Who helps the children in divorce?
- Cheah Lay Lin
- Jun 5, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 8, 2024
In the midst of divorce, the emotional and psychological needs of children are often overlooked. However, the impact of divorce on children has long-term consequences and we should help children to adjust.
For young children, they often feel anxious and insecure. In their young minds, they think if their parents could stop loving each other, they may also stop loving them one day. They may become clingy and fearful of being abandoned by their parents.
Sometimes children will also blame themselves when their parents separate thinking they have done something wrong to cause their parents to fight. They feel depressed and their school performance may decline.
For teens, they may become angry with one parent or even both for causing the family to break up. They may engage in risky behaviours like drinking, self harming, violence and sex to cope with their distress and resentment.
Other changes like having to move to a different home or city and leaving their friends behind cause a sense of loss and distress. When one sibling is living with one parent and the other with another, it tears the family even further apart and changes the family dynamics. Siblings who were once close may now feel as if they have become strangers.
Divorced parents must be sensitive to the emotional needs of the children although they may also be going through a very difficult adjustment to being single parents. Co-parenting should be as cordial and calm as possible putting the priority on the psychological well-being of the children. They should never make the children take sides and degrade the other parent when they are with them. Children should feel loved and safe with both parents even after divorce.
Clearly, children's adjustment to a new family relationship after divorce will take time. Hence it is imperative that adults in their lives not only recognise and acknowledge their struggles but also help them to develop healthy coping strategies.
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