Boynton Beach author offers free divorce resources through July for parents

Boynton Beach author offers free divorce resources through July for parents
July 15, 2011|By Jaclyn Rosansky, Sun Sentinel
In 1995, local author Rosalind Sedacca was worried about how to tell her young son about her impending divorce. She came up with a way to smooth his transition: a scrapbook explaining the divorce thoughtfully.
After realizing there should be a template or model for how to tell children about divorce, she wrote a homemade storybook and made it downloadable so parents could customize it with photos and personal information.
"How Do I tell the Kids about the Divorce? A Create a Storybook Guide to Preparing your Children — with Love!" uses two age-appropriate, fill-in-the-blank templates for parents to use when breaking the news.
Her now-adult son wrote the introduction.
She is offering her special divorce advice and more for free for in July, which is National Child-Centered Divorce month. She applied five years ago to Chase's Calendar of Events, a resource for creating special days, weeks and months, to make July a special time for parents to think about the impact divorce can have on children. The process took several months to finalize.
She also created the Child-Centered Divorce Network as a support and resource center for parents to handle divorce the "right way."
Sedacca, who lives in Boynton Beach, is a relationship coach, professional speaker and holds a bachelor's degree in communications.
"All couples should ask themselves this question," Sedacca said. "Do I love my children more than I hate my ex?"
Answering this question reminds parents to remain civil and ensure their children are first priority, she said.
Another expert, Ron LaSorsa, offers advice for couples with children and whose marriages are broken. He grew up around divorce and experienced it as an adult, and founded the Kids Come First Coalition so that professionals and individuals could talk and makes suggestions for telling kids about divorce.
"The traditional divorce process has a negative impact on children," LaSorsa said.
Some mistakes parents often make include: making the child a messenger between parents, having the child make divorce decisions, alienating the child and telling a child adult information such as if one parent is an alcoholic.
Older children especially, Sedacca said, are affected the most because they often develop resentment and anger that result from divorce.
Parents should constantly tell the child it is not their fault for the divorce, make them feel loved and use co-parenting skills.
"The problem is not divorce," Sedacca said, "It's how divorce is handled."
For access to free divorce resources online for the rest of the month, visit childsharing.com/childcentereddivorce, Sedacca's website at childcentereddivorce.com or contact Sedacca for more information at rosalind@childcentereddivorce.com. LaSorsa can be reached at kidscomefirstcoalition@gmail.com and his website is divorcecures.com.