Divorcing With Kids

This will be short and to the point.
If your divorcing now or know a divorce is on the horizon here are a few suggestions I would make. Of course none of these things were really available or talked about when I was a child going through a divorce. But now the world of Internet makes it possible for you to reach out and get all kinds of information as well as great resources to help you and your kids.

1) REACH OUT TO OTHERS
Your not in this alone. Sometimes it seems as if its all falling in, the walls are closing in and the roof is coming down on your head, Nothing is going right and its everything you can do - to pull yourself out of bed each morning and do what you need to do in order to make it through another day. But your not alone. Others have made it through a divorce as well, and each of them felt this way too at some point. Find these people and connect with them. Internet searches, local churches, non-profit groups, divorce counselors etc are all good resources.
2) DON'T TAKE IT OUT ON YOUR KIDS
It is easy to be stressed out tired and angry or hurt all at once. Unfortunately, this is often taken out on the child. You might not think your doing it. But your quick temper, loud words and even your body language speaks volumes to your child. Make sure your not reacting out of rage and anger toward your ex and taking it out on the kids.
3) DON'T GET IN ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP
This might well be in every blog I do, but so be it. It is that important. DO NOT get involved in another relationship until at least 1 year after the divorce is FINAL. This does not mean 1 year after you started sleeping in separate rooms, or 1 year after you moved out. BUT 1 year after the divorce is final. This is very important for not only you and your ability to have nurturing relations but you also need a 'healed' heart and soul before you can start sharing it with someone else. Beside your kids will need you more than ever. Your spare time and your not so spare time need to be 100% for you and your children. Do not be selfish in this respect. How long were you married??? So then 1 year is not that much to ask. I have even heard it said its 1 year by yourself for ever 5yrs of marriage, with the 1 year a minimum. SO if you were married 10yrs its 2 years on your own. Do this for yourself and your child, but at the very least wait 1 year before you start even dating.
4) DON'T MAKE YOUR CHILD PICK FAVORITES
DO not use your kids as a pawn in this nasty battle. Although it can be tempting. I mean you want your child to pick you right? you want to be the parent on top- the winner so to speak. DON'T DO THIS. Remember your children deep down love both of you. Even if there is one parent who did something that made the child angry. The child still deep down loves both parents - this is natural and the way it should be. Don't make them pick sides and don't plant information and ideas in their heads. This is only hurting the child and messing with their future relationship with this parent. Further, it could potentially lay the ground work for your child to have tumultuous relationships in the future when they grow up. Allow your child to love you both and learn to bite your tongue and keep your feelings out of it.
5) DON'T ARGUE-YELL OR VOICE YOUR ANGER ABOUT THE OTHER PARENT IN FRONT OF KIDS
Kids will sometimes pick up on your hurts, listen to your grievances being displayed or talked about openly with the kids present. I even had one child tell me she heard her Mom talking to her grandma about her Dad taking all the money and having an affair. She told me she thought it mean her Dad had a younger girlfriend. This child was only 7 years old. Be cautious about whom your talking to and what is being said when your child is in the house. In this case this child does not need to know the explicit details of the divorce, further it made this 7 year old feel like she needed to help protect her Mom. A child at this age is the one that needs to be cared for and protected, not the other way around.

Picking Your Friends

Remember when you parent(s) tried to tell you who to hang out with when your were a kid? Why is it that we always did the exact opposite of what we were told to do (or was that just me)?

I remember hanging around some, well lets just say unsavory characters in 6th grade. I mean you might think how bad can it be, I mean this cant be like the Sopranos do middle school, right? Yeah, well ok, so maybe I should just say, the kids I was hanging out with were the ones not paying attention in school, making bad grades (when they did show up for class) and typically could be considered the black sheep of their families. Did I mention they all wore black members only jackets (yes I am dating myself here) and typically could be found in detention at least 3 days out of the week after school.

"And why don't you want me hanging out with them?" I would ask my Mom. Followed by some screaming and yelling and something like this: "You cant make me". Well needless to say she showed me. We moved about 6 months later, not just into a new neighborhood but a new city! Did it work, well yes in a way, although I did try hashing out a plan to run away, I even had it down to where to catch the bus and how much it would cost, my problem was figuring out how to get to the Greyhound station. SO needless to say, and thank goodness for miracles. My ill fated plan never came to fruition.

My advise, talk to your kids and more importantly show them and LEAD them by example. This is talked about on the blog I have attached as a reference. It points out so well how we need to communicate with kids and share with them our own struggles to find the right friends. Most importantly, let them see first hand through your friends the truth behind finding good people to surround yourself with. Just maybe, if by communicating and leading by example, parents can "Pick who their children hang out with."

Its all in the Dash - The Dash after Divorce

Ever heard the saying that in life its all about the dash? Well it means that we are given a gaurantee of only two things in life, a birth date and a death date. We know this is eminent. What matters most in life is the dash in between. How do you live that dash. Did you treat people well, were you fair, did you do things your passionate about, did you make a difference?

Well I have a new thought and it related to you and your divorce date. You see your life really does start over after the Divorce date. Think about it. You might be moving into a new home, starting a new job, learning about yourself and working on how to become a better person, parent and mate in the future. I mean you get to start so many things anew and the most inportant aspect of this is your child.

You have the opportunity to change everything you do and how you react to your child. You are given the chance to help replace their feelings of angst and pain form the divorce. Maybe you and your ex fought all the time. Maybe you were moody and quick to react. Maybe your patience went away. Did you child see something diffent in you? Maybe they saw a parent on the edge, a parent unhappy, a parent in a bad mood all the time. Maybe your child got the brunt of you frustrations.

Well now you can replace those feelings or memories with good ones. You have the chance to do things differently now, you have the chance to change the dash for the better. You can do whatever you want with that dash, make sure you make it count. Make sure you make it count. Make sure you work on yourself and find your happiness and peace again, for the sake of your child and for you.

Make the dash afer your divorce the start of something new, the start of a new life and a new you. Make the dash your turning point and remember you dont know how long you have to use this dash, so make sure you make the best use of every second.

This lesson (blog) came about after a service I heard at church, I was reminded in his 'life lesson' about the "dash" concept and how we only get one dash. I started to think about the kids and parents in my divorce recovery group and it made me think, WOW - parents have this greta opportunity to change their dash for the better.

Listen to the lesson, fo more peronal insight about the dash in your life

Help for kids during and after a Divorce

Just a quick thought to myself reminded me that someone might come to this site and really be looking for help or answers to some serious issues relating to their impending divorce or recent divorce as it pertains to their children.

I by no means have the answers but I can direct you to one of the most profound websites and programs, I think in the country, for both you and your child. Best of all its free, it is not run by the government or the court system, it is not run by lawyers or for profits.

I know of this program because I have been honored to be able to volunteer in my community at several local churches where the classes are held. BEFORE YOU ASSUME its all 'bible freaks' (of which I am proud to be a Christian, yes), I want you to not judge this curriculum before you have first looked at it. It just so happens that mostly churches tend to be the meeting places for the class. Yes it is a class format open to anyone. On the website you will be able to search for locations in your area by zip code.

I have seen it all in these classes. From the parents who were agnostic to the parent who was Jewish. None of this mattered because what they needed at the time was SUPPORT, HELP and UNDERSTANDING on how to deal with the issues and problems that surround Divorce and how to best interact and be there for your children during this time. That is exactly what this program does, it give you valuable tools and a wonderful supportive format for both you and your child to evolve in.

If you or someone you know is suffering through Divorce (past, present or inevitably in the future) please give them this link:
www.dc4k.org

Siblings & Divorce - All Grown Up.

I woke up this morning with a phone call from my little sister, who is the ripe ol' age of 23, she was calling to remind me about us meeting at my grandparents for a visit and some good ol Texas BBQ'ing.

WOW, I am thinking to myself, maybe she is really changing afterall. I mean, I have been waiting her whole life to see if she would grow up, accept responsibility and stop acting like the victim whose helpless all the time. Typically, her stabs at being responsible stop after about a week, but this time, well maybe this is it. After all, she has been helping out with my grandparents now for 3 weeks in a row. Calling them, visiting with them, going grocery shopping for them not to mention she cleaned their entire house.. "Hello", who took over my sisters body is what I want to know? What Alien has inhabited my little sister.

Dont get me wrong, I mean helping out with my grandparents is great, I mean have been doing this by myself for the last 6 years (with no help from her unless I paid her or begged her). Can anyone else relate? I mean if your reading this and you have adult siblings you too must either be like I was, wondering when and if they would ever grow up? Always wondering when they called you how much money will it take this time to bail them out? OR Maybe your on the other side, maybe your like my little sister, the rebelious, under-achiever who walks to a different beat. One who uses their past and background as a self perpetuating excuse as to why you "cant" in life, instead of using the past as a great tool and experience to do better and be stronger.

SO it brings me to my point. Siblings we know are usually different, sometimes opposite in many cases. As with myself and my sister, its like the difference between the Polar Ice Cap and Bermuda. But what about Divorce and how it effects each one.

Parents and siblings need to realize that kids will react differently, express emotions in different ways (with some not expressing anything at all) and we need to empathise and know that instead of judging, condeming or screaming at them. We need to TALK TO THEM. Yes the big "c" word, communicate. Now I realize that it is easier said than done, especially for overachieving, controlling, dominating, 'hero' of the families like myself. After all there have been years where my sister and I barely talked and when we did it turned into argueing within minutes. If I had a dollar every time she walked out and slammed the door or hung up on me. Gee, forget about winning the power ball, I would be wealthy already. So our relationship is best summed up as:
"I push and demand and she cries wolf and runs from everything"
Not the making of a great sibling kinship you know.

The one thing I really missed the whole time was that she sometimes doesnt express herself and I was expecting her to gush her feelings and thoughts like Mt. St. Helens. After all, I knew how to talk about my feelings, I rationalize, compare and (over) analyse the situations and I expected her to always do the same. Well she is different from me and although I always acknowldeged that, I never ACCEPTED that 100%.

SO now I am off to great BBQ to spend time with my little sister, who by the way, spent a whole day with me last week and we never raised our voices, noone stormed out of the house and we actually laughed and had a great time.

Heres to accepting that my sibling reacts, thinks and acts differently than I and heres to me finally understanding that it doesnt mean she was unphased by her Dad and my Moms turmultuous relationship and subsequent divorce. She was very much affected too, she has just shown it & dealt with it differently than I. Therefore, she has 'grown into' the effects of divorce differenlty than I as well. I respect that now and once I did, I have since found a beautiful relationship underneath it all. We are bonded, not just by blood and sisterhood but by the consequences of having parents that divorced.

I think not only has she grown up now, but I have too. Because accepting her fully as she is, means I accept me now too.

So if your struggling with your siblings after divorce, even years after divorce, stop and remember they hurt too, they just might be dealing with it differently. It's time to sit up and take note, they need us as much as we need them. It's time to grow up and GROW OUT of that divorce.

ACOD (Adult Child of Divorce)

There is an acronym for just about everything else in life and with the statistics on divorce rates these days, well I think we deserve to have an abbreviated way of stating we are ACOD's (Adult Children of Divorce) or in my house Absolute Chaos & Overwhelming Dysfunction. If this is already listed in the Journal of Psychology, don't ruin it for me. Let me believe i was the inventor of this term.

So do all children of divorce feel this way? Well I suppose not, I mean if your Divorce experience was amicable, enlightening and absolutely peaceful? NOT! So I think that either acronym you use, both describe who we are. Anyone who has survived divorce can relate. So consider yourself a survivor, its official you can't be voted off

My parents and step- parents divorced (several times), so I was one of the lucky ones who got lots of practice. Trust me, it wasn't any less chaotic at age 4 than at age 13 or again at 15. But I can say that at least at age 4, I wasn't as aware of how crazy the house was or what all the factors were that necessitated the divorce. Of course later in life, I think around 15, my bio Dad told me basically I was a 'true child of the 70's' the whole make love not war, and well maybe my mom had 1 too many funny cigarettes that night. NO big surprise to me I guess, it actually just made me wonder, " who was playing in the background when I was consummated the Beatles or Hendrix?

The standard definition for Dysfunction is : "abnormal or impaired functioning" (courtesy of Webster).
Gee, that kind of sounds like 70% of the world doesn't it. But to me it really sounds like a great definition of divorce.

Actually, I don't want to get off on the wrong track here. This isn't meant to be a somber diatribe of my experiences with Divorce in my family. Actually, I want to bring humor and a lighter side to a very serious subject. A serious subject because there are many people who either are going through divorces now themselves or those who have experienced it second hand as I did, either way I must conclude that we land in one of three categories:

• Your hurting and still trying to make since of it all
• You have gotten over it (or think you have) yet some issues still resurface in your adult life now
• You claim nothing affected you and your FINE...

If in fact you land in the last category then I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are either in denial; refuse to work on yourself; like living in a glass bubble or you are really FINE, which stands for F!!!ed Up, Insecure, Neurotic & Edgy... I think I learned that from a counselor when I was in high school actually.

So, as adults who have grown up as an effect of divorce, how do you see that the divorce has affected you? Tough question and with equally tough answers.

So let me give you a piece of advise, these are the DONT DO's for ACOD (Adult Children of Divorce)

1. Don't keep anger in your heart for one or both parents - anger turns hearts to stone and brings no real satisfaction. Besides, after 20 years or so, get real, they are not going to get back together. (admit it, you probably thought about your parents getting back together even in college)
2. Be aware that we ACOD's are great at fixing things and we are attracted to situation in need or chaos, why? Because we grew up in it and it feels normal. (no - this doesn't apply to everyone)
3. We are masters at getting out of or avoiding relationships. If the Divorce was traumatic then your especially likely to avoid deep meaningful lasting relationships. The risk of being hurt or going through a divorce or separation ourselves is too risky. (so you might be a 40 year old virgin- literally).
4. We are really good at attracting relationships and friendships that often mirror the relationship our parents had. (ughhh -this one hurts)

So us ACOD's have some work to do.

Remember, ' dysfunction is a terrible thing to waste', so make sure you work on yourself and don't let the past get the best of you.