Anyone going through a divorce or relationship breakdown will understand how intensely stressful it can be, it is also extremely stressful for any children, regardless of their age, who are caught up in the adult problems. Ensuring that the children are given the right level of unbiased emotional support during this time can be difficult and it falls to the parents and close relatives to provide it.
Children will experience a range of emotions including feeling vulnerable, a sense of loss, grief, anger and a general sense of having no power to help or change things.
I consider that the best thing that parents going through divorce can do for their children is to maintain a civil relationship, especially when it comes to making decisions about their children.
The children will take their lead from their parents. If the parents adjust well then there is a much better chance that the children will follow their example.
Custody battles indicate a poor adult adjustment and as these battles rage the children will experience a lower level of contact to one or both of their parents, and even if there is plenty of contact this will be tainted with the child having to balance the loyalty to each parent.
Abilene counsellor Marc Orner said.
"The parents don't need to poison the well, so to speak, they don't need to talk bad about each other to try to get the child on their side."
One of the more prominent emotions dealt with by those who counsel children through divorce is guilt.
Children are egocentric, so it's natural for them to think the divorce was about them or that they are to blame. Although each child will cope with the problems in their own way age and parenting ability will either help or hinder the progress.
Possible effects at developmental stages:
Age 3-5 Regression to previously attained milestones. Disturbed sleep patterns and separation loss.
Age 6-8 Open grieving for the absent parent and loss of the family structure often with fantasies about the parents getting ‘back-together’ and a ‘happy ending’. They have difficulty coming to terms with the permanency of divorce.
Age 8-11 Anger derived from a feeling of powerlessness. Children at this stage of development are easily influenced and more likely to be involved by ‘Parental Alienation’ resulting in a ‘bad’ parent, ‘good’ parent belief. Many children in this age group take on the role of ‘little parent’, looking after their unhappy family members including mum and dad.
Age 12-18 Adolescents is a difficult time without family upheaval. Depression often with violent outbursts and a blame culture can be expected. These children may ‘judge’ their parents in a moralistic way, inappropriately pointing out each of their parent’s perceived negative ‘contributions’ to the family breakdown.
Ideally parents would work together to ensure a positive transition for their children from the current family to the new family dimension, whatever that may be.
Unfortunately, adults do not always act in an adult, responsible manner especially when they are under emotional pressure. Many parents have themselves had a difficult childhood with poor parenting models and do not have the life-skills to keep their children’s needs in positive focus.
This is where experts and dedicated professionals can help. Parents should be encouraged to seek help and not feel that they are failing or view it as an admission that they are poor parents. Organisations like mychildcontact.com a website dedicated to helping parents and children to work through family break-down and maintaining contact/access to the absent parent have a great deal of experience and can help to keep the parents focussed on the needs of their children.
As a starting point parents should:
• Reassure the children that they are not the reason for the problems and that they are not responsible for their parent’s difficulties.
• Recognise that the children will experience many emotional difficulties and will not necessarily have the experience to handle their emotions.
• Children will need a lot of un-reserved love from all of the adults, including grandparents and other close family members as they move through the feelings of loss and grief.
• Do not think that the older the child, the better they will cope or that they do not need as much support, age does not negate the pain.
• Be consistent and considered.
• Avoid discussing the adult issues in front of the children, but do keep them informed. This should be age appropriate and definitely not a place to ‘offload’ the adult frustrations or hurt.
Copyright 2011 Kenn Griffiths, All Rights Reserved.
About the author:
Kenn Griffiths is a Writer, Investigator, Social Worker and Founder of the internationally acclaimed website www.mychildcontact.com
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Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
CHILD CONTACT FACILITIES INADEQUATE
ABSENT PARENTS NEED BETTER
CONTACT FACILITIES
There are many reasons why parents and their children are living apart. It could be because there are family proceedings in the courts and the children are taken in to the care system whilst the decisions about their future with the birth parents is decided. During these difficult times parents are expected to attend for contact with their children as, where and when, the social workers decide. Quite often the venues chosen are inaccessible. I have worked on cases where contact is organised to take place in a remote social work office well away from public transport routes. I’ve witnessed parents turning up fifteen minutes late to be told by a family aid, that contact has now been suspended because they have not shown ‘proper commitment’. Rarely is contact supervised by qualified social work professionals. The work of contact is seen as a secondary issue and more of an inconvenience for the professionals than the very important piece of work that should be used to help the family as a whole and underpin the child’s future knowledge of its family.
David and his wife Kim have twin sons. The boys were removed from the parents at four months for unexplained injuries. No contact was arranged and the parents instructed lawyers to fight the local authority for contact. Eventually it was agreed that Dad could have 3 hrs of contact once a month supervised by the social services and, as the children were placed with Mum’s parents awaiting the court outcome as to where the children could be safely placed, she could have weekly contact supervised by her parents.
For ten months Dad’s 3 hours of contact was supervised by eight different, unqualified, family support workers in a 12x12 social work office store room with few toys and poor changing facilities.
I’d like to say that this story is not the norm, but in my experience it certainly is.
CONTACT FACILITIES
There are many reasons why parents and their children are living apart. It could be because there are family proceedings in the courts and the children are taken in to the care system whilst the decisions about their future with the birth parents is decided. During these difficult times parents are expected to attend for contact with their children as, where and when, the social workers decide. Quite often the venues chosen are inaccessible. I have worked on cases where contact is organised to take place in a remote social work office well away from public transport routes. I’ve witnessed parents turning up fifteen minutes late to be told by a family aid, that contact has now been suspended because they have not shown ‘proper commitment’. Rarely is contact supervised by qualified social work professionals. The work of contact is seen as a secondary issue and more of an inconvenience for the professionals than the very important piece of work that should be used to help the family as a whole and underpin the child’s future knowledge of its family.
David and his wife Kim have twin sons. The boys were removed from the parents at four months for unexplained injuries. No contact was arranged and the parents instructed lawyers to fight the local authority for contact. Eventually it was agreed that Dad could have 3 hrs of contact once a month supervised by the social services and, as the children were placed with Mum’s parents awaiting the court outcome as to where the children could be safely placed, she could have weekly contact supervised by her parents.
For ten months Dad’s 3 hours of contact was supervised by eight different, unqualified, family support workers in a 12x12 social work office store room with few toys and poor changing facilities.
I’d like to say that this story is not the norm, but in my experience it certainly is.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Divorce Harms Children?
According to a recent survey carried out by Hyun Sik Kim a leading researcher at the University of Wisconsin, children are ‘permanently’ damaged by divorce. Kim says “Children of divorce experience setbacks in maths test scores and show problems with internalising behaviour. They are more prone to feelings of anxiety, loneliness, low self esteem and sadness”.
I don’t have a problem with this in general terms but I have to say that couples that stay together when it is clear that they are not compatible life partners I’m sure have an even greater part to play in their children’s emotional damage. Families living with domestic violence cause far more difficulties for children. A child subjected to years of hearing and sometimes seeing their parents being verbally and physically abusive to each other is internalised by children even if they are not in the same room. The fact that they can hear the arguing is enough to cause irreparable damage.
Divorcing and separating parents who put their children’s needs before their own can help their children to come to terms with the family break-up without any emotional damage. In fact, done properly the divorce may well help their children to achieve better results at school simply by removing the uncertainty about the family’s future.
Starting a divorce is a journey. Properly planning that journey is the most important part. Throughout there will be cross-roads, hazardous bends and steep hills. At each junction there will be decisions to make. The straight route will be the one with the least amount of stress and difficulty. Many divorcing couples use the children as pawns, using them against the spouse or partner. Statements like ‘if you do what I say you can see the children’, is firstly, not recognising the child’s right to have contact with their family members, and secondly, damaging the child’s development by putting them under unacceptable emotional pressure.
Remember that when you divorce you are not divorcing your children. A statement made to me by a distraught child was exactly that “I want to see my Dad but Mum says we’re divorced now”, tears streaming down her 7 year old face.
Being honest both with yourselves and your children is the best way to stay true to your course.
Ten tips for a positive divorce:
1. Have respect for the other person.
2. Go into each discussion with a real wish to make a positive advance.
3. Remember that when all the hurt has gone you have to live with your decisions. Making good, caring decisions is the best way to settle your conscience.
4. Difficult though it is, make every effort to maintain a civil relationship, this is especially necessary if you have children.
5. If the going gets tough, do not argue or discuss difficult issues in front of, or in the hearing of your children. Better to have these discussions away from the family home in a neutral venue.
6. Ensure that the children are kept informed of what is happening, but do not put them under pressure or use them as a sounding board.
7. Do not burden the children with the adult hurt.
8. Focus on what has worked not what hasn’t.
9. Look after yourself.
10. Be the best ex-partner and parent you can.
I don’t have a problem with this in general terms but I have to say that couples that stay together when it is clear that they are not compatible life partners I’m sure have an even greater part to play in their children’s emotional damage. Families living with domestic violence cause far more difficulties for children. A child subjected to years of hearing and sometimes seeing their parents being verbally and physically abusive to each other is internalised by children even if they are not in the same room. The fact that they can hear the arguing is enough to cause irreparable damage.
Divorcing and separating parents who put their children’s needs before their own can help their children to come to terms with the family break-up without any emotional damage. In fact, done properly the divorce may well help their children to achieve better results at school simply by removing the uncertainty about the family’s future.
Starting a divorce is a journey. Properly planning that journey is the most important part. Throughout there will be cross-roads, hazardous bends and steep hills. At each junction there will be decisions to make. The straight route will be the one with the least amount of stress and difficulty. Many divorcing couples use the children as pawns, using them against the spouse or partner. Statements like ‘if you do what I say you can see the children’, is firstly, not recognising the child’s right to have contact with their family members, and secondly, damaging the child’s development by putting them under unacceptable emotional pressure.
Remember that when you divorce you are not divorcing your children. A statement made to me by a distraught child was exactly that “I want to see my Dad but Mum says we’re divorced now”, tears streaming down her 7 year old face.
Being honest both with yourselves and your children is the best way to stay true to your course.
Ten tips for a positive divorce:
1. Have respect for the other person.
2. Go into each discussion with a real wish to make a positive advance.
3. Remember that when all the hurt has gone you have to live with your decisions. Making good, caring decisions is the best way to settle your conscience.
4. Difficult though it is, make every effort to maintain a civil relationship, this is especially necessary if you have children.
5. If the going gets tough, do not argue or discuss difficult issues in front of, or in the hearing of your children. Better to have these discussions away from the family home in a neutral venue.
6. Ensure that the children are kept informed of what is happening, but do not put them under pressure or use them as a sounding board.
7. Do not burden the children with the adult hurt.
8. Focus on what has worked not what hasn’t.
9. Look after yourself.
10. Be the best ex-partner and parent you can.
Monday, 30 May 2011
Birth Parents Need Help.
Written by
Kenn Griffiths.
The very fact that a child has been adopted suggests that the birth parents were ‘bad people’ un-loving, not caring. Not so!
Over the years I’ve been involved in hundreds of adoptions. I was once a local authority adoption officer and I have an adopted daughter. In the vast majority of cases the birth parents I met and worked with absolutely wanted their child and had just as much love as any other parent. The problem was, usually, that for a host of reasons the birth parents were not capable of ensuring that their child was safe and well. Not because they wanted to harm the child but because their skills were not there. Sometimes this was due to mental health issues and sometimes it was simply due to the parent’s own early learning.
Julie, was in this category. At birth she was taken into care; by the time she was 7 she had been placed with six different sets of foster-parents. None of these were professionally trained and all failed to properly engage her. In one of the foster placements she was subjected to a regime that included her being put into a cold bath when and if she wet the bed. Social workers were well aware of this practice but failed to remove and protect her. She stayed in that placement for 13 months eventually being moved at 5 for her ‘bad behaviour’.
At 7 she was labelled as ‘disruptive’, placed in a children’s home with 11 other children ranging in age from 18 months to 15 years all with complex needs. She was then subjected to years of disruption, children coming, children going, not to mention the 16 changes of her social workers and 58 different members of care staff.
At 15 she was sexually assaulted by one of her residential care-workers, removed from the home she’d been in for 8 years and placed in an ‘out-of-county’ children’s home more than one hundred miles away from her home town.
At 16 she was forced to leave her care home and found herself living on her own in a run down area in a one room bed-sit. A social worker visited her once a month, but often didn’t bother. Here she met Keith. They had two children before they married at 20 and a third was born before they were 21. Julie had post-natal-depression. Without any extended family help or any idea of how families work, Keith and Julie lived in a volatile, physically abusive and brutal relationship, subjecting their children to continuous episodes of domestic violence often ending in one of their parents leaving the family home sometimes for weeks at a time.
Eventually social workers removed the children and placed them for adoption. It was accepted at the freeing for adoption hearing that both parents loved their children but did not have the skills to properly care for them.
Neither parent has seen the children since. Keith is now in another more stable relationship with no children. Julie at 26 had too much to drink one night, slept with a guy she can’t remember and is homeless and 7 months pregnant. She is adamant that she will hide from the authorities and keep her baby.
I wish I could say that this is an unusual set of circumstances but it’s not. This is happening everywhere.
In part it happened to my daughter and we insisted that she should have regular contact to her mother and birth family including her 5 siblings (we couldn’t track dad down).
It’s easy to dismiss birth parents but they too need help to come to terms with the adoption of their children.
Copyright 2011 Kenn Griffiths, All Rights Reserved.
Kenn Griffiths.
The very fact that a child has been adopted suggests that the birth parents were ‘bad people’ un-loving, not caring. Not so!
Over the years I’ve been involved in hundreds of adoptions. I was once a local authority adoption officer and I have an adopted daughter. In the vast majority of cases the birth parents I met and worked with absolutely wanted their child and had just as much love as any other parent. The problem was, usually, that for a host of reasons the birth parents were not capable of ensuring that their child was safe and well. Not because they wanted to harm the child but because their skills were not there. Sometimes this was due to mental health issues and sometimes it was simply due to the parent’s own early learning.
Julie, was in this category. At birth she was taken into care; by the time she was 7 she had been placed with six different sets of foster-parents. None of these were professionally trained and all failed to properly engage her. In one of the foster placements she was subjected to a regime that included her being put into a cold bath when and if she wet the bed. Social workers were well aware of this practice but failed to remove and protect her. She stayed in that placement for 13 months eventually being moved at 5 for her ‘bad behaviour’.
At 7 she was labelled as ‘disruptive’, placed in a children’s home with 11 other children ranging in age from 18 months to 15 years all with complex needs. She was then subjected to years of disruption, children coming, children going, not to mention the 16 changes of her social workers and 58 different members of care staff.
At 15 she was sexually assaulted by one of her residential care-workers, removed from the home she’d been in for 8 years and placed in an ‘out-of-county’ children’s home more than one hundred miles away from her home town.
At 16 she was forced to leave her care home and found herself living on her own in a run down area in a one room bed-sit. A social worker visited her once a month, but often didn’t bother. Here she met Keith. They had two children before they married at 20 and a third was born before they were 21. Julie had post-natal-depression. Without any extended family help or any idea of how families work, Keith and Julie lived in a volatile, physically abusive and brutal relationship, subjecting their children to continuous episodes of domestic violence often ending in one of their parents leaving the family home sometimes for weeks at a time.
Eventually social workers removed the children and placed them for adoption. It was accepted at the freeing for adoption hearing that both parents loved their children but did not have the skills to properly care for them.
Neither parent has seen the children since. Keith is now in another more stable relationship with no children. Julie at 26 had too much to drink one night, slept with a guy she can’t remember and is homeless and 7 months pregnant. She is adamant that she will hide from the authorities and keep her baby.
I wish I could say that this is an unusual set of circumstances but it’s not. This is happening everywhere.
In part it happened to my daughter and we insisted that she should have regular contact to her mother and birth family including her 5 siblings (we couldn’t track dad down).
It’s easy to dismiss birth parents but they too need help to come to terms with the adoption of their children.
Copyright 2011 Kenn Griffiths, All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Adoption
We adopted our daughter in the UK when she was 7 prior to the adoption videos were made by us (we were also her former social workers) when she was with her mother and birth family. We also spent a lot of time building a life story book. Post adoption we encouraged her to have contact/visitation to her birth Mum 3 times a year. At 9 her mother was found dead. Our daugter who has learning difficulties and is now 21 has relied on the videos and story book to help her make sense of her background. My website http://www.mychildcontact.com has been designed with our experience of the needs of children to know their birth parents. It's really important.
Kenn Griffiths is an adoptive parent, social worker, founder of mychildcontact.com and a writer and is available for interview and comment.
Kenn Griffiths is an adoptive parent, social worker, founder of mychildcontact.com and a writer and is available for interview and comment.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
CHILD CONTACT WEBSITE MENTIONED IN PARLIAMENT
CHILD CONTACT WEBSITE MENTIONED IN PARLIAMENT
Staffordshire based international social website mychildcontact.com’s CEO Kenn Griffiths’ advice was sought by MP Charlie Elphicke to help his Bill to improve services for children missing out on contact with their children. The MP for Dover told the House about Kenn’s work and used case studies from the site’s forum.
Kenn believes that if you can get the best of experts and best practice in one place then many children would still be having quality contact to an absent parent.
Mychildcontact.com is Kenn’s answer to poor services and practice. The site is a one-stop-shop offering advice and experts including independent social workers who are not restricted by Local Government Financial restrictions.
Launched in January the site has had more than 140 million page impressions from Facebook Ads alone.
Kenn is available for interview.
Call 07831 612688 Or mail kenn@mychildcontact.com
View More on our site http://www.mychildcontact.com
Staffordshire based international social website mychildcontact.com’s CEO Kenn Griffiths’ advice was sought by MP Charlie Elphicke to help his Bill to improve services for children missing out on contact with their children. The MP for Dover told the House about Kenn’s work and used case studies from the site’s forum.
Kenn believes that if you can get the best of experts and best practice in one place then many children would still be having quality contact to an absent parent.
Mychildcontact.com is Kenn’s answer to poor services and practice. The site is a one-stop-shop offering advice and experts including independent social workers who are not restricted by Local Government Financial restrictions.
Launched in January the site has had more than 140 million page impressions from Facebook Ads alone.
Kenn is available for interview.
Call 07831 612688 Or mail kenn@mychildcontact.com
View More on our site http://www.mychildcontact.com
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