Facts:

• Divorce requires two houses
• Two houses are not optimal for child-rearing

How do you raise a healthy child in two houses? First you have to want to. Your focus must be on the health of your child, not your own needs and wants. Your job is to be a good co-parent in spite of your frustrations and fears. Trying to be a good parent is hard enough; trying to be a good co-parent is practically self-immolating.   You will never have full control; there will always be competing interests and influences.   How to manage this?

Pray for grace every day. Every day there will be opportunities to signal to the child that the other parent is wrong or lesser or doesn’t know as much about the child as you do, or multiple other ways to fight for the child’s allegiance. Do not succumb to these opportunities…ever.

Support the other parent where you agree AND where you disagree. A simple example: one parent believes in a strict bedtime, the other does not. At the bedtime house you’ll hear “but I get to stay up at Hunter’s house!” and at the no-bedtime house you’ll hear “can I sleep with you tonight?” How should each parent react to these questions? Commonly the response would be something like “No two houses are the same in every way. It’s just different here.”  OR “at Hunter’s house you get to learn some skills that older girls usually learn. Going to bed at the same time is a good idea. Just because there isn’t a strict bedtime doesn’t mean you can’t go to bed at your normal time.”

Neither of these statements say anything bad about the other parent but neither are they supportive. A child wants to know you’re on the same page in every way; that’s what makes them feel safe and secure. Since it’s impossible to be on the same page in every way, how do you help your child still feel safe and secure? Try something like this:

“Your mom/dad and I grew up a little differently. At her/his house they had a strict bedtime and at my house we didn’t. Hunter’s way is a good way, and my way is a good way. You’ll see.”

Give a short and understandable reason for the difference and then embrace both methods. Whatever you do, DO NOT ask the child which way they like better. This is unnerving to a young child, and indulgent for an older child. Even if they appear calm about it, here’s what they are thinking: “Parents are supposed to know this stuff, not expect me to figure it out!” or “got my way again! Yay!” Asking children questions as to what they want or need promotes anxiety and also has other unfortunate side effects – like entitlement – that reveal themselves later.

Do not dredge up the past. What happened before the split is none of the child’s business. Knowing about your past adult lives is highly likely to simply increase anxiety. She has two parents. She needs both parents. To be a healthy adult, a child needs a relationship protected from the adult matters like whether one of you is an alcoholic or had an affair or works so much he/she can’t pay attention to the family. Whatever caused the split is history and should be kept that way. No matter way you say, the child will have his/her own ways to determine the truth over time. If you’ve portrayed a parent he/she loves in a particularly negative way, that will come back against you in ways you may or may not perceive.

What do you do when questions about history arise? A dialogue might go something like this:

Child: “Why did you and Hunter split up?”

Parent: “Those are adult issues, not for talking about now. And when you’re old enough to understand such matters, I won’t tell you then either.”

Child: “What?!?”

Parent: “A relationship between two people has ups and downs. If I’m not going to tell you about every up, I’m not going to tell you about every down. I will say my partner was a great partner and our time came to an end for a lot of reasons.”

Child: “But why did you fall our of love?”

Parent: “We didn’t fall out of love. We feel into a different kind of love. There’s an old saying that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Hunter is my neighbor and I love him like a neighbor.

Child: “But Hunter says he/she hates you.”

Parent: “Divorce is difficult emotionally. There are questions that sometimes don’t have answers. Just remember I love him/her like a neighbor.”

Create a schedule and stick to it.   There is nothing more disruptive to a child’s sense of security than wondering where he is going to spend the night. If there are new options every day, that only maximizes the anxiety. If the child controls where she lives, the child will learn she is the parent and you are the child.

There is no perfect schedule   Every permutation has been tried and all have flaws. In order to do the best you can, try to evaluate the environment that would best suit your child. An anxious child requires no deviates from a plan that is simple, very easy to understand, and immutable. It never changes. An anxious child needs fewer transitions, not more. A more self-confident child might be able to tolerate transitions better, but they still suffer in external ways. Friends don’t know where to reach them; other parents are put off by worrying if they will embarrass themselves by calling the wrong household.

If a child cannot put his/her head on the same pillow every night, the child has to have the second best thing: the same pillow on some nights and a second same pillow on others. Consistency at bedtime is one of the most important acts that can reduce anxiety. It one parent sings a certain song to the child, the other parent should learn that song. If one parent reads the same two or three books, so should the other parent. If one parent has a prayer handed down from her grandmother, the other parent needs to adopt it. Bedtime is already a time of heightened separation anxiety. To reduce that anxiety, focus on making your routines as much the same as possible.

 

 

Take the other parents’ side or say nothing.   Children learn the manipulation game early. They know how to get something they want when one parent has denied it; they know how to hurt a parent when they want to. The tools in their arsenal are far more potent than in the child of an intact family’s.

When a child is trying to manipulate you into getting something to which the other parent has said no, you must agree to the no even though it may be a request or an object to which you would have agreed.   The first time manipulation works – and it will – you’ve got to regroup and try again. It’s the best game divorced children can play and its consequences are serious: let that process work for a few years and before you notice you’ll have created a manipulative, self-absorbed, entitled person.

It’s a tough ballgame when a child says something that hurts you, especially using the other parent as a tool: “I love Hunter more! You’re awful!” These statements are usually said as a manipulative tool of some kind or in reaction to some piece of good parenting that the child objects to.   In any and all cases, the only response is to ignore their statements and continue what you are doing. To ask them a bunch of questions about their feelings is the worst thing you can do. The second worse thing you can do is get mad and react.   This is where you pray for grace and let it all go.

A child can also hurt you in total innocence. “Hunter makes better cookies than you do.” “Hunter’s house is bigger than yours.” Hunter sings bedtime songs better than you do.”  Best not to engage but don’t ignore either. All such statements should be answered with that wonderful universal parental non-communication communication: “hmmm…”

You may start a game that was a special tradition in your family, and the child will say “I don’t want to play this game. We play UNO at Hunter’s and it’s a lot more fun.” Since an action is required you can’t ignore it. Here, it’s important to agree with the child and then you can choose whether to play your game or go with UNO. Saying “I love UNO too, let’s play that” can open up opportunities to play your game another day. Or you can say “I love UNO too. Today let’s play this and then our next game can be UNO.” If the child balks, play UNO. It’s not the end of the world. Insisting on playing your game can ruin the day for everyone.

If you think this list is too demanding or asks too much of you, if you’re too hurt, if you’re too angry, if you think the other parent is a slut or a liar or a cheat or mean or just plain wrong – too bad. Go suck your thumb somewhere other than in your child-rearing.   Raising children is not for children or for being childish.

 

PS: of course there are the basics. These recommendations have been written with the assumption that the reader is a relatively evolved person. But in case you’re still evolving:

• Do not sue each other under any circumstances. Never! Ever! For any reason! The courts don’t solve anything; they make it worse. If you are sued, do your best to maintain the normalcy of your child’s life.
• Do not criticize, condemn, or complain about the other parent to or around your child. Your child needs to be able to love both parents; why are you creating a hateful picture of someone who will be in his/her life forever?
• Make sure all of your “venting to friends” occurs outside the house when the child has no chance, no matter how remote, of hearing your vitriol.   (But the best thing you can do is to stop venting. Venting only reinforces your anger. Anger only makes you a poor parent. Accept the reality of your situation; don’t fight it.)
• Do not expect your spouse to be any different than he/she was when you were married to him/her.  All of the good , the bad, and the ugly will still be there except you will perceive the bad and the ugly as worse than when you were married. That’s a change in you, not a change in your former spouse. Get over it.