Helping Children

Abstract

After divorce, being a parent will never be the same again. Even as you read this, you cannot possibly anticipate what it means. The “take it for granteds” of parenthood dissolve in divorce. You might miss the morning routine, the homework, the bedtime story, the weekends, the summertime, Christmas morning, or the stolen moments that come from just being together. You get fragments that you try to make whole. You may spend weekends with someone else’s children while your heart aches for your own. You may eventually live with another’s children and not your own. The other parent will be tucking your children in at night, hearing about their day at school, or taking them on a fancy vacation. You may come home to an empty house and miss them terribly. There is not enough of them to go around. Both parents miss out. There is a reason for everyone to be anxious. A precious commodity has suddenly become scarce.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

Oscar Wilde