When Home Becomes Homes
Witnessing their parents divorce or separate is one of the hardest things a child can endure because it upends their life as they know it. What may be the most challenging change is seeing the deconstruction of their home; as one parent stays and another goes, daily traditions and routines involving a whole family suddenly become things of the past, and that can be a terrifying thing for children to go through regardless of their age. Remember these few things as your family adjusts to being split between two different households.
Two Homes, Two Parents, One Love.
Just because your relationship with your former spouse didn’t work out doesn’t mean that that has to negatively affect their relationship with your children. Odds are that regardless of how the marriage may have come to an end, your kids have a deep love and adoration for their other parent. Remember: your children see your former spouse in a different light than you do and it’s your job to encourage them to continue to do so even if your feelings towards them are less than savory.
Assure your children that even though their other parent isn’t in the house, they can still openly express their love and appreciation for them. It should never be taboo to speak about the other parent nor to reminisce on happy memories they have of them. Keep your feelings in check, swallow your pride, and remind yourself that their love for their other parent doesn’t reduce how they feel about you nor whatever extraneous circumstances that led to your divorce/separation.
Contact is Key.
One of the best ways to make the transition from one home to two is to let your kids have healthy amounts of communication with their other parent. Going from being able to walk into a room and speaking to them to having to talk on the phone at certain points in the day is going to be hard enough, so please ensure you aren’t obstructing this by cutting comms between your kids and co-parent.
That being said, be sure to set a schedule of when the best times of day are for your co-parent to speak to the kids so that your time with them isn’t being encroached upon. In efforts to be peaceable, don’t kneecap your own needs.
Never Invite Mystery.
Finally, make the schedule of custody and visitation clear to the kids; as soon as the custody agreement is finalized, sit down with them and tell them when they’ll be with which parent, how long, and how often that’ll be. Don’t ever give them the chance to question when they’re going to see their other parent, as this can breed feelings of insecurity and even abandonment if not properly nixed.
Joint custody isn’t an easy thing to navigate and can cause a lot of tension in not only the parents but in the children as well. But parents who utilize cooperative and collaborative efforts can recreate the stability their little ones were used to, and begin the journey of making these separate houses feel like homes.
