A divorce can be difficult emotionally, mentally, and financially. It’s not something you want to pursue lightly. It can greatly alter the quality of your life and your future, but it has an even bigger impact on your children.
There is a lot of research out there on how a divorce can negatively impact children, but the truth is, getting a divorce isn’t all bad. When pursued with the right mindset and attitude, there are actually some ways getting a divorce is better for the kids.
More One-on-One Time With Each Parent
Before your divorce, you probably spent a lot of time together as a family. That’s a good thing, as it’s important for children to feel like they belong to a family unit. However, it’s also important for kids to spend one-on-one time with each parent. It creates intimacy between parent and child, it enhances emotional connections, and it gives children the ability to share difficult emotions and be themselves.
Most kids don’t get the important one-on-one time they need, but they are a lot more likely to get it when their parents are divorced. When connections between each parent and child are fostered during and after the divorce process, it can actually help the kids feel more heard and supported than before the divorce.
Better Communication Skills
It’s true that communication may have been a problem during your marriage, but if it was a problem before, it probably isn’t a problem now. Whether you’re communicating directly or through your attorneys, there are a lot of details to iron out. When you approach the communication process with your ex-spouse with respect, you can show your children the right way to do it.
A divorce also helps your children learn how to communicate for themselves. Without having both parents in the same household, they have to learn effective ways to share information, like sports practice, with both parents. Just make sure not to make your child the messenger between you and your ex-spouse. That doesn’t create better communication skills and it breeds resentment.
Tackling Hard Problems
Getting a divorce is never easy, no matter how you feel about your ex-spouse. Finding a new way to relate to your ex-spouse, in addition to navigating the actual divorce process, is hard, but you wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t important. That’s a good lesson to teach your kids—just because something is hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t face it head-on.
The key is to be a good role model throughout your divorce to show them the right way to handle hard things. You can do that throughout your divorce by:
- Talking about your ex-spouse with kindness and respect
- Encouraging your children to spend time with the other parent
- Include the kids in the moving process
- Never make them choose between you and your ex
Following Their Heart
Chances are, you’re pursuing a divorce because you know at the end of the process, your mental health will be better off. That’s a powerful lesson to teach kids.
Following your heart and your intuition is often hard, but it’s worth doing because it’s the best way to stay true to yourself. That’s a good thing to model for your children, especially if you have older children who are easily swayed by the opinions of their peers.
Talk about why you’re getting divorced throughout the process without going into too much detail. When your children know you’re following your heart, and they see you making hard decisions to do it, they are more likely to do it in their own lives.
Happier Parents Mean Happier Kids
Many parents struggle to stay married because they think it’s better for the kids, but if it makes you or your spouse unhappy, cranky, and angry, it isn’t worth it.
It’s possible to predict how well children will do in life emotionally, socially, and academically, and it all has to do with how their parents are doing.It’s actually much better for your kids to have happy parents, even if it means they are divorced, because happy parents make for happier kids.
Getting a divorce can be very difficult for your children, but just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. When you tackle your divorce without blame and bad mouthing in front of your children, you actually have the ability to increase the quality of their life in many ways.
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