HOW TO DEAL WITH CHILDREN OF SEPARATED PARENTS: 23 TIPS - ECONOMÍA - 2024

Today the number of couples who decide to separate with children after a long period of time together is increasing. This can have a traumatic effect on the child and even have very negative consequences for their well-being and development.

However, a divorce or separation is not the end for the child. You can continue to have a good education and an optimal quality of life, if certain mistakes are avoided and actions are put into practice that generate the least negative effects and try to promote positive consequences.

Here are some tips to treat children of separated parents, improve their well-being, education and ensure a better future.

Tips for dealing with children after a divorce

1- Do not argue with your partner in front of him

If you have to talk with your partner about something related to the relationship or even about the child, you should do it when he is not in front of you. This way we will avoid arguing in his presence and therefore negative feelings that may influence him.

Take advantage of those moments when the child has gone out or is doing some extracurricular activity, in this way you can sit and talk more calmly.

2- Make the process normal

One of the best ways to make this process not affect your child so much is to take it as something normal and natural. Although this is difficult for us, we have to do it for him and we must set an example of maturity and uprightness.

Fighting the situation with secrets from the family in general and the child in particular will only hurt things and slow down the acceptance process.

3- Agree on parenting guidelines

Something that is usually done regularly is to pamper the child to awaken positive emotions that make him feel good and opt for the parent who performs these actions.

However, if we do this instead of educating him correctly, we will be doing the opposite. First, we can make the child only want to be with us, that is, with the parent who pampers and pampers him and lets him do whatever he wants. This can cause the child to choose a parent and just want to be with him.

On many occasions what you want is to do that, however we are not realizing that the main affected is the child himself, since in the end we will make him a spoiled child, unable to abide by and obey the rules imposed on him.

On the other hand, after the separation and to prevent the child from suffering too much, we usually shower him with gifts and excessive affection (the first option is usually fulfilled by the paternal part while the second by the mother) when what he really needs is stick to routine habits and spend time with both parents.

It would be advisable to agree on the parenting guidelines that will be followed from the moment of separation with your partner, so that there is a stable environment and does not harm the mental and physical development of the child.

4- Support your child during the process

Even if you think that you are the person who suffers the most in the divorce process, the biggest victim is your child. We have to be aware that he does not understand what is happening or why father or mother has decided to live in another place.

At first, you will tend to think it was your fault. Therefore, you have to support him and explain what is happening so that he sees that he has had nothing to do with it and that sometimes this can happen. With this we will prevent you from suffering more than you should and from affecting you emotionally as little as possible.

5- Do not speak ill of each other

In most cases our first idea, whether conscious or unconscious, is to start talking badly about our ex-partner in front of the child or even himself. This action is not recommended for the child or the parent who performs it.

We have to face the decision that has been made with our ex-partner with maturity and serenity. Although the paths of both have already separated, you are still the father and mother of a child in common who does not understand what is happening and who does not know why your attitude and her life in general have changed.

Although your life as a couple has not worked, you continue to exercise your role as parents, so you have to be up to the task and not go into badmouthing each other. Once again, you have to look out for your son and his well-being.

6- Do not put the child in the middle of the arguments

Many couples argue over the child as if it were a war. This also affects you negatively and will increase your frustration, as you will not understand what is happening. The child is not an object that you can fight over or with which you should threaten your partner, much less if he is in front of you.

The child belongs to both of you and as such, even if you are no longer a couple, you are still parents equally and you have a responsibility to him. So you should try to avoid this type of action in order to reduce the level of anxiety not only of your child but also of the family in general.

7- Help him express his feelings

Due to the negative situation that he is going through, the child, due to his age, may not be able to express his feelings and emotions without help. Therefore, both the family in general and the parents in particular should help and facilitate this process.

Sitting in a safe environment for the child and in which he feels good to talk about what is happening and how he feels using questions such as: How do you feel today? What have you done during the day? They can help him express himself or at least to start doing it.

Although everything will depend on the temperament and personality of the child, they usually need help to express their feelings. As parents and relatives, your duty is to ensure that nothing of what you think or feel is kept as it can affect you in the future and condition you for your entire life.

8- Seek help

If your child is not able to internalize what is happening or to react to these events and you have already tried by all the means that you had at your disposal to understand that mom and dad are no longer together, maybe you should consider seeking help from a professional.

It is not recommended that the child be in a state of shock or denial for a long time in the face of the situation he is experiencing, nor would it be within the norm if he did not give much importance to what happened. Both ways can be a defense response to a tough or traumatic situation.

The experts will be able to help your child and will be able to provide you with guidelines with which you can work on these types of answers. On the other hand, also if you see it necessary, you can find the support you need to face this process.

9- Get along with your child

On many occasions, we think that hiding the divorce process from you will be better than if we tell you about it from the first moment. However, if we do this we are making a big mistake since it will affect you more abruptly and it will cost you more to understand why.

Therefore, it is recommended that there are no secrets of this type in the family and gradually explain why it has happened. This will help the child to digest the process in another way and we will reduce the consequences of this.

10- Recognize the symptoms of stress

Because they do not understand what is happening and in most cases we do not explain it because we are focused on our suffering, children come to feel high levels of stress.

Therefore, we have to be aware of this fact and be able to identify these symptoms in order to calm and alleviate it as soon as possible. Following the advice that we have been talking about previously as well as those that we continue to expose below, can also help you reduce the possible stress that your child may suffer due to the separation.

11- Have a routine

Another action that will make the child assimilate the divorce process as soon as possible, will be to return to their usual routine habits. Therefore, both parents should agree as soon as possible on the activities that the child should do with each one.

In the event that each parent lives in a different house, the recommendation will be the same. The sooner unbreakable routine habits begin to be implemented, the sooner the child will find herself in a stable and safe environment that will make her bad behavior (if she has it) improve.

12- have patience

Patience in these cases on the part of the parents and the family is essential. The child can be very upset and therefore not have the usual behavior and may even disobey rules that previously followed without problems.

Both stress, denial or being continuously waiting and asking for the parent who has left the family home, are together with the previously mentioned answers that your child can give to the incomprehensible situation that he is living.

For this reason, yelling or scolding him continuously for everything he does can upset him even more. It would be advisable to have more patience than usual and try to understand that he is also going through a bad time.

13- Do not replace your presence with gifts

A mistake that is often made in abundance is to shower the child with gifts in the form of love and substitution for our presence. As we have mentioned previously, on many occasions we do it because we feel guilty for “having abandoned it” and in others, all we want is for the child to choose us instead of our partner.

Although we have failed as a couple, let us not forget that we are still fulfilling the role of fathers and mothers and that as such, our goal must be that and in spades. So if you really love your child you will know that what he needs from you is not that you buy him toys but that you spend time with him that is what he really needs from you.

14- Avoid using your child as a messenger

If we have broken up with our partner, we have to accept and internalize it. It is true that if you have a child at first it can be very painful to see your ex-partner every time you want to be with him.

However, you have to take it right and not use your son as a messenger to insult your ex-partner or tell him how badly he treats him etc. We have to try to avoid the typical taglines of: "Mommy says she doesn't like that…" or "Daddy says you're…".

Although the child is small, he is able to understand what is happening, so if we have to talk about something with our partner or we want to let him know that he has performed an action that has seemed wrong, we must let him know it by ourselves and not by other media.

15- Adjust to visiting times

One way to avoid conflicts with our partner is to stick to the visiting hours and the hours that correspond to us. If we have a friendly relationship and always with your consent, we can stay with our child for longer.

16- Spend time with your child

Spending time with your child is a good way to cope with the pain of separation. This simple gesture will help you overcome it more quickly and will have very positive benefits for him as well, since what he needs most in those moments is to continue feeling that even if there have been small changes, he can continue to count on his two parents.

Therefore, carrying out both sports and recreational activities can be one of the best therapies, always with one or both parents in the event that the separation was amicable.

17- Don't make your child have to choose

A very traumatic situation for a child is having to choose between his father and mother. The normal thing is that custody is finally obtained by the mother, unless he is not able to adequately cover the needs of the child.

When it grows, if it is true that you can choose who you want to stay with, since it is considered that you understand what has happened. The advisable thing is to avoid that the child has to see himself in that position and to handle the situation as naturally as possible, respecting the schedule and maintaining frequent contact between both parents.

18- Create security

After the separation, the child may feel lost in the family and misunderstood. For this reason, the figure that has remained with your custody will be responsible for providing you with a safe environment capable of calming your feeling of discomfort and insecurity.

The advisable thing to do to make the child feel safe is to have established parenting guidelines and rules and regulations in the two homes in which he will spend most of the time, these must be maintained to give him the stability he needs.

19- Maintain a sociable and friendly relationship with your ex-spouse

Having your child constantly witness that you are arguing with your ex in front of him or anywhere about anything is not highly recommended nor does it help anyone.

Ideally, to minimize the possible negative consequences of divorce on the child and on yourself, you would try to maintain a moderately cordial relationship after the separation.

To achieve this, you have to start by eliminating the discussions and base on the relationship that as parents of your child you will have from now on, mutual respect and good communication, among others.

20- Do not use your son as a spy for your ex-partner

Asking your child about what he has done when he has been with your ex-partner can be understood as normal, since your obligation as a father and mother is to be informed of the activities that he develops when he is with the other parent.

On the contrary, specifically asking your child about the activities that your ex-partner does individually in his free time and with whom, is not. Your child does not have to be a spy or a detective, this fact will only bring negative consequences for the family in general.

21- Excuse your son after the separation

Whether or not the separation process has been hidden from him, the child will feel guilty that his parents are no longer together.

Our duty as the family and parents of the minor is to explain what happened so that he understands that this type of thing can happen and that he has had nothing to do with it. To do this, we have to be the first to take this situation as normal and accept it as it is.

22- be affectionate with your child

One of the best ways for her to understand that she was not guilty of the separation of her parents is affection. Both family members and parents should show their affection in order to prevent them from feeling bad or even falling into depression.

We have to point out that buying gifts excessively is not a sign of affection and that this action will only bring negative consequences for him. The ideal would be to be more attentive than normal and show him more what we feel for him in a moderate way.

23- Facilitates contact with the family of the other parent

When parents separate, they tend to try by all means that the child has contact with the family of the other parent and even with the parent himself

Once again we have to emphasize that this is not good for anyone and that the main victim is the minor. The child has the right to continue having a family and to have contact with each of its members, so we have to try to avoid having these kinds of ideas and let the child enjoy the other part of the family as well.

If we want to be good parents, our duty will be that our son is happy and for this we have to allow him to continue in contact with the other members of the family and to enjoy their company.