I’m a divorce mediator in Lake Forest, Illinois. An area of focus in my practice is guiding parents toward a healthy co-parenting relationship during and after divorce for the benefit of the entire family. In mediation, we have time to have healthy discussions about this topic where we can understand the impact of the parent’s actions and inactions, grasp an understanding of what children want from your divorce, and make commitments toward a healthier co-parenting relationship as part of the parenting plan. This isn’t possible in a litigated divorce and is one of many benefits when you pursue a mediated divorce.
As part of my work with hundreds of couples, as well as experiences from my own divorce and those of others, I believe children want the following as part of your divorce:
- Positive Family Identity:
- Don’t forget that while you and your spouse are ending your romantic relationship, your children are not ending any of their relationships. Their siblings are still their siblings, their grandparents are still their grandparents, their parents are still their parents, and their family still consists of their parents and their siblings.
- Every child deserves to retain a positive family identity, and that is entirely possible even after a divorce. Doing so requires the parents to recognize that only their romantic relationship has ended and that they are still the parents of the family they created.
- In fact, when you divorce, you likely will feel that your children are the best things that came from your marriage. If that is the case, cherish them, share in their joy and support them together.
- Helping your children retain a positive family identify will not only carry them through the divorce, but it will also help them grow up with a similar pride of family that children with intact families experience.
- Awareness Of A Parenting Team vs. Having Two Separate Parents:
- Similar to a positive family identify, children want to have “parents”, not a “mom” and “dad”. We all know parenting is a tough job, that’s why families have two of them!
- In all seriousness, single parenting is HARD, perhaps the most important role you will ever have.
- If you can retain your relationship with your former spouse, as “parents”, you can still lean on each other, and your children will see you are parents working as a team for the children.
- A divorced family without a parenting team is a divorced family. A divorced family with parents is a family who lives in two homes. Your children prefer the latter.
- Shared Support Of Your Children’s Needs & Priorities:
- If you have joint legal custody of your children, you both have the right to make decisions together for your children, with respect to their medical care, education, religion and extracurricular activities.
- Too many times in divorce, parents battle over decision-making. They don’t respond promptly, they ask questions instead of trusting each other to do the right thing for the children, they add additional requirements as part of their approval in order to have some control, and sometimes they respond negatively without approval if they feel one of their prior requests was not honored.
- All of this places your children in the middle of conflict. All they want is to do something that other families align on more easily. Everything is an effort. They start to lose faith in both of their parents. They start to feel they are not in a healthy dynamic.
- In order to avoid this, trust each other, support each other, remember that you each have different insights into what is best for your children. Let your children feel you are united and always working toward their best interests.
- Tension-Free Transitions:
- Depending on the age of your children, you may have 1-3 transitions each week where you exchange the children between each of you.
- Your children are extremely perceptive. And there is nothing they want to see more than to see their parents together. So they are attuned to every transition.
- When there is tension, stress, conflict, silence, it destroys your children’s sense of family.
- Instead, at a very bare minimum,exercise “small-talk”, but if possible, talk as parents. Talk about the children. Try to converse in a healthy manner. Let the children see you care about each other and can laugh together and communicate effectively. It will allow the children to enjoy the transitions instead of dreading them.
- Comfort At Shared Events:
- Similar to transitions, which can happen 1-3 times per week, you will also find yourself at school or activity events together, or potentially family or neighborhood functions.
- Nothing says “divorce” more than parents attending the same event and not talking, or worse, not allowing yourselves to join together for your children.
- When children have to take pictures with mom, before taking pictures with dad, or walk to the first base side to talk to dad before walking to the third base side to talk to mom, you are forcing your children to be identified as “children of a bad divorce”.
- Instead, if you can find comfort around each other and let your children connect with both of you together after their activity, you give them a positive family identity and allow them to enjoy their activities without the stress and tension that comes from seeing their mom and dad uncomfortable around each other.
- They Want A Voice As They Gain Maturity:
- As children mature, it is healthy to give them some level of say in their lives. Naturally you want to both make sure they have quality time with each parent, but they also need to have a voice in how that happens.
- If parents can work together to respect that, while also protecting each other’s relationship with the children, their children will respect you both and have an opportunity to gain a level of responsibility.
Of course all children are different. But when parents prioritize their role as parents, putting their children first, it helps their children, it helps the parents, and it allows the family to move forward in the healthiest way possible.
Like this article? Check out “How Alienation From a Child Hurts Everyone In the Family”