"Tips on Helping Your Kids Deal with Divorce"

While a marriage might end for any number of reasons, the parent/child relationship is a bond that can never be broken. So, the question remains - "Can children survive the effects of divorce?"

Well, Laurene Johnson and Georglyn Rosenfield think so. Both are divorced mothers of well-adjusted children. In their book, Divorced Kids: What You Need to Know to Help Kids Survive a Divorce, each maintain that, "Children are survivors by nature" . . . and that parents have the potential to help their kids not only survive but thrive in spite of the pain of this jolt to their security."

Here are a few of the guidelines they suggest for "Helping Your Kids Deal with Divorce:"

1.  Teach them to "take out the G.A.R.B.A.G.E."  The Reverend Thomas O'Dea created this acronym for helping children deal with the sting of divorce. Help your children unload the Guilt, Anger, Resentment, Bitterness, Anxiety, Greed and Envy they might be feeling toward you and your former spouse. (Do the same yourself! The sooner you begin to heal, the sooner your children can start on the road to recovery also.)

2.  Help them to learn to be more self-reliant.  Divorce is not necessarily the time to push your young ones out of the nest, but the divorce process does provide parents with a good opportunity to teach children of all ages to become more responsible. Learning to accept new and greater responsibilities improves self-image and creates a sense of accomplishment - most helpful at this critical time in their lives!

3.  Establish fair ground rules for visiting your ex-spouse.  Same goes for the extended family, too. Just make sure that what's agreed upon is in the best interest of the children first - you divorced your spouse, not your kids. If your kids have grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family, utilize those relationships. Just because Mom or Dad isn't living at home any more doesn't mean the annual fishing trip with Grandpa can't continue.

4.  Don't use "guilt money" to try to make things right.  It won't. Your kids are having a tough enough time trying to get used to this new arrangement. And if money problems were one of the issues that led to the divorce, why confuse the issue by spending extravagantly on your children now that the marriage is over? Besides - there's nothing you can buy a child that will replace the security he or she is trying to reclaim.

If you're a parent trying to help your kids cope with this challenging season - please know this - your presence, encouragement, and listening ear will help more than most any kind of therapy. So be there for these kids - they need you!

Excerpted from Divorced Kids: What You Need to Know to Help Kids Survive a Divorce by Laurene Johnson and Georglyn Rosenfield. Unfortunately this book is currently unavailable. Click here for another great resource on this subject by Archibald Hart subject titled Children and Divorce: What to Expect, How to Help. )  [opens in a new window]