My Journey Through Divorce, Part 2

The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive
by Robert Emery, Ph.D.

(Page 4 of 4)

Once we got through some tense moments, Jake began to relax and Beverly could see that she actually had more power in the situation than she thought. She was the expert when it came to her children. Most important, it was clear that both Jake and Beverly wanted what was best for their kids. In the neutral zone of my office, perhaps for the first time since they separated, they reached a decision about their children that did not involve a fight, personal or legal.

Why was this important? Because though the divorce had changed these children's lives in countless ways great and small, the most immediate and potentially damaging problem was not the divorce itself but the parents' ongoing conflict. Technically speaking, I had one client, Beverly. But divorce is a process that touches the entire family, a family transformed and maybe shaken, but a family nonetheless. I would meet with Beverly and Jake a half dozen times, and it would be a few months before I saw Adam and Hannah relaxed - smiling and laughing - in the presence of both parents, but it happened. My experience with Beverly and her family led to the subject of my doctorate and my career. My work with them also eventually led me to conduct a series of research studies that prove parents can work together even in the midst of divorce (see chapter 6) - and that doing so makes a huge difference for their children.

A Better Way

Not long after my experience with Beverly and Jake, I discovered that a handful of professionals also felt the way I did about divorced families, and were creating programs geared to finding new ways of resolving parental disputes. Across the country, forward-thinking mental health professionals and lawyers were starting to treat divorcing parents as two people with a shared interest in their children rather than as opponents in a legal tug-of-war. Mediation, an approach where a neutral third party acts as a facilitator to help parents reach their own agreements in divorce, particularly appealed to me. Mediation reached parents early in the divorce process and tried to contain their conflicts. It proceeded from what then seemed a revolutionary premise: Divorcing parents are the best experts on their own children and they can, with the right attitude and the right help, assume the responsibility for deciding what is best for them. Beverly and Jake showed me how divorcing parents can rise to the occasion, if they know how.

The key to putting children first is reducing parental conflict. Divorce mediation is one way; so is talking over your kitchen table or using lawyers who work in a collaborative as opposed to an adversarial fashion. All the little things that thousands of divorced parents do day in and day out are also incredibly important. They swallow a little of their own pain, anger, and pride, and they find a way to work together in parenting their children. It doesn't even matter so much how they get there as when - the sooner the better.

My Personal Story

In 1989, my first wife, Jean, and I separated. My experience confirmed for me personally what I had long known professionally: Divorce is incredibly hard. For most parents it is an ongoing and painful struggle to build a new relationship and redefine their roles.

I, perhaps more than most fathers in my position, knew not only what to do but also why it was necessary. Yet nothing braced me for the pain. Nothing prepared me for the realization of how easily my own anguish might have swayed me from saying or doing the right thing. No one told me how hard I would work to put my emotions aside for our daughter's sake. And Maggie's mother probably worked even harder than I did. I had already spent years reading, writing, lecturing about the pain divorce creates for children, but I never truly understood what it all meant until I saw it in my own daughter's eyes.

Fortunately, Maggie was a resilient child - as are most children whose parents divorce. But I never underestimated the real risks our divorce introduced into her life, nor did I forget the pain my divorce caused her at different points throughout her life or how grateful I am that she has grown into a happy, accomplished young woman. But I also believe that divorce was the best decision for me personally at that time.

The Lessons of Divorce

Children are what this book is really all about, although you will be reading more about parents than about kids in divorce for a very simple and extremely important reason: Children can survive and thrive after divorce if parents can find the right way to manage their relationships with their children and with each other. If you, as the parent, can remain effective and loving, your so-called child of divorce (a term I hate to use) will be a child first and foremost. If you can learn the practical and emotional lessons I offer you here, your children can have the childhood that every child deserves. They won't grow up too soon, become the parent to you, or become derailed with problems that cry for help and attention. They'll be regular kids who drive you to distraction one day and make you proud the next. If you can be a parent first, even while facing all the challenges and changes in your life, then your kids will be free to be what you want them to be and what they deserve to be: just kids. Call it your take-home message, your mantra, your affirmation - whatever you want. Just believe it.

© 2006 Plume, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Robert E. Emery, Ph.D., is professor of psychology and director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Virginia. A frequent lecturer, he is the author of more than one hundred scientific publications, and several books. His work has been featured in publications such as Newsweek, Time, Child, and the New York Times and he has appeared on Weekend Today and The Jane Pauley Show.