A divorce is a major event in a child’s life. In fact, every child should have the right to support. Because no matter how it goes, it will have an impact either way.
But young children don’t have to notice anything about a divorce, do they?
Is that true? Do young children gain nothing if there is a divorce and it is peaceful? Or are children so connected to us that they actually get everything ? Janita Venema, the author of the book The Whispering Child, explains in that book that there is a soul thread between children and their parents. They feel what we feel, we feel what they feel. We could also say that children are, as it were, linked to us. That would immediately answer the above questions. Yes, even very young children feel the emotions that arise when their parents divorce. However, they can’t do anything with it. They experience things and cannot explain them, they move along and cannot put words to what they feel at such a young age.
And what about older children?
No matter how good divorce can sometimes be, children almost never choose to do so. That is not surprising, because these will remain his parents, his origins, for the rest of his life. Parents can choose a different partner, but you only have one set of parents. If children feel that there is a lot of tension and arguing, they will start thinking about their role in the whole. Without realizing it, they often feel responsible and will carry the burden on both or sometimes one of their parents. In some cases, one parent, or sometimes both, leans on a child by sharing a lot with the child. Far too much and very stressful for children. If the argument is too big, children sometimes indicate that it might be better for their parents to split up. But many children continue to yearn for the origins of the family for a long time, if not very long; their parents back together. Sometimes even when new families have already emerged and therefore against better judgment.
What is a child’s wish when his parents divorce?
In fact, children only want one thing and that is that when the parents are together, for example during changeover moments, they treat each other respectfully in front of them as children. These are moments when a child experiences for a moment: this was our family, this is how it was. In the interests of every child, parents should be able to put themselves aside and behave in the way they raised their children; with respect.
Loyalty
Children should be guided one by one in the process that it is not their problem that their parents divorce, but that it is something that must be solved by the parents. That it may bother them a lot, but it is not theirs. Because children protect their parents out of loyalty, it is desirable that an independent person talks to children about their feelings. Expressing means processing. A divorce is a grieving process that must be gone through if a child wants to feel free within again. In this way, a confusing period, in which children sometimes blame themselves, can become a process in which a child learns to discover himself and his emotions. If we divide that last word into two parts, we see that uncovering does not mean covering. And that’s exactly it; We are not going to layer on top of things that are distracting, because then we are failing a child. It is the right of every child in a divorce to be taken seriously in his or her path. That road has bumps and bumps. Asking for help for your child means that they learn to overcome the bumps with the help of a professional. But with help, with support, with understanding and completely independently. Every child needs that in such a situation.
Who can provide help?
A children’s coach can mean a lot to a child, but of course also child psychologists and educational psychologists. These are often short-term processes in which children learn to deal with feelings and learn to express and sometimes express their sadness, fear and pain. Every municipality in the Netherlands has an offer in this regard and is certainly worth investigating.