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Great Answers to Difficult Questions about Divorce: What Children Need to Know
Is it my fault that my parents are getting divorced? Do I have to choose between my mum and my dad? Is it normal to feel angry with my parents? When faced with their parentsa? divorce, children have many concerns and questions that are difficult for a parent to answer. This book explores children's thoughts and feelings and provides parents with guidance on how to respond to difficult questions. The author covers all the common questions that children ask and provides sensitive, candid answers in a way that children will be able to understand and relate to. Each chapter is devoted to a particular issue, such as why parents separate, what will happen during and after the divorce, and who the child is going to live with. The book recognizes the emotions and reactions of everyone in the family and includes separate conclusions for parents and children. This handy guide offers useful advice for parents and will also be of interest to counsellors and other professionals working with children.
96 pages, Paperback
Published June 15, 2008
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 11, 2022
"Children often live in the secret hope that their parents will one day get back together again. I have known cases where this hope has persisted even when the parents have “moved on” and had more children with other partners. The need for dialogue is paramount. Children will express suffering by different forms of behavior: they become more irritable perhaps, more “touchy”, more excitable, or more apathetic; they sleep poorly, are easily distracted, or appear absent-minded in class."
"• it is vital to prepare children in the event of divorce
• irrespective of age, things can be said to help children understand the change in circumstances that will ensue
• children are perfectly capable of understanding what is explained to them
• to the extent that a child needs to be able to love both parents, and to keep intact the image he has formed of each, differences and mutual recrimination at the parental level should not be made overt."
"It cannot be stressed too often or too forcefully that parents should under no circumstances expose a child to expressions of the differences that exist between them."
"When parents separate, it is usually after going through a difficult patch and often after a series of heated discussions – at times in front of the children. Sometimes children fail to see a situation develop and are surprised and all the more upset because they cannot understand what has happened. They love both their parents, but their mom and dad no longer appear to love each other. The children will often start to ask if they themselves will be loved as before, and whether the situation is their fault. It is up to the parents to set the record straight and absolve the children of any responsibility."
"Even the very thought of leaving one parent to spend the night with the other, or the fact of returning the following day, can prompt a guilty feeling, namely that one parent or the other is being “abandoned”.
Meanwhile, in an otherwise unfamiliar house or apartment, the child will be confronted by new things and, at the same time, will often encounter familiar objects and items of furniture that are now missing from where he or she habitually lives."
"Arguably the most common parental error is to use a child as a “spy” and to subject him or her to all sorts of questions."
"• it is vital to prepare children in the event of divorce
• irrespective of age, things can be said to help children understand the change in circumstances that will ensue
• children are perfectly capable of understanding what is explained to them
• to the extent that a child needs to be able to love both parents, and to keep intact the image he has formed of each, differences and mutual recrimination at the parental level should not be made overt."
"It cannot be stressed too often or too forcefully that parents should under no circumstances expose a child to expressions of the differences that exist between them."
"When parents separate, it is usually after going through a difficult patch and often after a series of heated discussions – at times in front of the children. Sometimes children fail to see a situation develop and are surprised and all the more upset because they cannot understand what has happened. They love both their parents, but their mom and dad no longer appear to love each other. The children will often start to ask if they themselves will be loved as before, and whether the situation is their fault. It is up to the parents to set the record straight and absolve the children of any responsibility."
"Even the very thought of leaving one parent to spend the night with the other, or the fact of returning the following day, can prompt a guilty feeling, namely that one parent or the other is being “abandoned”.
Meanwhile, in an otherwise unfamiliar house or apartment, the child will be confronted by new things and, at the same time, will often encounter familiar objects and items of furniture that are now missing from where he or she habitually lives."
"Arguably the most common parental error is to use a child as a “spy” and to subject him or her to all sorts of questions."
Displaying 1 of 1 review