Let’s face it: Divorce is hard. For parents, for children, for families, even for the family pet…divorce is difficult. Yet turn on any TV show and you’ll see divorced parents happily raising their successful children, shows where every problem can be solved in 30 to 60 minutes, shows where the child moves seamlessly between two homes and where parents are still the best. of friends and communicate openly while sharing parenting responsibilities.
Communication and cooperation are supposed to be two-way streets, but things don’t always go as they should. Unfortunately, most marriages end bitterly and it takes many years for both spouses to accept the breakdown of the marriage and stop punishing each other. Many times, however, those years of broken communication take a toll on children.
It is common in single-parent homes for the custodial parent to develop a deep bond with the child. In homes where there are still unresolved issues between the divorced adults, the connection between the custodial parent and the child could, directly or indirectly, lead to conflicts with the non-custodial parent.
Let’s meet Sam and Amanda
Sam is eight years old. He has an older sister, Amanda, who is twelve years old. Although Sam and Amanda’s parents have just formally divorced, they have been separated for two years.
During the period of separation, things seemed to run smoothly. The parents shared parenting responsibilities, and Dad was lucky enough to rent a house a block from the children’s, so they spent a lot of time voluntarily going back and forth between the two homes. Both parents made the effort to communicate as they all got used to the fact that Dad was now sleeping in a different house.
When the divorce was finalized, things changed. A month after the divorce, Sam began refusing to visit her father. His sister, Amanda, would walk him home from school and then walk to his father’s house to spend the night with him. Three to four nights a week, he had dinner with his father, just as they had during their separation.
Amanda didn’t understand why her brother didn’t want to come with her, but she was happy to have Dad all to herself, and her feelings made her feel guilty when she saw Sam at school the next day.
Sam’s behavior began to deteriorate. His school work began to slip and he displayed increasingly aggressive behavior in the schoolyard and towards his sister.
The nights that Amanda was home with Sam and her mother, she would try to talk to Sam to see if she could convince him to visit his father. Day after day, Sam refused. The pattern continued for a month before Amanda approached her mother with her concerns. Her mother refused to validate Amanda’s concerns, even stating that it really is better if Sam “stayed away from that man, and you should too. I don’t know why you go there all the time. Aren’t we good enough to you?”. ?”
Amanda ran out of the house crying and ran directly to her father. He listened as she expressed her sadness at the breakup of the marriage and the loss of her best friend, her little brother. Dad listened to all of her concerns and then they talked about giving Sam a little more time to adjust to the change. “Though we’ve been separated for quite some time, divorce makes it final. There’s no going back now. I know we all wish things could go back to the way they were, but divorce puts an end to all those wishes…for all of us. He’s angry and disappointed that all the wishing and hoping he’s been doing in the last two years didn’t fix this.” dad said. “But it’s not his job to fix this,” was Amanda’s reply. “I know it and you know it…but you have to remember that Sam was little when Mommy and I broke up…and he’s still a little boy. So take it easy. Just be there to listen if he wants to.” talk and don’t pressure him to visit you. He will come when he is ready.”
After six months, Sam still refused to visit his father, and Amanda, under pressure from both her brother and mother, reduced her visiting hours. Since the father lived in the same neighborhood as his children, he often saw them around the neighborhood. Sam pretended that he hadn’t seen him and ran home with his mother. If they did talk, Sam was incredibly rude and belligerent and Amanda was incredibly sad. Sam clearly had little respect for his father and Amanda was clearly conflicted about his continuing love for his father when others in her household seemed to have stopped loving him.
Dad expressed his concern to Mom, who replied, “Who cares, what have you done to deserve respect? You’ve abandoned us!” so he turned to outside support. Dad arranged for the school to refer Sam for counseling. His aggressive behavior had traveled from the playground to the classroom and was disturbing the other children, so the school arranged for him to meet with a counselor. The school also arranged for Amanda to meet with the counselor, as she was still showing a lot of confusion about her brother’s and her mother’s behavior and struggling with mixed feelings for both parents.
Through active discussion with Sam during these sessions, it was discovered that Mom often shares her anger and bitterness toward Dad with Sam, makes derogatory comments about her father, and has even begun making comments about Amanda on nights she spends with her. father.
Mom was involved in possible alienating parental behavior with the goal of breaking the relationship between her children and their father. Her anger and her disappointment at the breakdown of the marriage were unresolved issues in her life that prevented her from being able to close this chapter of her life and move on. And Mom may not have even been aware of the outcome of her arguments.
Along with the counselor, Dad and Sam bridged the gap with open and honest communication and began to counteract some of the negative feelings Sam had inherited from Mom. Amanda received some coping mechanisms to deal with her mother’s aggressive behavior, and the children resumed a healthy relationship with her father.
Here are some tips divorced parents can use to ensure they don’t engage in parental alienating behavior.
1) Resolve: Your own feelings about the divorce and life changes.
2) Allow your children a safe space with both parents to communicate their feelings.
3) Never: let your children pay the price for your feelings.