No doubt, the experience can be exceedingly painful for children. But when a situation is inevitable, how do you help children still feel positive and confident? How do we help them come out stronger after the challenge of living through divorce?
When I was a child, divorce wasn’t a taboo subject. It wasn’t a subject. Period.
When I was seven, my aunt approached me and suggested that maybe I had some questions for my mother about the reason that I lived only with her. Or, perhaps I wanted to know the reason that we lived in the same building as my grandparents?
I looked at her like she was off the wall because the truth was that I had no questions.
Life as a child in a single-parent home was the only life I knew, and I didn’t expect any different. Honestly, I didn’t even want any different.
All of my basic needs were cared for and that was enough.
But there were chips in my armor. Like when I was eleven years old and we learned about the prohibition against hurting a widow or orphan. “What about parents and children of divorce,” I wondered. “Do they get special treatment too? Do they receive special mention?”
As I grew older still, I began to wonder about shidduchim. Would raising a family be different with my background?
I was a high-achiever for the most part, and I didn’t allow these questions to plague me—but they were there.
Fast forward 30 years. The world as we know it is full of organizations. There are organizations for widows, organizations for orphans, and yes—there are even organizations for children of single parent homes and their parents.
Sometimes I wonder whether, had these organizations existed when I was a child, the world would have felt safer, happier, and more inclusive to me.
There is no simple answer to that question. The world has changed. Conversations that once stayed private or unspoken are now discussed more openly, and emotional wellbeing has moved to the forefront.
Yet, often people need space before they can accept support.
Introverts, especially, are less likely to gravitate toward an organization than toward an individual. It’s hard for them to put themselves “out there.” It would have been hard for me to put myself out there.
But if I had to pick five things I would have told my younger self–or if I can get onto my soap box now and tell them to parents instead–they’d be:
- Engage in the bigger picture
An important message for kids is that every child struggles in some way. For some people that struggle is outward, for others it’s inwards. But no one gets to coast through life without challenges. That’s not the way that Hashem set the world up, and there is meaning to every struggle.
For parents and educators: Give this message over gently. Not in a heavy-handed lecture sort of way, but trickle, trickle, until it penetrates. Because when a child’s in a difficult situation that may be all that they see–and they need their parent’s wider perspective to help them see that bigger picture.
- Shame is thy enemy.
When my mother eventually remarried, I refused to tell my friends about it. Instead, I carried that load around for so long–it became an extra weight for no reason. Shame is counterproductive. Divorce is so, so hard. But from the countless children of divorce whom I’ve spoken to, it has emerged that those who share their “status” with the world and don’t try to hide behind it have a far easier time socially than those who don’t.
For parents and educators: Encourage your child to share. Tell them it may be a one-time difficult conversation, but it will ultimately make their life so much easier.
- Remember the good.
There are good people around. Truly. Divorce, and other difficult childhood experiences, make kids wary. It makes kids distrust the adults who “did it to them.” But there are good people out there. Lean into that.
For parents and educators: Understanding distrust when you see it, identifying it and empathizing with it, are great ways of telling a child “I see your struggle and am with you.” But then go a step beyond that struggle and actively point out the good people: teachers, therapists, Rabbanim, and mentors, whom children can gain from. Of course, it goes without saying that adults must actively believe this first before they can pass it on to children.
- Continue to be a child.
Divorce can jerk a child out of child territory. Put on them an onus that they never asked for. But there’s nothing wrong with still being a child. Remaining involved in age-appropriate games, crafts, etc. Not as a way of “proving yourself,” or “escaping,” but as a fun outlet.
For parents and educators: Deliberately protect the space of your child. They need it, they deserve it. And eventually, they will grow from it. But prompting children out of that space and into adult territory, by oversharing, asking for more help than a child can give, or simply by letting on that you “can’t,” isn’t going to build the child up. It may look like it temporarily, but cars zooming at a thousand miles per hour eventually crash.
- Resources exist.
One of the lines that jolted me most as a child was this: Ein Chadash Tachas Hashemesh. There is nothing new under the sun. Everything that I’m going through, my struggles, difficulties, and emotions–have existed already, and there is likely something out there to help me through it. Be it a teacher, a club, or a book. All that I need to do is find it and tap into it.
For parents and educators: Connect children to the resources that exist and don’t expect a one-size fits all answer. Some children connect better to individuals, others to groups, and still others to books, magazines, and the written word. Help exists. It’s simply a question of connecting each individual child to the type of help that suits them best.
And then stepping back to breathe and daven. Because sometimes, presence is more powerful than words.