a child’s development through the trauma of a divorce (www.helpguide.org/mental/children_divorce).
The solution for the children of divorce may be found in the response of Barbara Cochran, a counselor of Community Counseling Services. “Parents don’t divorce their children.” she asserts.
For example, parents may wrongly associate their children with the failed marriage. In cases like these, the father or mother are only building walls that make relationships with their children difficult, or perhaps even impossible. “I tell the parents that if they still have issues with each other, try to keep the children out of it.”
In a divorce, the connections between the adults are radically changed, from a marital relationship, to a parenting-partner relationship. Therefore, the lines of communication must also change. No longer should the couple talk about old disagreements and problems between them. Exchanges like these are based on what went wrong in their marriage. After the divorce, their conversations need to be focused on their children. Each parent talks with his or her children, and either parent can talk with the other parent, but only about matters pertaining specifically to the children and their care. There must be cooperation for the sake of the children.
Cochran described children responding to conflict in their parents’ divorce in very different manners. Some act out with delinquent or violent behavior and an uncontrolled anger; others simply isolate themselves and fall into depression, substance abuse or frequent headaches, accidents or injuries. She also showed how children in homes of great conflict do not interact well with others, or have trouble with school. “The bottom line,” Cochran says “is that children need both parents.”
“All children experience problems in adjusting to divorce. Many children fear being abandoned or replaced, guilty that they are somehow responsible, and very anxious about what is going to happen,” she adds.
Children of divorce need someone with whom they can talk, and that may not be their parents. From the children’s point of view, they may avoid sharing everything with their parents simply because they do not want to add to the parents’ problems.
Nevertheless, “one of the most powerful tips is to set aside 10 to 15 minutes a day for each of your children,” since a primary cause for behavioral problems is the lack of communication between the parents and their children (Parents Are Forever, 30).
Community Counseling Services is a United Way agency, operating with the support of the ADAMH Board of Crawford and Marion counties.
