Children’s reactions to divorce:
Children find it difficult to grasp and accept divorce. In divorce, children are aware of the change in their families. It hurts them a lot when they can’t do anything to fix this change.
Family disintegration also causes many different emotional reactions in children. Children may experience these feelings again in their future periods. In order for the child to cope with these negative emotions, they need to be revealed. For this, they need the help of adults. If children’s emotions are not allowed to come out, they can turn into problems such as depression, concentration disorder, anxiety adjustment disorder. At this point, while parents are also suffering, they have difficulty in listening to their children’s problems. They probably have a hard time consoling themselves.
Children in general show certain typical reactions to divorce. If parents are aware of these reactions, they can better help their children. It’s good to be aware of what’s going to happen.
FEAR: After the disintegration of the family, the child falls into fear. This fear changes according to the age of the child. Preschool-age children may fear that they will not be loved as much as they used to be, because their parents will leave, their food and clothing needs will not be met, they will not be able to see their distant parent. These fears may be in the form of crying, clinging to the parent, or going back to one of the previous developmental stages. Parents should help children explain why they are afraid by asking questions that will help them get out of these fears.
LONELY: In the post-divorce period, the previous climate of the family will never be the same as before. Children feel the absence of the outgoing parent. Children have to spend more time alone. Because the support from the other parent has been cut off. The remaining parent has to do the chores alone and work hard.
REJECTION: It is difficult for young children to grasp that divorce is something that concerns adults. Since their parents don’t want each other anymore, they may think that they will reject him as well. For this reason, when parents explain their decision to divorce to their children, they should underline that divorce will never affect the relationship with their children.
Guilt: Children tend to think that they are the cause of everything. They believe this wouldn’t have happened if they had been better kids. In fact, their feelings of guilt become so high that they may go so far as to fix the situation until it is up to their own actions. However, children cannot express these feelings of guilt in words like adults. However, they show through behavior. However, if they take negative things on themselves with their behaviors, this is a clue that the child is experiencing a sense of guilt. For this reason, when explaining the divorce to the child, it should be explained to the child that it has nothing to do with them, it is only about the relationship of the mother and father, and that the divorce is not a temporary situation and that it is not possible for the family to come together again. When talking to children, attention should be paid to the words chosen and the meaning of the sentence. Open-ended sentences such as this would not have happened if you hadn’t done this or that can trigger a child’s sense of guilt.
SAD: The most common reaction of children to divorce is sadness. Children can grieve for a long time after a parent gone. No one can replace a parent in a child’s life. Because the child feels the disappearance of a parent in his daily life and longs for the days when the family is together.
Even if crying and looking sad are a sign of the child’s sadness, they show their sadness in the form of talking less, being withdrawn, acting irritable, drawing pessimistic pictures, daydreaming, being cut off from activities they previously enjoyed, and showing angry behaviors.
The best way to help children cope with their grief is to give them the opportunity to talk about their feelings. For this reason, parents should not take their children’s sadness lightly and ignore it. They should not be under the delusion that talking about this issue will upset them more. In this regard, parents can take the initiative to express their sadness by sharing their own feelings with their children. When the sad state of the child is observed, it would be appropriate for them to get expert support.
ANGRY: Children express their anger at divorce in different ways, depending on their age and personality traits. Boys express their anger by shouting and aggressive behavior. Older children may direct their anger at the parent they hold responsible for the divorce, as their cognitive levels are better developed and their reasoning abilities increase. Acknowledging the child’s anger is what parents will do best in the short term. In addition, it should find ways to get out of anger by increasing physical activities such as walking and sports. Children who show their anger by being introverted can be encouraged to verbalize their feelings. The child’s anger should not be ignored, the impression should not be given that the anger is wrong, and attitudes and behaviors that will suppress their behavior should be avoided.
REGRESS: Some toddlers may respond to a parent’s separation by returning to any stage in their development they have completed, such as thumb sucking, peeing, pinning, hitting, overindulging, clinging to a formerly favorite toy or object.
SLEEP PROBLEMS: Children may react such as insomnia, anxiety, and nightmares. Because for the child, sleep can mean something unknown. They may refuse to go to bed. Parents should take care not to disrupt their children’s sleep patterns. Care should be taken not to change the old order of evenings and nights.
Fantasy of bringing mother and father together:
Years after the divorce, some children can still dream of reuniting them. While this is a normal reaction, children should try not to feed such dreams as much as possible. Even one of the divorced spouses may implicitly give such signals to the children. If this does not happen, the child will be disappointed again. Or, when young children tidy up their interactions for the sake of the children, it can be interpreted as reconciliation by the child. For this reason, parents should express this to the child with clear and clear sentences, whatever the real situation is.
In addition, children can react to divorce in many different ways, such as school problems, eating problems, physical problems.
Divorce leaves the child face to face with witnessing the separation of the two most important people in his life. From now on, the child has to be together with his mother and father separately. This situation inevitably creates hopelessness and insecurity in the child. However, if these children are allowed and encouraged to love and spend time with both parents, they will survive the divorce and adjust more easily to their new lives.
Children should not be given the explicit or implicit message that they love one parent and that they dislike the other parent. This confuses the child. The child begins to question his own perception. On the other hand, these children may fear that because they love one parent, they will be rejected by the other. This increases their insecurity and can cause them to cling to a parent. They may feel compelled to compromise their selves in order not to lose the other parent.
The easiest and most effective way to give the message that the child is safe and loved is to constantly show that they love them with their behavior. For example, lots of hugs, kisses, pats on the back and looking into their eyes while talking to them. This gives your child the feeling that their feelings, thoughts and needs are cared for.
No matter how hard you try, sometimes divorce is inevitable. Divorce is one of the important life events in life journey. If divorce was inevitable, the best thing to do is to accept the situation as it is and try to make things happen that are not in the marital relationship; is to accept that the roles of husband and wife are over but the parenting roles continue, to turn the needle of relationships and interaction into mother and father roles and to allow oneself to be turned into a new journey in the form of doing justice to these roles.
