After a Divorce - When your Kids Miss their Father
One of the most traumatic experiences any family can go through is a divorce. This is because a divorce not only entails the separation of spouses but the breakdown of the other relationships in the family as well. And the most heart-wrenching of these is perhaps children being compelled to live apart from one of the parents. If you find yourself in a similar situation because of a divorce and your kids miss their father, here are a few things you can do.
Be their rock
Parents are the first resources of unconditional love, emotional support, material security and cultural skills for children. The family is the first and most important emotional support structure for children. When this falls apart, children are bereft emotionally and the initial feelings are of extreme loneliness and abandonment. The loss of a parent, in this case the father, could make your kids feel emotionally as well as physically insecure and afraid of being discarded just like the parent who has gone away. So the first thing you need to do is to assure your kids – over and over, as many times as necessary – that you will never ever leave them and they can always count on you.
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Answer your kids’ questions
Avoiding the topic of divorce will do nothing to ease your kids’ pain and misery – instead it will send the message that their feelings are not important to you. They miss their father and have only you to ask questions as to why things turned out the way they did. So be brave enough to answer their questions about divorce, no matter how painful the subject is for you; however it is best not to give them details like child support, court orders and alimony. Let them know in simple terms why you two had to move apart and assure that their father will always love them.
Avoid relocating
Kids are better able to survive divorce when both parents stay located in close proximity to the children. So if you are thinking of relocating to a distant place on the assumption, that once your kids see less of their father, they will miss him less, reconsider your point of view. A recent study by researchers at Arizona State University published in the Journal Of Family Psychology, came to the conclusion that children of divorced parents are best off when the parents both live in the general vicinity, regardless of who has custody. Even as you give up thoughts of relocating, also encourage the father of your kids to stay close by so that he is able to stay involved in their lives.
Encourage active co-parenting from the father
No matter how deep the conflict was between you and your ex-husband, it is necessary to involve him in parenting if your kids are to cope with the pain of missing their father. So put aside your personal issues and encourage him to continue to be a parent – this not only involves loving and protecting them, attending school functions and matches but also ensuring discipline when necessary. When your kids receive active co-parenting from their father, despite him living apart, they will slowly feel secure again and be less likely to miss him.
Show respect and courtesy to their father
You may be so pained to see your kids missing their father that in order to make them feel better, you may be tempted to badmouth him or make your kids see why he deserved to live alone. However this will do nothing to ease your children’s pain. Keep in mind that kids see themselves as half mom and half dad – spewing venom against their father would thus make them feel wretched and even guilty. Even if your anger is burning or you feel wronged in the divorce process, you must not communicate your feelings against your ex-husband to the children. If need be, vent to friends or your therapist, but not to the kids. Likewise don't argue and fight with your ex-husband in front of your children since parental conflict continues the cycle of kids feeling confused and caught in the middle. For the young ones to cope with a broken family, divorced parents must remain civil and respectful to each other – at least in front of the kids.
Post-visitation blues
Even though your children may seem to get used to a daily life without their dad, visitation schedules can renew the pain of missing him. Sometimes fathers become inconsistent with their visitation because dropping off the kids is so painful; in order to avoid his own pain, he begins to avoiding his children which only worsens their missing him. Thus thrash out a workable post-visitation strategy so as to make things easier both on the father and the kids. Your ex-husband can let your children know that he misses them when he isn’t able to see them, that it makes him sad too. But also add that it makes him happy when he think about seeing them again; that he thus spends his time away from them thinking about all the fun things they all can do next time they are together. Also when dropping off your kids after a weekend visitation it is best that their father makes a quick retreat. When saying good-bye, he can reassure your children that he loves them, that you will talk to and see them soon and then leave. Hesitating and dragging out the situation in an attempt to alleviate his and your children’s discomfort only makes the situation worse.
At the same time you can come up some ideas in order to distract the children - put on their favorite DVD or bake their favorite cookies so that they will get their mind quickly off the pain of once again having to say bye to dad.
Have fun
One of the best ways to help your kids miss their dad less is to ensure that you are having a good time by yourselves. Children are on the whole always ready for some fun. Do your best to offer a relaxing and upbeat environment, one in which they can let go of their worries and just be a child. And while you need not beat yourself up to plan elaborate outings every third day simple, homely fun goes a long way in relieving stress and pain of being away from their father.
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