Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Welcome to the Hand-In-Hand Parent Club podcast. I'm Emily Murray, a hand-in-hand instructor and a mom of two.
Speaker 1 00:00:06 I'm Kathy Gordon, a single adoptive mom of a now young adult son, a hand-in-hand instructor, and we are both moderators of hand-in-hand, awesome membership program, the Parent club.
Speaker 0 00:00:17 Every week we'll be answering a parenting question. You'll hear about hand-in-hand, parenting's, powerful, respectful parenting tools. We'll share how they help you work with your child's feelings, especially when their behavior gets harder, confusing.
Speaker 1 00:00:29 You can feel good about using these tools. They've brought warmth and connection to our own families and to many thousands of families around the world who are using the hand-in-hand approach.
Speaker 0 00:00:39 That's why hand in hand and the Parent club exist. We're here to support you and your family so you have more good, sweet, fun times together.
Speaker 5 00:00:53 Hello parents. Welcome back. Our question of the week. Um, a parent wrote to us asking about how to support children while a family is going through, uh, a separation or divorce. And in her case, she was specifically asking about younger children or children not yet able to fully articulate what they're experiencing, but probably universally what parents want to be on the lookout for in terms of behaviors and nonverbal signals that they, that children use to tell us that they might need some extra support. So our question is around how to support children who are going through this, uh, experience as a family. And
Speaker 1 00:01:33 We have a special guest to answer this question today. Patty Ler, who is a mom and a grandmother, and who chose divorce when her two boys were very young. Patty also happens to be the founder of Hand-in-Hand Parenting. And Patty, we're so honored to have you here with us today.
Speaker 3 00:01:52 Thank you. I'm really happy to be here. It's, and this is a, it's a good topic. That's one I have some personal familiarity with <laugh>. So, um, and the parent wanted to know, what, what about children's feelings? How do I know when my children need extra support around the divorce? And they are not going to say, Hey, mom, I need some extra support around the divorce, <laugh> <laugh>. But that headline is never gonna come straight to you. Um, you and children are not going in general, children don't work on things that are really big in their lives that they don't fully understand. The only way that they can work on their feelings about something big is to choose a very small pretext and, and mine into the feelings from that. And so, in general, you know, children have all, you know, there's all kinds of behaviors.
Speaker 3 00:02:58 Really, almost any behavior could be a sort of a, a a, a door that is opening to being able to work on the hurt of separation. The disappointment that my parents are not together any longer. Um, the hassle of going back and forth between homes or the absence of the, you know, the one parent. Um, you know, while the other parent does the most of the parenting, there's all kinds of circumstances and almost any little thing, the peas, touching the carrots on their plate, you know, could bring up big upset about, this has to be fixed. This has to be fixed. Please fix this. Now I'm frantic for you to fix it. Um, it could come, they could come up around activities of daily living. So sometimes children will stop eating, or sometimes children will, you know, be scarfing down cookies when you told them not to.
Speaker 3 00:03:53 Sometimes children can't sleep or can't get through the night without waking up and having, you know, upsets in the night, which give them access to the fears they need to work on. And it's, they're never gonna say, mom, now I'm working on how scared I am that you, and, and, you know, my my dad or my other mother, you know, are, are separate. It just, you know, it just comes up as a big fat fear and it comes up in a dream, or the feeling just comes up around, you know, being told, you know that no, you, you can't have this toy right now, your sister's playing with it. Um, just any little limit. And often for children going back and forth between two homes, the transition times are very rocky. You know, the children come back from your ex's place and they're at your place and they don't like each other.
Speaker 3 00:04:52 They don't like the dinner you served, you know, the toy they wanted to look for got put in a different place and, and they're really upset. Um, yeah, this upset can come from anything. Um, and, and it will not, you know, there will be no announcement that this is about, you know, how hard this, this divorce or this separation is. It's just there. And these little open doors, these transition times or upset times are really gold. You know, they aren't labeled as gold. You kind of have to keep that in your head. Um, hand in hand. Parenting may be one of the only parenting sources that tell you that these moments are gold. Um, but they are, this is your child's bid to work on disappointment, fear, you know, not feeling that love is coming the way they wanna receive it. You know, just all the frustration of having to pack up their stuff every, you know, every three days or every week to go to another home where all the rules are different.
Speaker 3 00:05:55 And, um, it, it just, so you need to understand that these, these are gonna be highly emotional times, especially the times when your child comes back to your home to be with you. Because any parent who has some emotional tolerance for children's upsets is the safe anchor parent in the family, or a safe anchor parent, and the best, their best bet for getting rid of emotional burdens. So how to respond when your child's behavior goes off track. Um, let me give you a couple of examples. Um, stay listening is one of the tools that is very, very helpful, but it's not the only one. And, um, and I'm gonna talk about stay listening first. Um, my, my best friend when I got, you know, when when, when our children were little, um, had a daughter and the, uh, daughter's father, um, became really emotional and, uh, not safe to be with.
Speaker 3 00:07:06 And by the time the daughter was about nine months old, he left, which, what made made the family safer, but it was, uh, you know, it felt really hard. And, um, he didn't leave any financial support, which made it all feel harder. So, <laugh>, there was one moment when my friend's daughter was, uh, about two years old, just barely two. Um, and my friend had been talking to her ex on the phone, and the conversation got very difficult, and she hung up the phone and started crying. And her daughter kind of toggled into the room going, mommy, who were you talking to? And she said, that was your dad. And her daughter burst into tears and said, oh, mommy, I miss him too. You know, <laugh>, the mother was nowhere near missing him, but <laugh>, she was crying and she just picked up her daughter and they just cried together.
Speaker 3 00:08:07 And she did not explain, your daddy is not sending money and I'm really frustrated and da da, da da. She just, she just kept quiet and cried on her track while her daughter cried on this, the track that she needed to cry on in order to, you know, get, get back a sense of equilibrium and o okayness about the way life was. So really the less said, the better. Um, when your child is crying really hard about something really small, just assume that there is something very big that's being let go of in the background that your child often can't talk about or may not ever be able to talk about. I think the other story I think of is, um, a mother I know, um, had gotten a separation and then a divorce. And her son was riding in the backseat of the car one day and they were just doing some ordinary errands, and he asked for something and she said, no, I can't give you that right now.
Speaker 3 00:09:09 And he burst into tears and started crying and wailing and thrashing and twisting and trying to get out of his car seat. And it was a really sweaty, kind of a fit and just really emotions over the top, over a very small limit. I don't remember what that limit was. And she figured, okay, it, it would be good if I could look him in the eye, but he's, he's getting these feelings out and I'm on the freeway. And so she just, you know, said, I'm right here. I'm sorry, it's hard. And he kept going and going and got very, very intense and very struggly and sweaty. And then pretty soon he started saying, I hate myself. I hate myself. You know, I made daddy go away. I hate myself. And it was, it wound up being then a very long, passionate expression of, of feeling like he had been the cause of the divorce.
Speaker 3 00:10:14 And she didn't expect this. She didn't know he had felt this way, but all of a sudden that was coming out. And rather than stopping the car as though it was an emergency, she decided to keep driving so that whatever the balance was, you know, her presence in the front seat, but not, you know, not lots of eye contact, it just, it was sort of the perfect way for him to get out all of this fear and upset and, you know, feeling like he was gonna jump out of his skin and the way that he was digging at himself, you know, that clearly had to do with the divorce. Um, he said, so it's really rare that children in the middle of deep feelings actually tell you what the, what the key issue is. Um, but it can happen. And really, once feelings start, what you wanna do is just pay attention.
Speaker 3 00:11:11 Don't wanna ask, is this about your, is this about the divorce? Is this about going back and forth between, you know, daddy's house and our house? You, you do not wanna probe. You do not want to ask them to name the feeling. Oh, you're feeling angry about that? Is that right? No, it, it's just let them work it through the way they're gonna work it through. Let them name it. If they're gonna name it, let them not name it. If they're not gonna name it, sort of stay out of their personal territory and listen to the feelings that come through that's stay listening. The other thing that's really, really helpful to children when they're under stress and, you know, divorce or separation can be a stressful situation for months and years, depending on how easy it is for you to help them unload the stress and laughter, unloads fears and, and worries, um, really, really well.
Speaker 3 00:12:12 So just using play listening and special time to get play going so that your child can take out their, their worries about being, I don't know, being victim of, of a situation, um, by, you know, wrestling, by being chased and being able to get away, you know, by being jiggled around on your back in a horsey ride. You know, any kind of physical play that lets children laugh is going to empower them so they're gonna feel less and less like the victim of this situation and more and more in charge of their lives as you play. And, um, you don't need to worry that it seems like the feelings are all over the place for such a long time. Will this ever end? Um, I've really listened to and been sort of a, a cheerleader for families going through divorce, uh, all kinds of divorce, really, really acrimonious divorce and, you know, fairly peaceful, agreeable, everybody, you know, just decided to change it all.
Speaker 3 00:13:19 And they did kind of divorces in. What I can say is that if you use special time to give your child the rein so they can show you what's on their mind if you do play listening, so they get to laugh and wrestle and be the powerful one. Um, you know, if you do, if you set limits well rather than tiptoeing around all the little edgy places that your child has, trying to keep the peace for, you know, three hours a day, that's not fun as a parent and it's not fun for your child. Um, when they're upset, they're upset. And you might as well just say, I can't let you do that, sweetie. You know, the first time that they show you some weird behavior rather than, you know, keeping on expecting them to recover their thinking when they just can't until they have a good cry or have a good laugh.
Speaker 3 00:14:10 Um, that, that, you know, you wanna set limits early and often and you wanna stay listened when they have deep feelings and, and do load them. So that's, and what I can tell you is that children who've gone through divorce, whose parents have had these tools, even deeply acrimonious divorce, where one parent was really trying to, you know, visit retribution on the other parent for years and years and years, um, those children have, it has not been easy. They've needed to cry and be upset and be irrational over and over and over again. But in general, their lives are set well and over time, um, they build competencies to be in different environments, to be themselves in highly different environments, to stand up for themselves when they need to, um, to build something good in a relationship that isn't easy for them. Um, as long as, as long as there are places where they can have a good cry and have a good laugh, their intelligence will grow and their competency, it's sort of like being a bicultural person or a bilingual person.
Speaker 3 00:15:27 Their brains are gonna get bigger and really much more flexible as time goes on. If they have places where they can have a good cry and have a good laugh and have someone who welcomes them home even though they're grumpy and out of sorts and hard to live with for a day or two while they, while they get the chance to offload the feelings and settle down and enjoy themselves. So, um, yeah, and when, almost always in a separation situation, there are ways in which the parents continue not to get along, continue not to cooperate, and because those are the conditions that, that make a divorce a a good choice. Um, but you still have to, you know, the other parent is still the parent and you still wanna give them whatever role they can responsibly handle in your children's lives cuz that's really what's best for your kids and for you.
Speaker 3 00:16:26 Um, so when you've got a resistant other parent or a hard to negotiate with or hard to cooperate with other person, I think you, you wanna give up the idea that you can change them and that this is, you know, this is the reason for a good divorce is that it, it's just not workable and all the attempts you've made to change them or change yourself, um, have not done, have not done what needs to be done. And so you, you want to treat the other person with kindness, um, whenever possible. And you want to work on use listening partnerships to work on your upsets about having to be the sweeper in the relationship. The one who cleans up all the children's emotional tensions every week or every three days, or, you know, at the end of a long summer with the, the other other parent, you know, they come home and they can't remember the chores and they won't do them. And, you know, it just, it's like you are gonna be the sweeper, you were gonna be the sweeper anyway. Even if you had a partner <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:17:41 One of our instructors, um, saying the divorce instructors saying how when her kids would come home, she would clear her schedule. Yeah. She would not plan anything for the rest of the day. So that, that time was just connecting and getting laughter going and yes, being, you know, available for tears, but she would clear the decks so that they had that time, uh, that, you know, she was ready for them and, and emotionally available for them and, and available for them in terms of time when they, they got home from the other parent.
Speaker 5 00:18:16 Yeah, I think I've heard you say this many times, Patty, that when when we expect the feelings to be there, it can be a lot easier for us to then listen to the feelings. We're not gonna expect it to go magically different this time and that expectation of, I'm, I'm ready for it, <laugh>, you know, well, ready or not, here it comes, but I'm not expecting it to be different. Um, that, that shift in our thinking can really transform the 24 hours after those transitions happen. Yeah. Um, I wonder if you, um, might share, uh, usually at this point in the podcast, we like to share one small thing that parents can, uh, take away from, um, what we've, we've talked about something they could practice, something they can try, something that can, um, a little thing that can make a big shift in in their lives around this topic. Do you have one small thing you wanna share?
Speaker 3 00:19:13 Um, I, I wouldn't call it small, but yeah, I really think that, um, for, for your children and for yourself, um, it makes sense to commit to treating your ex with respect and treating your decision to do a divorce with respect also. Um, and that means treating yourself with respect, um, as well. It's like you are in a divorce, it is the best one of you, if not both of you decided it was the the best solution, um, in, you know, at some point and deciding not to act like the victim, not to adopt the victim role. You are gonna feel like the victim and deciding to take the feelings to listening partnership where you can bemoan your horrible fate, you know, and cry and cry and cry about the way you thought it was going to be and how it it wasn't, and how hard you tried and how futile your efforts seemed to be.
Speaker 3 00:20:32 Um, so that just not adopting the victim role, finding yourself, noticing you're feeling like the victim, working on it, working on it, working on it. And slowly you're going to notice your own power and you're going to notice the, the good things about the decision that you or perhaps your ex made. Um, and treating your ex with, you know, with respect means not denigrating them in front of your children. Not picking up the, not going, oh, it's your, you know, it's your mom, you know, ugh, I have to answer this. You know, just no, no whiffs of attitude. Um, because anytime you're, you're whiffing out your attitude, um, you're actually asking your children to be your counselor for the feelings that you hold and your children are not the appropriate counselor or the feelings that you hold listening partners or you know, a counselor who is licensed.
Speaker 3 00:21:36 That's the place to go with the attitude. And the more you try to live clear of that attitude, the better you're gonna work on the feelings that are held. When you do get to a safe place, the harder you're gonna cry, the faster you're gonna recover. As long, if you keep the home base clear of, you know, of that you notice the feeling and you set up your, your listening time and you go do it there. And, uh, that puts you in a much more powerful role. And it lets your children be themselves and not have to be the responsible grownups in this situation, which they're not. They're not in a position to be so mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 1 00:22:21 That's wonderful. It's
Speaker 3 00:22:23 Really important. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:22:24 Yeah. And that's, um, certainly not small, but very powerful. <laugh> very, very powerful. And, um, to our listeners and, uh, viewers, there will be, um, resources in our show notes to help you with, uh, to learn more about the tools that Patty's talking about, um, and, uh, especially listening partnerships and this kind of support that Patty's talking about getting is available to you in the parent club community. And that information will be in the show notes as well. So, um, thank you so much Patty. Thank you for being here and sharing really powerful wisdom, um, on this, um, very, uh, can be difficult, um, and common, uh, situation. Thanks everybody for listening. Bye bye.
Speaker 3 00:23:13 Bye.
Speaker 0 00:23:14 Thank you so much for tuning into the Hand in Hand Parent Club podcast. Please like and subscribe to hear more and to connect with us between these episodes. Come on over to hand in hand parenting.org to join the parent club where you can get coaching classes and live support.
Speaker 1 00:23:28 Come join our vibrant community of parents in the parent club who are committed to getting the support they need to be the parents they wanna become. We'd be honored to support you too. This podcast and the Parent Club are part of Hand-in-Hand Parenting, a nonprofit organization that supports parents all over the world. We are here for you when parenting gets hard.
