At home, the child is an observer, constantly observing how a relationship should be. If you can keep this in mind constantly, you will always be able to better understand the impact you will have on your child in the relationship and make clearer decisions about it. Here, the child will draw a similar roadmap in his/her future life by observing the way you love each other and the way you love your child, by modeling the relationship you have established as parents. On the way to divorce, the child should not witness the incompatibility, fights, conflicts and miscommunication between the parents. For this reason, it would be more appropriate to worry about what our child was exposed to before the divorce, what he witnessed, how much his psychology was affected, rather than what will happen to our child after the divorce.
Divorce can be explained to the child from the ages when the child starts to use his/her language skills (1.5-2 years old). It is not the reasons or details of the divorce that need to be explained here. For example, if there is cheating, violence or fighting, the child should not know. Parents should keep the explanation very simple if they don’t want something traumatic to happen to the child. Unreasonable things in the air during this process may cause the child to comment on the divorce on his own and in his own mind, settle on the child and affect his whole life. In the divorce process, in fact, the anxiety that the parents impose on him rather than the child’s own anxiety emerges. Children’s anxiety during and after the divorce process is “I’m sorry I will be left without a mother, alas I will be without a father, alas I will not be safe, who will protect me and who will defend me”. And that’s actually the main concern you have to answer.
Parents should manage the divorce process and after it very well. Parents have “how will I manage this process” and “what will Elalem say”. If parents are experiencing intense anxiety during this process, it would be best for them to seek help from a professional. When a parent goes to a child therapist, the therapist will work not only with the child but also with the parents so that this process can be carried out in a healthy way. If you are worried about doing harm in a situation that you cannot cope with, you should not hesitate to seek professional help and go to a therapist.
