Getting a divorce with kids. This is what parents need to know.
Hi! I'm Dr. Paul Jenkins a professional psychologist part of my career was spent
doing child custody evaluations for the court. I want to share with you five factors that determine
the outcome of divorce for children and then, I'll give you three practical considerations that you
can use immediately. Earlier in my career when I was actively doing child custody evaluations.
Think about this, for a minute. These are bitter angry divorcing parents who cannot figure out how
to share their kids, and the court would send me into that situation to do an evaluation. I
did psychological testing. I did home visits. I did interaction observations with those children
and their parents. My task figure out what is in the best interest of those children, given the
fact that these two parents are divorcing. This is some of the hardest work I ever did. Honestly,
it was yuck work. Some of the most emotionally taxing work. what is more important to you than
your kids and can you imagine being in a position? I know some of you can. Where that is contested or
that there's a risk somehow that you might miss out on some of the important developmental steps
that your kids are going through, huge. Here's what I learned from that. There are five primary
factors that determine the outcome of divorce for children. Now, we could talk about parents all day
long too. But the children are affected by this. In fact, a lot of people postpone or put off or
even dismiss the idea of a divorce because of how it could impact their children. Everybody
has to make their decisions based on their own information. But when a divorce happens,
we've found that these five factors determine the outcome for the kids. These five factors actually,
I first read about in a book called Divorce Wars by Elizabeth Ellis and it's a fairly academic
book, this isn't necessarily the kind you want to just go charge off to the bookstore and find.
But there's a lot of research there that helped people like myself to understand the dynamics
better. She listed these five factors. I have found them in my practice and I think it plays
out in all of the research that's been done in this area, that these are the most important
factors. Number one, conflict. Specifically, conflict between the parents about the kids,
and that's exactly what I was up against when I was doing those child custody evaluations. This
affects children. Whatever you can do to minimize that conflict or to avoid it altogether is a good
idea when it comes to the kids. We can't avoid the conflict altogether, okay. If there's going
to be a divorce, there's going to be different opinions about what should happen with the kids
and how that can all work. The court is a terrible place to solve family problems. It's much better
and much preferred in my opinion, that the parents work out some arrangement for the kids instead of
deferring all of that decision-making power to the courts, and surprisingly you probably have
more rights to do that on your own than you may imagine. What if you were to hire a mediator or
get a coach or someone who can help you to make good solid decisions for your family instead of
taking it to a battle with the corps? We can't always avoid that. But conflict is the number
one factor that determines the outcome of divorce for kids. Second is the relationship that those
children have with each of their parents. One of the common factors that I found with children
is something that we refer to in the industry as reconciliation fantasies and this is when kids get
it in their head that somehow maybe someday Mom and Dad will get back together. These fantasies
can even persist after Mom and Dad have both moved on and got into a different relationship,
and sometimes they hang on clear until the children are adults themselves. I think this
goes back to an innate need that children have to feel loved. Now, this can happen in
the context of a divorce. But in that case, it has to be the individual relationship that each
child has with each parent, and it has to stand on its own two feet. There's all kinds of things
that disrupt that relationship. I just want to share it with you as the number two factor that
determines the outcome of divorce for children. The quality of their relationship with each of
their parents following the divorce. Here's number three, I'm labeling this one emotional
stability and especially, emotional stability of the primary caretaker. The primary caretaker
is each parent when that child is in that parent's world,
and it extends to other people who come in like step-parents and other people who provide primary
care to these children. The emotional well-being of you as a parent makes a huge difference to your
kids, and usually, divorce creates some huge stresses for the parents. That means you have
to find ways to take care of yourself, okay. This is so important, I'm reminded of it every time I
get on an airplane. You know, they go through the safety routine and they tell you about the oxygen
masks, and how you're supposed to put your own mask on first and they tell us that because our
natural inclination is to take care of that child that's with that person that needs our assistance,
right? But if you're out cold in the aisle you're just in the way. You got to put your
own mask on first so that you have the ability now to step up and do what's needed for your
child. That's why this factor is so important your emotional and mental health is key here,
and we want to make sure that you provide the best outcomes for your kids by taking care of yourself.
You got it? That brings us to number four and five, which have to do more with the
physical environment and surroundings of the children. Number four is economic hardship
because the way I do my math and maybe the way you do yours it's more expensive to run two households
than it is to run one, generally speaking. This means that a lot of times the parents are under
some kind of financial stress that creates more emotional stress we already talked about that. The
economic restrictions that the children may face. Sometimes they have to drop out of extracurricular
activities. Sometimes they don't get the thing that they wanted, and that's not necessarily a bad
thing for kids. But I'm just saying that there's an economic impact and that comes in at number
four on our list of the factors that determine the outcome of divorce for children, and right
on its tails is disruptions. Meaning disruptions to their lifestyle or their location or where they
live. Sometimes there's an additional divorce that happens if someone remarries quickly and
then goes through another divorce. The anything that represents another change another disruption
to that child or their lifestyle or well-being that's number five. So, I've covered the five
factors that determine the outcome of divorce for children. Conflict, relationship, emotional
stability, economic hardship, and disruptions. Those are the five. If you want a quick copy of
those five factors just go to the URL that's on the screen drpauljenkins.com/5factors,
go grab it. I'll put it in your inbox and I've listed all five of those along with some of the
sub-points that you might want to consider as you look at what's going to affect your children. Now,
let's get to those considerations. Consider this, your kid's issues are different from your issues.
That sounds so obvious when I say it like that. But I've dealt with so many parents over the years
who think that because it's something they're concerned with it's also something that their
children are concerned with. The biggest example is a concern that a parent will have for or about
the other parent that contributed to the divorce. Generally speaking, children do not have those
same concerns about the other parent, It would be an error or a mistake to assume that they do. I've
also interviewed hundreds of kids who are in this situation and usually when I talk to them about
so tell me what's going on in your family and they will list something that the parents had
no attachment to it all. Something like well, I don't get to be with my dog as much as I used to,
and maybe that didn't even hit the rate radar for the parents. But that's what the kids are
concerned about or what am I going to do about having slippers that I can put on at night because
they're at my mom's house. But if I sleep at my dad's house what am I going to put on my feet
if I get up to go to the bathroom. Parents weren't even thinking about that. Look, parents issues are
not kids' issues, and this has to do with tuning in a little bit. Having some openness and empathy,
first of all, don't project all of your issues onto your kids. But also, try to be sensitive
enough that you can discern and see what their issues are even if they're totally different from
your own. Here's another thing I'd love for you to consider. Kids are resilient by their very nature,
they are designed to deal with and roll with, and cope with whatever life throws at them,
and my experience tells me that kids might even be better at this than the adults are.
Because it's all they know, they don't have the same history and background and experience
that you do. So, whatever shows up for them in their life seems pretty normal to them. That's
a little mind-blowing for parents to consider. But we've even seen this during the pandemic,
where kids have been accustomed to wearing a mask for example. When I was a kid, we never wore a
mask and so as an adult, I'm looking at wearing a mask and I'm thinking oh, that's really weird,
right? But kids who grew up with it during the pandemic is pretty normal to them. In fact,
we know a lot of kids who are having a hard time adjusting out of the masks as we move through the
pandemic. So, that's just an example of how it's going to be different for them and they
tend to roll with it it's just normal. One final consideration before I turn You loose today and
that is that your health, your mental health, your well-being matters a lot. I know it's your natural
tendency like I said earlier to just really focus on these kids and make sure everything's okay
for them. One of the best things you can do for them is to take good care of you. The best gift
you can give these kids is a fully functioning loving connected present parent. Whether that's
in one household or multiple households, let's work on providing them with the main resource
that they're going to need moving forward. It's okay for you to take time for you. It's okay for
you to do things intentionally that improve your mental health, your happiness, your well-being,
even if you have to put the kids on pause for a minute or get someone to step in and provide some
respite care or babysitting. You do what you need to take care of you because you are the greatest
gift that you can ever give your children. Remember, I promise to send you those five
factors just go to drpauljenkins.com/5factors. I'll put it right in your inbox and you will be
well informed so that you can make good decisions moving forward. I'll catch you on another episode.