Parents must put children's needs first when divorcing.

National Child-Centered Divorce month was founded by Rosalind Sedacca to raise awareness of the emotional needs of children of separating and divorcing parents.  This is an issue that is near and dear to my heart and central to my practice, and I’m proud to be a participating expert and a year-round advocate for children.

The focus of my practice is on working with divorcing individuals to help them through the process of emotionally separating from their spouses and going on to lead healthy, fulfilling lives.  If this emotional separation process is not completed, children suffer from the resulting anger and bitterness.  For example, children may:

• -Hear their parents fighting and rehashing old issues on a regular basis
• -Be treated as pawns in custody battles
• -Hear their parents say terrible things to and about one another
• -Be filled with anxiety and dread when both parents attend birthdays, holidays, and special events in their lives, such as graduations

For too many children, these occurrences become part of their post-divorce lives and persist throughout childhood and into adulthood, even affecting their own children as they attempt to negotiate having both grandparents participate in their children’s lives.

National Child-Centered Divorce Month is an opportunity for divorce professionals to remind parents that no matter the degree of conflict between spouses, the needs of the children should be paramount during and after divorce proceedings.  This is extremely difficult for many divorcing parents because they are caught up in their personal fear, confusion, grief, and anger.  Divorce counseling helps parents work through their feelings, as well as many of the logistical issues of divorce, much faster and more thoroughly, giving parents more energy to devote to their children’s emotional needs.  Specifically:

• -Having the opportunity to feel heard and understood by a professional who can offer guidance means that parents won’t confide in their children about the divorce, an extremely inappropriate, but unfortunately common, occurrence.
• -A divorce therapist can counsel parents on the messages their children need to hear, based on age, psychological development, and the changes occurring in the children’s lives, and remind parents not to speak negatively of soon-to-be-ex-spouses in front of the children.
• -Parents who sort through their emotions with the help of a therapist are better-equipped to make practical decisions in the best interests of their children.
• -Building parents’ self-esteem makes them feel more hopeful about the future, which they communicate verbally and non-verbally to their children.
• -Helping individuals co-parent successfully during and after the divorce, even as they move on emotionally and create happy new lives for themselves.

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