Author Rosalind Sedacca, CCT says divorce doesn’t scar children. It’s selfish parents, blind-sighted by their emotions, that do the damage.
She says “it’s not divorce that harms children. It’s wounded parents who do not care, understand or see that their behavior is hurting the children they love.
It’s vindictive parents who put down the other spouse in front of their kids.
It’s parents who decide they should have sole custody or primary influence over the children with little regard as to the child’s relationship with their other parent.
It’s parents who confide their adult dramas to innocent children who just want to love both Mom and Dad.
It’s parents who put financial gain and material decisions over the emotional well-being of their children.
In essence, it’s selfish parents who put their own needs ahead of those of their totally dependent children when making life-altering parental decisions.”
I fill the Divorce Support site with articles on all aspects of divorce. The least read articles I write and publish are articles about children and divorce. The majority of the visitors to this site have children but the research they do on the subject of divorce rarely has anything to do with how their divorce will affect their children.
That is the most discouraging aspect of the work I do here at Divorce Support…the lack of interest my readers show in their children’s welfare.
I’m the mother of two. My sons were 7 and 14 when their father and I divorced. My youngest is now a very troubled teenager and it’s my opinion that his problems are directly related to the actions of a selfish parent. My son has been scarred because he had a parent who could not or would not see how his actions were hurting my son.
For example: He and his father were very close. His bond with his father was far deeper than the bond he had with me. When his father decided he no longer wanted to be married and left the home, it devastated our son. He went from having a father he adored and saw daily to a father he saw every other week. No phone calls or vistis in between.
My son went into a depression, started having panic attacks and had emotions to deal with that were heartbreaking. One night he went to his knees, grabbed me around my legs and begged me to call his father and tell him to come home. I called his father and told him our son needed his help. His father’s response, “I can’t deal with his pain right now, I have to deal with my own. You will have to take care of him.”
I remember thinking to myself, after that conversation that I didn’t realize there was a time that a parent was allowed to or would choose to put their own pain before the pain of their child. I was in pain, it is impossible to describe the rejection and fear I felt during that time. My main concern was not my pain though. It was the pain my children were experiencing and helping them cope.
The best advice I can give to parents who are divorcing is to put your own self-interest behind your children’s best interest. Let go of your vindictiveness, work together on custody issues so your children will be able to spend an equal amount of time with each parent. Fight for what is yours financially but don’t let you desire to come out on top trump your child’s emotional needs.
You are your child’s security. You and how you handle yourself during your divorce will influence the quality of life your child lives and the kind of adult they grow into. Please, make that your main focus!
Related Content:How To Keep Divorce From Having Long Lasting Effects on Children
How To Meet Your Child’s Need For Security During Divorce
Help Your Child Deal With The Changes Divorce Brings
Why Is Equal Parenting Time After Divorce Important?
It’s a nice thought Cathy, but reality is a tough nut. I would hope that most parents think that they are putting their kids first. I know I’ve heard lots of examples where they are sure that the OTHER parent is not. Mea Culpa is a bitter dish.
Who decides what putting the kids first even means? For example, my ex felt that I should “put the kids first” and drop my demand for shared custody (let them have one stable place to call home, stop avoiding paying child support). I felt that she putting her interests (financial, control, self-image) ahead of the children’s need to have a father as a parent. I’m sure we could come up with hundreds of real life examples to replace this one and slant them to one side of the other.
With all of this happening at a time of extreme stress, laws and guidelines must be in place to push parents to do the right thing and to minimize the incentives to do the wrong thing. Parents need to be treated as equals and be secure that their roles will not be dismissed, minimized, or be placed in untenable situations. My wife was willing to make the custody demand because she was confident that it wouldn’t be applied to her in reverse.
The adversarial court process needs to be revisited. The fundamentals of family law have their roots in property law and can only decide possession (custody), compensation, and more recently punishment (as common law has crept in). Good luck finding the true best interest of the children there.
My ex is doing the same thing she is being selfish to her own needs and not to our childrens needs and due to this all three of my kids are going to therapists now the trauma divoce brings on kids is enough and a selfish parent doesnt need to add to it!!!
Parental conduct certainly can cause a lot of damage, but you don’t have to be divorced for that to happen. From my perspective, divorce, the legal dissolution of a marriage, does cause harm to children. The process is requires a winner and therefore a looser, and has all sorts of social agenda built in. Making fathers as likely to win custody won’t solve anything because by definition mothers will lose.
A father must absolutely be there for his children. But what do you do about the father that walks out on his family and leaves the mother to raise the children on her own, only to come visit on weekends (speaking from experience)? When one walks away from the responsibilities of being a parent, they give up the right to have shared custody.
I think that couples where both parents put the children’s best interests ahead of their own probably end up staying married. If two people are disciplined and focused enough to put the children first they can probably save that marriage as well.
If there has been an affair the unfaithful spouse has not only lied to the faithful spouse but also the children. Often the relationship with the children has been eroded by years of spending time and resources away from the family. If the unfaithful spouse was capable of putting the children first it would have happened years ago.
I spent many years always trying to get my spouse to spend time with the family, to do special things with the kids, planning vacations and holidays to make special memories and so forth. But he was always drifting away from us, always had his attention elsewhere.
So I wonder why anyone is surprised to find that the children are not drawn to a parent who puts other concerns ahead of their well being? And probably continues doing it after separation/divorce as well.
Right on Kath. That’s exactly how I feel. I spent a good many years trying to involve my children’s father. It was his choice to disconnect. And when the divorce was final, I begged him to be involved with the children 50/50. He said he was ready for his freedom and would only agree to one dinner a month with the two younger children and never wanted to see the then 14 and 16 year old. Obviously he was not only not putting the children first but he didn’t even put them on a priority list at all.
Hi Cathy,
I’ve spent more time going over your articles, as well as those in the Single Parent and Fatherhood sections of About. I have to say that I’m pleased over all. I sure wish everyone would embrace equal parenting as well as About writers have.
Children are my focus. The reason I fight so hard for fathers is because they and their kids deserve the help. Did you know when men join fathers groups they are taught how to communicate better with their ex and their children?
Men care. Dads care. Society needs to know that.
teri
sharedparentingworks.org
I agree! I’m a single dad with two children, and my ex and I have been co-parenting for ten years. Putting the kids’ best interests first is key to helping everyone through the divorce process, so they can all grow and evolve and be healthy.
The problem is, parents are hyper-vigilant to the ex’s flaws and oblivious to their own.
In a perfect world all your comments would fit. Life is just not that simple. Many parents go through some harrowing times, whether it be financial, health problems, tragedy’s etc. unfortunately no matter how hard a parent trys to control their emotions, they can spiral out of control. Many factors can be external, not everybody has the education to correct their behaciour, there may not be help out there for many. Children do get caught up and it is sad, but it is also a fact of life in an unpredictable world.
…. its very sad how some parents dont even put their children first….. they think about them selfs and some think about about to get back at each other…. thats so wrong.! the children dont deserve to be in the middle! They deserve a parent that puts them first and know whats best for their child! Its bad enough the child goes to one home to the other why add more to their plate…. that at the childs percpective! it is hard but once parents figure it out… does so much smoother for them and the child! Get along with the other parent forgive me and move on! Once the child sees that and noticed you respect each other… it will show the child more than you all think!
I had a child at a young age… took me a few years to figure this out… but i admit my son is loved by everybody! Sometime we get together with his father and his family…. to go bowling or park together! My son loves this time because he sees us respecting each other and getting along! I love this time too because we learn from each others parenting styles too!
I applaud this post and your comment. I truly wish the Family Legal System in this country would read these kinds of things -plus the so called experts that implement their laws. Unfortunately, they have laws involving a child custody situation that are henious to the children when you do have a very selfish parent involved–move away cases. This adds fuel to the fire when this parent realizes they could move with the child. These are very tragic laws that destroy relationships between children and their good fit parent left behind. I have seen it many times–and not to start a gender war but it’s usually the father that loses out. They are just heart wrenching–they certainly are not putting the child’s best interest first. These laws should be banned–the family legal system and the selfish parent should be ashamed…
Ideally, in a divorce situation, both parties could see their way to be civil and friendly to each other and seek the best interests of the children involved. The unfortunate reality is that is rarely happens. When you have one deadbeat spouse while the other tries everything to help the other see what they’re missing out on by being selfish, you just enable that parent to continue being unsupportive of their child.
After 9 years of doing this, allowing “convenient” visitations, not pushing child support just so the other parent will show up to see the child. I have given up. I filed for contempt of the court order (back child support….by 8 years).
It desirable to remain civil and friendly, but when one parent financially abandons the child and other parent….sometime only the courts can make any difference. You can’t really put finances “behind you” in that situation. The child deserves to be fully supported by BOTH parents.
So all you financially deadbeat parent’s out there…..get your sh#t together. Seriously.