Steps for Keeping the Peace in Broken Homes
“How do I get my ex to be consistent with discipline?”
“Sometimes I find it very hard not to talk bad about my ex in front of the children.”
“Nothing makes my blood pressure go up faster than when my ex says they will do something and they don’t.”
“I honestly believe my ex does things intentionally to get back at me.”
In the aftermath of a divorce, people often realize that instead of being better off as they hoped, they’ve traded one set of problems for another. There are a lot of frustrated moms and dads who don’t understand why they can’t agree on anything after the divorce when it comes to parenting.
Life is Different
Even if you’ve lived with this person for years, learning how to live separate lives while still parenting your children well may be tricky. There may be things your ex is doing that you totally don’t agree with, but you have to figure out how to work within the boundaries of your new relationship while always considering what’s in your child’s best interest.
For starters, it’s important to plan how you’ll manage as a single parent.
- Get organized so you can move forward. Take time to sort through activities, job demands, a budget, available resources, friends who can provide support and backup, etc. This will help you to be more in control of your situation and to focus on what’s important.
- Focus on family. Set expectations, keep the lines of communication open, establish boundaries and set aside time to be together as a family.
- Throw perfection out the window. It isn’t about having it all together. It is more about doing the best you can under hard circumstances.
- Ask for help. It’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. There are resources available, but you have to make the connection. Neighbors, friends and co-workers are often ready and willing to step up to the plate when you need them.
- Take one day at a time. After you’ve put a plan together, don’t get overwhelmed by the big picture.
This transition time can be very challenging. Working your plan can help you bring some order into your life. It can also help you keep your cool when things don’t go as planned with your ex.
Keep the Children out of the Middle
An old African proverb says, “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”
“Biological parents who fight and refuse to cooperate are trampling on their most prized possession – their children,” says stepfamily expert Ron Deal. “Elephants at war are totally unaware of what is happening to the grass because they are far too consumed with the battle at hand. Little do they know how much damage is being done.”
Parents who want to reduce the negative effects of divorce on their children should strive to be effective co-parents because it reduces between-home conflict and increases cooperation. Taming your tongue, for example, is critical to cooperating. Conflict containment starts with controlling your speech. You cannot be an effective co-parent without doing so.
“Parents have to remember and accept the fact that while they can end a marriage to someone, they will never stop being parents,” Deal says. “While you may be relieved to be out of the marriage, your children have been in a transitional crisis. How well they recover from that crisis has a lot to do with you, the parents. The key to successful co-parenting is separating the dissolution of your marriage from the parental responsibilities that remain.”
According to Deal, children successfully adjust to the ending of their parents’ marriage and can fare reasonably well if:
- The parents are able to bring their marital relationship to an end without excessive conflict.
- Children are not put into the middle of whatever conflicts exist.
- There is a commitment from parents to cooperate on issues of the children’s material, physical, educational and emotional welfare.
Many ex-spouses have a tough time cooperating about anything, let alone the nurturing and disciplining of their children. Some things are just plain hard, but you want the best for your kids.
Co-parenting does not mean sharing all decisions about the children or that either home is accountable to the other for their choices, rules or standards. Each household is autonomous, but there’s shares responsibility for the children. Rules or punishment from one home may not cross over to the other home, to make matter more complicated.
For example, if your child gets in trouble on Thursday and he loses his television privileges, in an ideal world it would be great if your ex were willing to enforce the consequence over the weekend. That may not happen, so the consequence would go into effect when your child returns home to you Sunday evening. Telling your ex that he/she has to enforce your consequence usually leads to more conflict between the parents and more angst for your child.
Deal believes effective co-parenting should look something like this:
- Work hard to respect the other parent and his or her household.
- If possible, schedule a monthly “business” meeting to discuss co-parenting matters. Make a list of things of things to go over. A word of caution: Do not discuss your personal life or that of your ex. If the conversation drifts away from the children, redirect it toward your children and their activities, schedules, etc.
- Never ask your children to be spies or tattle-tales on the other home. That kind of thing creates more stress for your child. If you hear about something that happened while they were with their other parent, listen and try to stay neutral.
- When children have confusing or angry feelings toward your ex, it’s not helpful to capitalize on their hurt or berate the other parent.
- Having everything they need in each home will keep the kids from having to bring basics back and forth.
- Try to release your hostility toward the other parent so that the children can’t take advantage of your hard feelings. Bitterness, hurt and anger keep you from being the person and the parent your children need.
- Do your best to keep your promises and be reliable; broken promises or unreliability can hurt your kids deeply.
In the midst of a complicated and difficult situation, you have the opportunity to show integrity, honor and respect. Even when you don’t like someone anymore or you don’t think they deserve it, respectfulness goes a long way.
- Make your custody structure work for your children even if you don’t like the details of the arrangement.
- If you plan to hire a babysitter for more than four hours while the children are in your home, consider giving the other parent first rights to that time.
- Suggest that younger children take a favorite toy or game as a transitional object.
- If you and your ex can’t resolve a problem, change in custody or visitation, agree to problem-solve through mediation rather than litigation.
Moving On
“The reality is many parents who were poor marriage partners are good parents and their children enjoy them very much,” Deal shares. “Give your ex-spouse the opportunity to be wonderful with the children, even if he/she wasn’t wonderful with you.”
You are traveling in uncharted waters. While you probably have friends who have experienced this and are willing to give you advice, it may not be right for your family.
A father once said that it had been six months since his divorce and it was time for his “kid” to get over it. Children of divorce don’t ever “get over it.” They may learn how to cope with it, but every day for the rest of their lives they will have to make decisions that are a result of their parents’ divorce.
As time goes by, you may feel like you are moving on, adjusting and putting this chapter in your life behind you. However, this is not something your children will ever “put behind them.” At every turn your child will gain new insights and more questions. They must understand the divorce was not their fault. Equally as important is being intentional about modeling healthy relationship skills with your children.
Additional Resources:
The Smart Stepfamily: Seven steps to a Healthy Family – Ron Deal
The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce – Judith Wallerstein, Julia M. Lewis and Sandra Blakesless
Looking for more? Check out this video by JulieB TV on this topic!
I was 18 when my father announced he was divorcing my mother. My sister and brother were 13 and 20 respectively.
While some might think that the three of us were old enough to grasp what was going on, our lives were honestly in an absolute tailspin. Sure, we had heard our parents fight, but it never seemed like anything major.
Never in a million years would I have suspected they were headed down the road to divorce. If you had asked anyone in our community about the likelihood of my parents splitting, they probably would have laughed in your face. The whole thing was a very big shocker.
“What some people don’t take into consideration is the younger you are when your parents divorce, the more childhood you have left to travel between two parents whose lives become more different with each passing year,” says Elizabeth Marquardt, author of Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce and director of the Center for Marriage and Family at the Institute for American Values.
“The older you are when your parents divorce, the more you have to lose. You have a long experience with your ‘whole’ family. You have (for yourself, the teen) a lifetime of memories, experiences, photographs and stories of YOUR FAMILY. All of that comes apart.”
A World Turned Upside Down
Going through the divorce process was an awkward time, not just for my family, but for friends, youth leaders, teachers, and neighbors. People knew what happened, but seemed to keep their distance as if they didn’t know what to say.
Just recently I was talking with a childhood friend about my parents’ divorce. She said the divorce shocked her so much that she didn’t know what to say – so she never said anything at all.
As a teenager, I had all these thoughts and feelings rumbling around inside my head and no idea where to turn to sort things out. Furious with my parents and the situation in which I found myself, I wondered how I had missed the severity of the situation and if there was any way I could have helped to prevent the divorce.
I had questions:
- “Would we have to move?”
- “How would I afford college?”
- “Would we see our father and did I even want to see him?”
- “What will my friends think of me?”
- “Why me?”
I would lie awake at night praying that this was just a bad dream and that I would eventually wake up and everything would be just fine.
“Divorce is tremendously painful at any age (even if you are grown and have left home when your parents divorce), but especially so in the vulnerable teen years when you are just looking at the world and imagining taking it on, on your own,” Marquardt says. “You are standing on the rock of your family, about to jump off, but needing to know that the rock is there so you can jump back at any time. But before your eyes the rock fractures in two.
“Teens can be more likely than younger children to get drawn into their parents’ needs and to worry about their parents’ vulnerabilities. And this is occurring at precisely the time when, developmentally, they are supposed to be identifying more with peers than parents. It’s not developmentally appropriate for a teen to spend the weekend ‘visiting’ his father or ‘visiting’ his mother. His parents are supposed to just BE THERE, steady, in the background, while the teen is focusing on other things.”
Teens Need a Strong Support System During A Divorce
In many instances, teens don’t feel like they can talk with their parents about the divorce. I suspect there were many people who wanted to be supportive of me as I went through this tough time, but just didn’t know what to say or how to approach me. Honestly, I think just letting me know they were aware and available if I needed to talk would have been helpful.
“Parents can do their teen a great favor by personally speaking with people who are close to their teen such as grandparents, a beloved aunt or uncle, coach, youth leader or close adult friend letting them know they want their teen to feel free to speak openly about how they’re feeling, even if it means sometimes saying something bad or unflattering about their parents,” Marquardt says.
“Clearly, this is not about family members and the teen joining together in badmouthing the parents, but they do want to give ‘permission’ to the teen and family member to speak openly as the TEEN wishes. Parents need to understand that if this person is not someone the teen already has a close relationship with, the teen is likely just to see them as another adult and unlikely to form a trusting bond during that time, unless the person is especially skilled and empathetic.”
Family members, friends or others who have their own feelings they need to process about the divorce should turn to someone besides the teen, cautions Marquardt.
Local clinical psychologist, Susan Hickman encourages caring adults who find themselves in a position to reach out to teens who are experiencing divorce to consider the following:
- Be immovable. Provide unlimited, unyielding support at a time when everything seems chaotic.
- Be patient with their behavior. Remember that teens often express their pain through their behavior versus words. Respond to this with positive regard and consistent support for the child providing gentle limits and correction if needed.
- Listen, listen, listen. Do more listening than talking. Teens experiencing divorce are in pain and confusion. Someone needs to hear them.
- Validate their feelings even if you do not agree. Emotions aren’t reasonable. They are expressions of exuberance or distress. Acknowledge their emotions and tell them you understand why they might feel that way.
- Save judgment or criticism for later. This is a time of repair – being there for them in the midst of distress speaks volumes. Teens need to know you care and that they are worth caring about.
- Find a teen support group. Support groups for teens experiencing divorce allows them to connect with people their own age in similar circumstances.
- Time is the key. Giving teens the time they need can sometimes be challenging. Just like there are times when we think people ought to be in a certain place in their grieving process after a death, people often assume that after a certain amount of time kids should just be over the divorce. Sometimes it takes a long time for teens to process what they have been through and for healing to take place.
“Teens going through this very hard time should get the help they need. They should also be encouraged that there are so many great ways to learn about having a good and happy marriage,” Marquardt says.
“The pain they are going through is something they can use to inspire them to be a great husband/wife and father/mother some day. There are many children of divorce in happy, lasting marriages and that can be them, too.”
They say time heals all wounds, and I suppose to some degree that is true.
I remember talking to one of my college professors before heading home for Christmas break my freshman year. I did not want to go home. After listening to me for a while, he said, “I know you don’t want to do home. I understand that what you are experiencing is miserable, but you have told me that you plan to be a counselor. And while this is not something I would wish on anybody, what you are experiencing now will be helpful to you later on when you are working with people who are dealing with divorce.”
He was right. I am painfully aware that my parents’ divorce left scars on my life. If there is a positive side to the divorce, it would have to be the tenacious passion I have for having a healthy marriage and for helping teens that are experiencing divorce. They need to know somebody out there cares and is willing to walk the road with them.
We can all demonstrate a healthy and responsible fatherhood model for our community. Pass this information along to friends, family, co-workers and neighbors.
With friends and in your own family…
- Participate in marriage and family enrichment programs and encourage friends to do it, too.
- Honor the covenant of marriage and be an accountability partner for fellow married friends.
- Help mothers to be supportive of fathers’ involvement with their children, and ask your wife how you can be more involved with your own children.
If you’re an employer…
- Create personnel policies and work environments that respect and encourage the commitment of fathers, and that enable parents to be more involved with their children.
- Research the effects of relocating families and find ways to make the transition as smooth as possible for employees who must move.
If you’re a civic leader, elected official or community organizer…
- Promote community organizations that model fatherhood and male responsibility.
- Strive to develop neighborhoods that are stable and supportive of family life.
If you’re a religious leader or organizer…
- Challenge fathers to assume moral and spiritual responsibilities.
- Offer a broad program of teaching, supporting, counseling and training fathers in their vital role.
- Encourage and recognize involved fathers, and provide opportunities for men to learn from each other.
If you’re a mental healthcare worker, healthcare or a family life educator…
- Begin with a view in favor of fatherhood within the context of a marriage relationship.
- Guide fathers to both accept and appreciate their unique roles within the family.
- Provide continuing education on fatherhood and its responsibilities.
If you’re a family law attorney or judge…
- Promote accountability of all fathers for each of their children.
- Reassess current trends in family law and be an advocate for responsible fathering.
If you’re an educator or childcare provider…
- Encourage fathers’ involvement in the classroom and invite fathers or father figures to participate in school activities.
- Educate boys and young men concerning their potential influence as fathers.
- Train staff about the father’s crucial role in a child’s developmental growth.
If you work in media or journalism…
- Promote articles, research and organizations that address and offer solutions to fathering issues.
- Discourage advertisements or programming that reflects irresponsible fathering practices.
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Dads don’t matter. Seriously, dads don’t make a difference – unless it matters that children are physically and emotionally healthy and achieve educational success. If those things matter for your children, then fathers DO make a difference.
Dr. Alma Golden, pediatrician and former member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on the Family, has a lot to say about marriage and children.
“As Baby Boomers we were told these things:
- Marriage is old-fashioned and confining;
- Open relationships are healthier and more conducive to personal development;
- Fathers are nice but not necessary;
- It is better to live with a divorced mother than two unhappy parents;
- The kids will be OK, they are flexible; and
- Financial disparities are the reason for the differences in health and educational achievement.
“What we believed changed our world and started driving personal decisions. People started getting married later. Women are having fewer children and having them later. Single mothers are giving birth to more children. Fewer children are living with their married biological parents,” says Golden.
So how do these changes affect children?
A study of 294,000 families released in 2010 by the Centers for Disease Control indicates family structure makes a huge difference for children.
The CDC study indicates that when children grow up with their two married biological parents, they have a lower rate of delayed medical care. They’re also less likely to have ADHD regardless of income, education, poverty status, place of residence or region.
Additionally, an earlier study found that in sixth through 12th graders, the strongest predictor of getting a diploma and going to college is having a father who attends PTA meetings.
“When dads show a clear commitment to their children, encouraging them in their educational endeavors, children do better,” Golden says. “The research also indicated that a married daddy at home doubles the chances that a child learns self-management.
“Conversely, non-nuclear families seem to struggle with a lot of issues. For example, cohabiting fathers have less than half the income of married fathers. They tend to bring less commitment to the family as a general rule. The implications for the children are they have fewer resources available to them. Additionally, seven in 10 children of cohabiting couples will experience parental separation.”
Findings from the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force in 2003 showed that:
- Married men and women are physically and emotionally healthier. They are less likely to participate in risky behavior such as alcohol and drug abuse.
- Married men and women live longer.
- People behave differently when they are married. They live healthier lifestyles and monitor each other’s health. And, the increased social support also increases the family’s chances of success.
“If we look back at the baby boomer list, what we now know is that marriage is actually beneficial for men, women and children,” Golden says. “Cohabitation is often of low-trust, stressful and more prone to violence and dissolution. Fathers are a necessity. Good enough marriages produce better outcomes than divorce. The kids are NOT flexible and may not be OK and family structure and stability are more important predictors of outcomes than finances.”
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“In 2010, the first Baby Boomers turned 65. By 2030, 20 percent of America’s population will be over 65. As the Baby Boom generation moves into later life, the proportion of American elders who are divorced is skyrocketing,” says researcher and author Elizabeth Marquardt. “The McKinsey Global Institute predicts that by 2015, 46 percent of boomers will live in divorced or unmarried households. These trends raise concerns for Baby Boomers as they age – and challenges for their grown children – as they become caregivers for their aging parents.”
Marquardt and Amy Ziettlow are co-researchers in a 3-year project funded by the Lilly Endowment to investigate aging, death and dying in an era of high family fragmentation.
Marquardt and Ziettlow are asking Gen Xers about things like:
- How does your generation care for parents who may live far apart?
- Is there an obligation to care for stepparents?
- How do you grieve the loss of a parent when you have grieved the loss at the time of the divorce?
- How do you honor your father and mother when a parent abandons their child?
During an interview, one man said, “My parent’s cold war lasted until my dad died. Then my mom wanted me to mourn the loss of my dad with her. I had already mourned the loss of my father.”
“Married parents will do their best to protect their kids from the worst of a dying parents’ illness,” Marquardt says. “Fragmented families don’t have that luxury. In fact, many of the people interviewed talked about stepparents who don’t communicate anymore once the biological parent has passed away. Family change is not the only stressor. Longer life span, smaller family size and rapid economic changes have a ripple effect on family breakdown.
“We have never thought forward to the impact of divorce on an aging nation,” Marquardt says. “Marriage used to be ‘until death do us part.’ Now it is ‘until it doesn’t feel good anymore.’ There are people who will die a lonely death due to family fragmentation. Leaders are asking who will be taking care of the old people.”
Marquardt and Ziettlow have found there is a lot of hope with Generation X.
“There is something about telling your story,” Marquardt says. “Out of sharing tears, raw memories and family craziness there is a hope that seems to emerge. They take a deep breath and at the end seem to feel a sense of relief.”
Many of those interviewed said they agreed to do it because they wanted to honor their parent.
“The golden rule doesn’t say, ‘Do unto others as they have done to you,’” Marquardt says. “Of the Gen Xers we have interviewed, many say their only hope is to rise above what has happened to them and to ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
Who will be there to take care of you when you can’t take care of yourself?
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Research says that young people who “sext” are more likely to have sex, and that dating violence is on the rise.
So, picture this scenario: Your child sits down at the dinner table and asks, “What is sexting? What is sex?” or “How do babies get inside their mommy’s tummy?”
In response, would you:
A. Laugh and change the subject?
B. Get irritated and tell your child that those questions are not appropriate at the dinner table?
C. Thank your child for asking such a great question and either seek to answer it or tell them that you will talk with them about it after dinner?
Just thinking about answering these questions has and will cause anxiety for many parents. When asked about talking with her children about sex, one mother replied, “My parents didn’t talk with me about it. I think I would just die if I had to talk with my son about it. He’ll figure it out.”
Let’s consider that statement for a moment.
When young people are left to figure things out for themselves, the results can disastrous. Parents can help their children/teens understand that relationships based on sex aren’t healthy or cool by talking openly with them about topics such as sex, love, lust and romance. It’s also an opportunity to help your child think about how certain actions now can impact their goals for the future.
If you are on the fence about talking to your children about sex, sexting and the like, consider the benefits.
- Children develop an accurate understanding about their bodies, and about sexuality, instead of getting inaccurate information from friends or the media.
- They learn that talking to you about sex doesn’t have to be embarrassing.
- You equip your child with information they need to make wise choices for the rest of their life.
- You are teaching them life skills like self-discipline, problem-solving and planning for the future… skills that will help them move toward productive living.
So, here are some helpful tips for taking the plunge and starting that conversation with your kids:
- Be an askable parent. Encourage open communication. Tell them it is okay to talk with you. If you don’t know the answer, find the answer together.
- Don’t overreact. The number one complaint from teens is that parents jump to conclusions when they do ask questions. The goal is to keep the dialogue going.
- Take advantage of teachable moments. The latest sexting research, the pregnancy of a friend and television sitcoms are teachable moments.
- Listen. Sometimes the best thing you can do is listen as your child shares. It is a great way to learn what they are thinking. Hint: If you want to know what is really going on, do carpool duty and keep your mouth shut.
- Less is more. State the facts, be honest and keep it simple and age appropriate.
- Share your expectations and values, too. Whether it is sex, drugs, alcohol or something else, tell your children what you expect. Be clear about your family values.
The best way to protect young people is to educate them. Are you an askable parent?
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Does your kid lie and you don’t know what to do about it? Here’s a classic example. “You tell your parents that you’re spending the night at my house and I’ll tell my parents that I am spending the night at yours and then we both can go to the party.” Except the parents ran into each other at the store. You are so busted!
How do you handle lying in your family?
It drives me crazy when my kids lie to me. Then one day I really tried to look at things from their perspective and ask myself, “Why would they lie to me?”
Even little kids are smart enough to want to avoid consequences or even just letting their parents down. Put yourself in your kids’ shoes- they know that they are going to get in trouble for getting into the cookies, leaving a mess in the kitchen, or breaking whatever. So they choose what they perceive to be the easier path. So, my wife and I tried to make telling the truth the easier path.
When our kids were little, they knew that telling the truth, especially a hard truth, would directly impact their punishment. Sometimes the truth nullified the punishment altogether. “Thank you for telling me the truth about breaking the lamp. Remember, you were told not to horse around in the living room.” And that was it. “Thanks for telling me the truth about eating those cookies. You’re done with sweets for the night.” And we’re moving on. Reward the behavior that you want to get more of. Cultivating honesty in our kids was way more important than finding out who got into the cookies or made the mess in the kitchen or broke whatever. Pick your battles. Honesty is worth parenting toward.
So what about when they still choose to lie?
There was a definite flip-side to our approach to honesty. If we caught you lying, that was going to increase your punishment big time. You will be nuked from orbit. Now, it isn’t even about the cookies or the lamp anymore – it’s about the dishonesty.
We wanted to send a message that we know it can be hard to tell the truth and we will reward that difficult choice. We also wanted to send the message that lying was a relationship-destroyer and would have serious consequences. This definitely impacted our kids’ choices. It was not uncommon for our kids to take a minute (or an hour) and come back to us and say, “Okay, look, I lied about ______. This is what really happened…” Thank you! This didn’t mean that there were no consequences for whatever they did, but telling us the truth was always rewarded. Incentivize honesty!
We need to make sure that we are modeling honesty, too. More is caught than taught. Our kids are always watching and listening. Create a culture of honesty when your kids are younger and the stakes are smaller so that as they get older, they are in the habit of telling the truth.
With my older kids, I try not to ask questions that I don’t already know the answer to. They know this. So when I ask, “Hey, where were you last night?” What they hear is, “Ugh. Dad already knows probably.”
We have made telling the truth a family imperative. Lying shreds the fabric of trust in relationships. I tell my kids, “If I can’t trust you, your life is gonna be very dull.”
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They say that our scars are our stories. If this is true, then Jude, my 12-year-old son, now has this story to tell: “I was playing Fortnite, and I tried this new exploit I saw in a YouTube video, and it worked! I was so excited, I jumped off my bed and busted my lip on the corner of a shelf and had to go to the emergency room and get stitches.” That’s right, we had a video game injury in my house today.
Something about my son getting hurt playing video games made me stop and think. It wasn’t just what he was doing when he got hurt, but I was bothered by what he wasn’t doing. He didn’t get hurt jumping his bike off a homemade ramp, or falling out of a treehouse he was building, or even the ridiculous rock fights that characterized my youth. He got hurt in his bedroom all by himself, playing Fortnite…
Boyhood has changed.
It’s the confluence of two things I’ve observed increasingly in the past few years. First, there seems to be real societal pressure to tame boys – to keep them from playing rough, to rein in their impulse to explore, their need to test themselves against the heights of a tall tree, or even to rise to the challenge of a mouthy friend. We don’t let them wrestle or climb or ride off on their bikes, but we neuter any hint of wildness. We tell them to get down, to settle down, sit down and sit still.
Secondly, because of technology like video games, tablets, and smartphones, our kids are perfectly fine with sitting down and sitting still inside where it is safe and secure. Boys fire up a game console, put on their headset, turn on their flatscreen and tune out the whole wild world. They don’t even know what they’re missing.
Now the only world that boys explore is digital.
Imagination is no longer required – just good Wi-Fi. The challenges of boyhood today mainly involve leveling up. Boys engage their rivals in hand to controller combat. And because the risks aren’t real, neither are the rewards. There may be fewer trips to the emergency room but there are less adventures and far fewer stories to tell.
Scars represent life lived. My son will have a Fortnite scar going forward. I suppose there are worse ways to get a scar, but there are also so many better ways.
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