\u201cI was always afraid of the squid and whale fighting,\u201d Jesse Eisenberg\u2019s Walt tells his therapist in The Squid and the Whale<\/em>, Noah Baumbach\u2019s semi-autobiographical tale of two brothers caught in the middle of a\u00a0nasty divorce<\/a> between their literary parents.<\/a> \u201cI can only look at it with my hands in front of my face.\u201d The title of the film evokes \u2014 all at once \u2014 the famous exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, how watching your parents argue<\/a> can feel like a titanic clash between two beasts, and Walt\u2019s realization in this particular scene: that in re-examining the experiences that have terrified him, he gains insight into why they held such power over him in the first place, and the ability to be truly honest with his mother and father.<\/p>\n A divorce is a profoundly traumatic experience for a family on all fronts, but particular damage is done by the breakdown of communication<\/a> between parent and child. The tension and pressure involved in a separation<\/a> can make children of divorce feel unable to tell their parents how the situation is affecting them, and they may not even be able to articulate those feelings for many years, leaving many parents hopelessly unaware of the effect their actions have on their kids. But as Walt displayed, hindsight can be a powerful tool. So, in order to help parents going through a divorce<\/a>, we asked some adults who endured their parents\u2019 divorce as children what they wished they could tell their mothers and fathers at the time.<\/p>\n Flippancy begets flippancy. Or, at least, that\u2019s the lesson Lisa Conception, founder of LoveQuest Coaching, learned the hard way. Conception\u2019s parents divorced when she was three before finding their own life partners, leaving her with a skewed vision of the divorce\u2019s weight. \u201cI thought \u2026 that I could be flippant when I got married,\u201d she says. \u201c\u2018What\u2019s the worst that can happen? I could always get a divorce!\u2019\u201d But as much as this might feel like an emotional security blanket, it communicates something very different to your kids.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to look at something as painful as a divorce in the eye. But to kids, presence and directness are critical. \u201cI wish my father knew his \u2018out of sight, out of mind\u2019 attitude meant my sister and I had the opposite attitude towards his absence in our lives,\u201d\u00a0says Nabeel Khalid, whose parents split when he was a kid. The more Khalid\u2019s father tried to brush off his responsibilities to his children, the more desperate they were for a direct connection with him, one that would have come with a price. \u201cHis argument was always that he would support us (financially) if we lived with him,\u201d says Khalid. \u201cBut we couldn\u2019t live without our mother.\u201d<\/p>\n Meeting other people after a divorce is as healthy as anything. If that turns into a marriage, that\u2019s great. However, as much as \u2018you\u2019re not my real dad\u2019 has become somewhat of a clich\u00e9, it\u2019s a painfully real bit of cognitive dissonance with which children of divorce have to reckon. \u201cStop trying to sell that dream to try and water down our other parent\u2019s validity in our lives,\u201d says Ave Rogan*. When a parent tries to reinforce a step-parent\u2019s status as the \u2018new parent,\u2019 it can be too much for the child. It\u2019s all symptomatic of something Rogan\u2019s mother noted after her divorce. \u201cShe said that divorcing someone you share a child with is like living with a ghost,\u201d says Rogan \u201cOftentimes they continue to \u2018haunt\u2019 you because your child has some of their same traits\u2014physically, character-wise, etc.\u201d But attempting to impose a new partner\u2019s personality on your child can\u2019t be the answer.<\/p>\n Negative feelings towards your spouse during a divorce are perfectly natural. When your children become a sounding board for those feelings, the repercussions are lifelong. \u201cMy parents divorced when I was eleven,\u201d says author Cindy Gerard. \u201cAs I would spend time with each parent I would hear how awful the other parent was.\u201d This behavior, Gerard argues, can evolve into more than just a gross misjudgment of your child\u2019s emotional capacity. \u201cI have seen so many others around me do the same thing,\u201d she says. \u201cOr worse, use the children as pawns to hurt the other spouse.\u201d<\/p>\n This one might seem like a no-brainer, as all people deal with major life events in their own way. But a divorce can shift a parent\u2019s perspective, and it might seem like the path of least resistance to assume that each of your children are dealing with this pain in the same way. It\u2019s just not true.\u00a0\u201cI am the oldest of four girls,\u201d says Dorina L M. \u201cI\u2019m the only one married. I have six kids. I feel like I benefitted by being older when my parents divorced compared to my sisters, who were between seven and eighteen when they split.\u201d The wider the range of ages, experiences, and temperaments amongst your children, the more variety in their reactions to the process.<\/p>\n One of the most painful experiences as a child of divorce, says Jennifer L. FitzPatrick, LCSW-C and author of Cruising Through Caregiving<\/em>, was her parents\u2019 inability to be in the same room. \u201cSeek counseling and support,\u201d says Fitzpatrick, \u201cso you have the confidence and emotional fortitude to see your ex at important events in your adult child\u2019s life.\u201d While it might seem like an important method of self-care \u2014 and this isn\u2019t to say it can\u2019t be \u2014 as life goes on, that automatic response ripples through the rest of the family. \u201cDon\u2019t expect your adult child to have two separate elementary school graduations for your grandchild,\u201d says FitzPatrick.<\/p>\n As painful as it can be to admit, your kids have the capacity to understand that divorce was the healthiest long-term solution.<\/a> They may not understand this right now, and might not be able to for a long time. But though divorce shouldn\u2019t be your first solution, says Prudence Onaah \u2014 author of Unwholesome Past, <\/em>a novel about the psychological effects of divorce \u2014 \u201cwe know that sometimes living apart is better than living together \u2026 one day, we would come to know too that their relationship is not a mirror for ours or a prophecy that ours would fail should we try to allow love into our lives in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n *Some names have been changed in this piece out of respect for the anonymity of the sources. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cI was always afraid of the squid and whale fighting,\u201d Jesse Eisenberg\u2019s Walt tells his therapist in The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach\u2019s semi-autobiographical tale of two brothers caught in the middle of a\u00a0nasty divorce between their literary parents. \u201cI can only look at it with my hands in front of my face.\u201d The … <\/p>\nTake It Seriously<\/h2>\n
Be Present<\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t Force a Step-Parent On the Kids<\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t Talk Trash<\/h2>\n
Kids Don\u2019t Deal with Divorce Uniformly<\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t Avoid Each Other<\/h2>\n
Remember That Sometime\u2019s It\u2019s For the Best<\/h2>\n
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