You have a lot of goals relating to your children when you head for divorce. Maybe you want sole custody, a good joint custody plan or visitation rights. However, while looking into all of this, it’s important to go beyond these basic decisions and remember to think about how you can make life easiest for the children. Helping kids through a divorce is important.
First off, if you have multiple children, it’s best to have a family meeting when you decide to split up. You don’t want some kids getting the news from your spouse while some get it from you, and you definitely don’t want some of your children to know before others.
Helping Kids Through Divorce Requires Honesty
When making your parenting plan, try to keep life the same for the kids as much as you can. For example, attempt to keep them in the same school system. Pulling them out takes them out of their peer groups. And this can force them to lose their friends at a time when they’re dealing with a lot of other changes.
Ask your kids to talk to you and ask their own questions. Answer them and be honest. However, be careful about giving them too many details. They may not need to know everything about why you’re deciding to divorce.
Keep Home Environment Consistent
Finally, do everything in your power to keep their standard of living the same. This means having similar living spaces, freedoms, educational opportunities, vacation opportunities, and all the rest. Your goal should be to minimize the impact on them so that their lives don’t decline because you decided to get divorced.
When making a legal parenting plan, keep all of these things in mind. You and your spouse can work together to help the children with the right custody agreement.
Source: Psychology Today, “How to have a good divorce and keep your kids resilient,” Michael Ungar, accessed Feb. 23, 2017