Family: parents separate, the pediatrician who says?

PARENTS SEPARATE .... and the pediatrician who says?

Any advice to make less mistakes? Perhaps more than one piece of advice needs help to reflect together on children's reactions and how to prevent them. Here are some suggestions.

1. There are no rules of behavior
Each couple has its own story, its own way of sharing time and activities with the children, its own way of talking with the children. And each couple has children who are different from everyone else's children.
For this reason, every couple in the period that precedes and follows a separation must find their own way of behaving, consistent with the characteristics of life and behavior they have had until then. Tips are not needed. We need help to examine different hypotheses and possibilities, to reflect together on children's reactions, to move forward better.

2. Children need both dad and mom
On the other hand, you don't need a good parent and a bad parent, nor a father or mother who loves them so much that they are ready for anything just to snatch them from the other parent.
Except for the very rare cases of proven danger of one of the parents, the search for the best possible agreement to allow the children to maintain relationships with both is the best that can be done for them. Getting the alliance of the children against the other parent, after convincing them that he is the bad guy, the culprit, the cause of everything, is not a victory. It is a defeat.

3. Not too many words
Explaining without lies what is going on requires measurement. Summit conferences convened with official tones ("mom and dad have to talk to you about something important") are embarrassing and tense for children, as well as substantially useless, especially if parents hope in this way to solve everything at once : explanations, reassurances, downplaying description of what will happen "after". They are impossible goals. Nobody can really say what will happen in the months and years following the separation. Children need few and clear practical indications of what is going on and what will change immediately. Talking about a future that is too far away, besides being useless, is not reassuring and can be confusing.

4. Reinsurance, first point
Children must be told by both parents that what is happening between dad and mom (and that children already suspect, because they have heard quarrels, cries, or at least an unusual coldness) is not their fault: it must be remembered that the children are self-centered, and it is very easy that they are convinced that their behavior played a decisive role in the disagreement between the parents, perhaps because they heard them discuss their school behavior, or something else that concerned them.
It is essential to be explicit, and to repeat more than once that the separation of mom and dad only concerns adults.

5. Reinsurance, second point
In addition, it is necessary to reassure children that dad and mom will continue to take care of them, even if separately. Talking about affection, explaining that dad and mom will continue to love their children is not enough.
The need for care and the fear of losing parental care is very strong, and does not coincide with the need for love.
Also on this point, it is important to be explicit and give indications (few and clear) on how you plan to set up your life to guarantee children the same care as before.

6. No role changes
Be careful not to turn your children into comforters, father's (or mother's) substitutes, mediators, peacemakers or spies. In a period of change such as that of separation, it is necessary to be very attentive to the requests that are made to children and to the role that is proposed to them.
The best way to avoid role confusion is to always try to remember that children are children: all the other roles we have enumerated before (comforter, mediator, spy, etc.) are adult roles. They must be spared children, even when they seem to be proposing themselves.

7. Allow the pain
Explaining clearly, reassuring, guaranteeing your care does not mean that children do not suffer from such a radical change: the loss of parents as a couple, but also the renunciation of previous habits and certain comforts, the need to adapt to a style new and often more uncomfortable lives produce different emotions, resentment, anxiety, despondency, uncertainty, anger. It is not fair to ask children - implicitly or explicitly - to be reasonable, to understand, to "not make stories". Even worse, make them weigh the pain they cause parents with their suffering. This basically means pretending that children do not show their pain so that adults can not feel guilty. The best thing is to tell the child that it is understandable that he feels like this, that it is really a difficult experience, that dad and mom have not been able to spare him but that they understand that he is suffering, that he is angry, etc., and that they will try to help him in any way to feel a little better

8. No compensation
The way to make children feel a little better in the separation of parents is not by seeking compensation. The tendency to become more permissive, to decrease requests a bit, can also make sense, provided that all this is part of a search for new rules, for a lifestyle more appropriate to the new situation. If, on the other hand, the concessions are part of a distance competition between the two parents to win the title of "better parent" (that is, more generous, more available to transgressions, more willing to sign justifications for the school or to satisfy whims), or if they have a meaning of the "poor thing, with all that is going on" type, attention will not be fair to complain if the children learn to "exploit the situation", becoming more demanding and intolerant of limitations, and if they get used to playing the part of the victim who has suffered so much, a little sympathetic part and above all not very suitable to encourage the search for resources to deal with difficult situations.

9. Not everything that happens to children is the consequence of separation
The phases of separation certainly have repercussions on the mood of children, on their behavior and also on their health. But from here to be convinced that every stomach ache, every symptom, every bad grade at school are the direct consequence of the separation there is a big difference. Among other things, this is a risky belief, because it prevents us from making other hypotheses, and therefore from finding more valid solutions. A school failure can also be due to something going on at school (changes of teachers, difficulties with classmates), or bad organization of the time. Belly pain may be due to changes in style and food rhythms, perhaps indirectly related to separation, but on which action can be taken. Liquidating everything that happens as a result of separation stress is simplistic and not very constructive.

10. Expand the network
Always respecting the way in which each child adapts to the new situation created after a separation, it is useful to try to broaden the network of relationships (and help), contrasting the heroic tendencies to "do it alone". You can try to propose (not impose) new leisure activities to children, try to put in place shifts of accompaniment with other parents, encourage sports activities in which significant adults are involved (the coach, the sports director).
In any case, it is good to avoid hindering the search for new adult figures that many children put in place during the phases of separation of parents, by binding to a teacher or to the parent of a friend: contrary to what may seem, a wider network of adult figures allows to mitigate the comparison mom / dad.

by the Pediatric Cultural Association