At Beller Law, P.L., we understand that worrying about your children when you divorce is second nature. If you need a divorce but want to ensure you minimize the negative impacts on your children, we can help. We have decades of experience helping clients protect their children as we guide them through the divorce process. Contact us today.
How Does Divorce Affect Children?
How divorce affects children varies by the circumstances. However, some common divorce-related issues children experience include:
- Behavioral changes,
- Academic struggles, and
- Mental health challenges.
Whether and how these issues manifest varies depending on the child’s age, personality, and support system.
If you work with your child to help them understand the divorce and process their emotions related to it, the adverse outcomes associated with divorce can all but disappear. If you do not, your child may lash out, turning their emotions outward toward their peers, you, or others or inward toward themselves.
Infants
Babies may become fussier and harder to console. Some may become clingy and show greater distrust of strangers. They may become prone to distress by even brief separation from their caretakers. Though too young for formal academics, developmental progress can slow or even regress. Your child may appear anxious, on edge, and unable to relax.
Toddlers to Preschoolers
Toddlers may apparently overreact when scared or hurt, seeking comfort and attention from their caregivers in the way they know how. Children at this age may express their desire for their parents to stay together or blame themselves for the divorce.
They may resist learning new skills or regress on skills already learned. Even children this young can begin showing signs of anxiety or depression. They may enjoy their favorite activities less or express frequent fears.
Elementary Age
Elementary-aged children may internalize the idea that the divorce was their fault or conclude one or both of their parents rejected them through the divorce. They may struggle to complete or understand their homework, even topics they previously enjoyed. Even at this young age, kids can develop mental health conditions that may become chronic and lead to physical health issues. They may also turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms like overeating, undereating, or even substance use.
Preteens
Preteens to younger teens are more equipped to understand the reasons behind the divorce and less likely to blame themselves. However, they may begin to act out in increasingly dangerous ways, seeking attention from older children or adults and experimenting with drugs, alcohol, and sexual activity. Grades may fall. Students may seem unmotivated or frustrated by school, fail to complete or turn in homework, or skip class.
Teens
Teens are less likely to blame themselves but more likely to conceal their struggles. If they feel unsupported, they may seek validation and comfort elsewhere, potentially through inappropriate romantic or sexual relationships with adults. Teens may not complete their schoolwork, skip class, or drop out. They may also develop or solidify reliance on unhealthy substance use, fall into depression or develop severe anxiety, or have run-ins with the law.
How Can You Minimize the Negative Effects of Divorce on Children?
Thankfully, you can often minimize or even avoid the effects described above. No matter your children’s age, you can reduce the harmful impact of divorce by:
- Minimizing parental conflicts,
- Avoiding disparaging your former spouse,
- Supporting their emotional health and development, and
- Maintaining boundaries and stability.
While these strategies work best when both parents pursue them, you can implement them even if your former spouse refuses to behave.
Minimize Parental Conflicts
Children witnessing parental conflict is one of the most significant predictors of their experiencing negative effects from divorce, especially when parents fight about their children. Placing a child in the middle of the parents’ conflict makes it worse.
Do your best to avoid fighting in front of your children or in a place they may overhear arguments. You may need to pursue alternative communication methods, like speaking through a third party, communicating only by text or email, or using an app to assist with co-parenting.
Minimizing parental conflicts is especially important as you work on custody details and the legal implications of your divorce. Negotiation or divorce mediation, keeping your children out of the legal side of the divorce process, usually helps. If you cannot avoid involving your kids in the court process, help them through it with empathy and compassion.
Avoid Disparaging Your Former Spouse
Divorce can be isolating to you and to your children. When your kids are older, venting your frustrations to them can be tempting. Even if your former spouse is every bad thing you are saying and more, disparaging them in front of or while speaking to your children usually does more harm than good.
This can be extra challenging when your former spouse’s behaviors harm your children. If you want to discuss how your former spouse is hurting your children, stay focused on the impact on the children and help them sort through their own feelings and fears.
Support Their Emotional Health and Development
Parents know that prioritizing their children’s needs above their own comes with the territory. Putting your child’s needs above your own when you are going through a divorce, especially a messy, painful divorce, can be extraordinarily challenging. Often one of the best things you may be able to do to support your children’s mental health is to take care of your own. Find a therapist or support group, or confide in friends and family.
Try not to take your children’s conduct personally. Let them be upset, help them name and process their emotions, be patient, and open lines of communication. Explain what is happening and why, while avoiding assigning blame.
If your child is withdrawn, angry, or performing poorly in school, talk that through. Avoid accusations, blame, or pressuring a child who is already struggling. Help children stay involved in their community and with their other significant bonds in and out of the family.
Maintain Boundaries and Stability
Change is inevitable in a divorce and hard on children. Ensure you maintain routines and boundaries. If one parent has visitation, keep the schedule and establish a routine for going to and from the other parent’s house.
Part of what makes divorce scary for children is how it threatens the stability and predictability of their world. Keep routines as stable as possible, and help your children to anticipate what will happen next and why.
Divorcing with Deliberation and Care
Ultimately, you can minimize or eliminate the negative effects of divorce on your children by serving as their emotional guide through the process. If this sounds easier said than done, do not be afraid to lean on your support system for help. Taking care of yourself will allow you to take care of them. For help navigating the legal parts of divorce, contact Beller Law, P.L.