Don't shred the kids! A 3 step guide.

A child who becomes a victim of a serious violent crime can fully recover, quickly, with help.  The same goes for children in war zones.  One must remove the child from the danger, reassure the child that the adults in their life will prevent new incidences where the child will be re-victimized, and then give the child an opportunity to vent their concerns without judgment.   Children who do not recover were either not removed from the situation, were not protected from recurrences, or were not given the opportunity to explain it to an independent adult.  The part that most people get hung up on is step 3.  Venting.  For serious trauma, venting to the parents is not enough. 

The three step process works for every new frightening thing a child experiences as they develop.  For typical fearful things like a barking dog, the parent will keep the child safe, teach the child how to safely approach a strange dog, and then let the child talk excitedly about how scary it was.  For most difficulties, this is enough.  But while most parents can handle getting a child through most of the little traumas on the way to growing up, parents are not equipped to handle the third step where the child has become a victim of crime, has lived in a war zone, or when the family is splitting up.  Parents have enough problems handling this on their own, and usually cannot remove themselves from the situation well enough to be credible sources of help to the child who needs to talk about it.   

Divorce trauma is more like trauma involved in living in a war zone, than it is like having lived through a minor thunderstorm.  The victimization of divorce is created by being asked to lie to the other parent, or to choose sides.  They may be experiencing a war zone in their own home.  They are victimized by parents who do not agree on the parenting issues.  The good news is that it is just as possible to fix these traumas as it is to fix the traumas of being a crime victim or childhood war survivor.  The trick is to stop the trauma, prevent a recurrence, and give the child an opportunity to speak to an independent third party. 

            It does not matter that you are probably not separating because of parenting issues.  Children are the center of their own world, and cannot believe that something else could have caused this.  Children do not understand financial planning, let alone differences in opinion over finances.  Hopefully, children do not understand sexual infidelity.  In their world, the parent’s purpose in life is to create and raise the child.  You may know that your issues have nothing to do with the children, but the children do not.  To the children, they are somehow responsible for their parents having created the war zone they now live in.  You can tell them otherwise, but they do not believe you. 

It does not matter how hard you try, your child will sense that his own parents are each other’s enemy.  If you are one of the 99.9% of separating parents who are separating because of some disappointment, you cannot fully hide this from the child.  You must try, but you must also understand that your child might feel the need to choose, or to make you feel as though a choice was made.  No matter how hard you try, your children take the pieces of information they get from observing you, and they draw conclusions.  Sometimes they draw the right conclusions, but more often they draw skewed or exaggerated conclusions.

            Maybe you and your ex are truly being amicable, but simply have a disagreement on where to live.  You are handling the disagreement like adults, but your child knows that a disagreement exists and does not know how to handle emotions like an adult, and therefore, while putting two and two together, your child envisions much worse things happening. 

            Or if you and your ex are not being amicable about the split, and one of you is convinced that a move will be traumatic for the child, or having two homes will be traumatic.  The child will be at risk for believing that one parent’s house is somehow dangerous or scary.  Suddenly, a very ordinary situation (moving as life’s opportunities change), becomes a trauma to the child.  A move that would be exciting, if the parents were doing it together and to provide new opportunities for themselves, is suddenly wrong, just because the parents disagree and only one of the parents is doing the moving.   
            In many cases, the parents believe that they should enlist a family friend or relative to listen to the child.  Unfortunately, this often simply cements the battle lines, becasue the child knows that these people are likely to report back to the parent who is aligned with the supposed confidante.  Truly the child needs to vent to an independent third party who will not tattle on them to either parent.  They need to feel that it will not hurt them or their parent’s feelings to tell the truth.  They need a therapist. 

            If you worry about the cost, ask for help from your religious leader, your school district, your health insurance plan, your employee assistance plan, a community group or your lawyer.  Remember, this will not be as long of a time in therapy as you probably need.  They have not been betrayed by a lover.  They do not have as much past to explore.  They need child therapy, not adult therapy.  They need to feel safe and get through their own issues, which are that Mom yells and Dad cries and money is suddenly scary to talk about and no one is home when they get home from school, and they feel bad about it because their parents feel bad about that part, too. 

            A good therapist can help a child get through this, as long as they are brought in early enough.  Wait until the other parent has convinced the child that you are evil; wait until lying to each of you in order to keep the peace has become habit; or wait until your teen has decided that their friends are more important to them than their battling parents, and the therapy will be difficult, expensive and long.  Wait until their grades suffer or they have started drinking or using drugs, and the therapy will be much more difficult. 

            Bottom line:  get the kids in to see a therapist as soon as practicable.  You can work on stopping the situation and preventing it from happening again on your own, but you cannot manage the part of the help that involves their need to talk about it.  The longer you wait, the worse it gets.  Remember, they follow you everywhere, try not to let them follow you through the same shredder that you are going through.