Raising the Bar: Parenting through Divorce

Your family’s physical environment will go through a transformation via divorce and so won’t your family’s emotional state. Many children of divorce will test these new emotional boundaries in many ways because of feelings of confusion and the need for control. Parents should not overlook the importance of raising the bar for their children.

Children in today’s world are inundated with unprecedented immorality, anti-family and parent messages where dysfunction is all too often considered a normalcy. From myspace to cell phones to media and more, parents must choose who and what shapes our children’s lives especially for children of divorce who are emotionally vulnerable.

Communication

Communication is the glue that will hold your relationships together, and it is also a valuable skill that you will teach your children. Communication is healthy, and lends to understanding. When people do not communicate, emotions are often released in destructive methods such as conflict, outbursts, violence, displaced aggression, and even dangerous habits such as alcohol and drugs. Through practicing constructive communication you are teaching respect for others, conflict resolution, how to compromise, and more. Practicing open communication with your children where they can freely discuss fears, confusion, questions, anger, and more will give your children a tool that will help them build a healthy life. It is also vital to your children’s best interest that you develop a non-conflict communication method with your co-parent for issues regarding the children. Whether phone calls, emails, letters, or more, it is important to communicate directly with each other on such issues. Mediation services provide a forum for high-conflict parents to communicate and resolve issues, a practice effectively resulting in the children’s best interest.

Discipline

It is the duty of a parent to teach their children to accept responsibility for their decisions. All too often, parents of divorce feel guilty maintaining the same standards they held in the pre-divorce home. The word “discipline” comes from the word “disciple,” which means “to teach.” When our children learn from their mistakes, parents are on the right track of giving our children the tools necessary for building a healthy and successful life. Children of divorce often push new boundaries, such as acting out and being grounded at one home and thinking that as soon as they get to their other home the grounding is out the window. This is a very destructive behavior that is not in the child’s best interest, but rather rewards manipulation, disrespect, and unhealthy patterns for life skills.

Consistency is crucial for parenting children of divorce, and that includes maintaining the household rules and expectations in both households. Holding children accountable for their choices and actions raises the bar for your children to develop essential real-world skills.

Keys to Opportunity & Success

Parents are instrumental in raising the bar of expectations and assisting their children in building a successful life. The keys to opportunity and success for your children are found through education and a successful career path. Many parents dealing with divorce are navigating their own path as they rebuild their family and may not be able to directly provide these keys, resulting in limited options for children of divorce.

Read more about this topic in Town Online.

Comments

[Madeline Binder, M.S. Counseling, M.S. Ed.]

The word discpline, to me, has such a negative connotaction.

Divorce is not a time to get strict, punish or give consequences. Kids life is so out of control because they are going thru an experience that is not of their making.

Now is the time to do cooperative parenting, where parents and children problem solve together and outcomes are resolved together.

I believe in positive parenting, focusing in on helping kids to come to decisions that they can live with and still be socialably responsible.

[B. James Stinson]

Did Santa bring an "Earthquake in Zipland" divorce game for any children in your family this Christmas? I hope you'll contribute a review in Comments. It's an intriguing concept, and I'd be interested to hear how well they implemented it. Next, let's hope for a video game to teach parents how to keep the marriage happy and robust in the first place so their kids can stick to more innocent games, like Grand Theft Auto!