Divorced? What Your Children Really Want for Valentine’s Day
Tags: mental health
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and lots of articles are being written about ways to show your love. Here is an excerpt from “Helping Children Understand Divorce,” by University of Missouri, that might give you some ideas about what the children of divorce really want:
What I Need From My Mom and Dad – A Child’s List of Wants:
- I need both of you to stay involved in my life. Please write letters, make phone calls, and ask me lots of questions. When you don’t stay involved, I feel like I’m not important and that you don’t really love me.
- Please stop fighting and work hard to get along with each other. Try to agree on matters related to me. When you fight about me, I think that I did something wrong and I feel guilty.
- I want to love you both and enjoy the time that I spend with each of you. If you act jealous or upset, I feel like I need to take sides and love one parent more than the other.
- Please communicate directly with my other parent so that I don’t have to send messages back and forth.
- When talking about my other parent, please say only nice things, or don’t say anything at all. When you say mean, unkind things about my parent, I feel you are expecting me to take your side.
- Please remember that I want both of you to be a part of my life. I count on my mom and dad to raise me, to teach me what is important, and to help me when I have problems.
One Response to “Divorced? What Your Children Really Want for Valentine’s Day”
mira
Great post. And same rules apply to parents who are married but not getting along. My parents stayed together “for the sake of the children.” I know that it would have made a big difference in my childhood if they’d followed these guidelines.