Help Kids Express Their Feelings Before and After Your Divorce

Help Kids Express Their Feelings Before and After Your Divorce

This is a valuable article for parents written by Len Stauffenger. While you may already be familiar with many of these strategies for promoting a Child-Centered Divorce, there may be a few you have not yet implemented. The age of your child and nature of your relationship with them will obviously dictate which approaches are best within your family. If you find yourself especially successful using any of these techniques, do contact me so I can share what you discovered with our other readers. Best wishes! Rosalind.

You've gotten a divorce. It might feel like the end of the world for you, but you do have all the years of your life where you learned a few coping skills to lean back on. Your children don't have those years of experience, and your divorce may be seen as one huge trauma by them. Life isn't as they have experienced it. One of their parents is gone from their daily life.

They will eventually learn to cope, and here are some tips for you to use immediately to help them get their feelings outside of their minds so the coping can begin.

1. Initiate Play With Them. Children love to play and in their games, they can be encouraged via your questions to tell you how they are feeling. Be considerate and accepting. Don't try to audit or correct their words. Just listen.

2. Do Artwork Together. If you provide your child with crayons, paper, paste and other materials, you can do an art project with the theme: Mommy and Daddy's Divorce and (child's name) Role in It. Ask gentle questions and listen up for their answers. Frequently their feeling is hiding behind their words.

3. Talk About It. This works best for older children. You can ask a very leading open-ended question - one that cannot be answered by Yes or No - and then let the child do the talking. You listen and ask more questions. Don't interject your opinion unless he asks a specific question only you can answer.

4. Read Books Together. Find books appropriate for your child's age about divorce and ask questions about his feelings as you read the book together.

5. Name Your Own Feelings. Your child might not know yet how to express the feeling that he is feeling about your divorce. You can share how it makes you feel and this way, he'll learn to identify his own feelings.

6. Good and Bad Ways To Deal With Feelings. Find family-type magazines and look through them together with your child to discuss the pictures that exemplify feelings. Point them out to him and ask if he's ever felt that way about your divorce.

7. Write A Story Together. Allow him to tell the story as he does for sharings at school. He dictates. You write, with mouth zipped. Just write. Later you can go back and ask questions about the feelings he talked about. You can ask where he felt the feeling in his body and how did it feel there?

8. Create a Puppet Show. You can each play a role, but let him choose which role he wants to play. That alone could tell you a lot. You be the other parent and ask questions about his feelings as you play.

9. Make A Scrapbook About the Divorce. This is a bit dramatic, but it just might be effective for some children. You can sit and watch as he does it, or you can just be in the same room for emotional support. When he's done, say "Tell me about your drawing." Ask feeling questions when he tells you about it.

10. Show Empathy for his plight. Children have lost a lot of control because their parents decided to divorce. You can tell him you realize he might not have made the same decision. If you offer him choices about daily doings once the divorce decision has been made, you can help him regain a sense of control.

11. Physical Activity. This is a great way to let kids run off pent up emotions. Physical activity will allow them to get rid of any tension they might be feeling and once that's let go of, they will be much better able to cope with the next thing that lands in their laps.

12. Provide Continuity. Divorce is an enormous change for a child and children don't like change. If you can keep his room the same; mealtime the same; household routine the same; homework time the same - whatever you can do to maintain continuity, it will help your child unfold his coping skills and handle his emotions so much better.

Your children come first and they are worth every effort you can make for their best regard. They will learn soon enough that your divorce is not the end of the world for them and that you've made every effort to provide the best for them.
* * *
In his book "Getting Over It: Wisdom for Divorced Parents," Len Stauffenger shares his simple wisdom gleaned from his divorce with his daughters and with you. Len is a Success Coach and an Attorney. You can purchase Len's book and it's accompanying workbook at http://www.wisdomfordivorcedparents.com

Rosalind Sedacca, CCT is a relationship seminar facilitator and author of the new ebook, How Do I Tell the Kids ... about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children -- with Love! For free articles, her blog, valuable resources on child-centered divorce or to subscribe to her free ezine, go to: www.childcentereddivorce.com.



8095 Popash Court, Boynton Beach, FL 33437, USA