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What about those dinners with no other adults? Try to invite friends or neighbors over for dinner once or twice a week. Take your children out to restaurants so that you can be surrounded by people, or just enjoy catching up with your kids' daily activities. Don't park them in front of the TV while they're eating. Have your meals together. That will give all of you a stronger sense of family. |
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Studies have shown that children do best with firm discipline combined with a lot of communication and affection. You may be tempted to overindulge your children to make up for the pain they are going through because of your divorce. This approach has been shown to have the worst outcome for children. Even a very strict, authoritarian approach (no hitting, please!) seems to help children and teenagers more than a permissive style. At this unsettled time, children need boundaries and limits combined with lots of patience and understanding. |
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Taking care of your own needs is one of the most important things you can do to support your kids. If you are an unhappy parent, it will have a major impact on your children. They look to you for strength and support. It's frightening to children of any age to see a parent lost to depression and thus removed from them emotionally; for many, the situation provokes anxious feelings of losing that parent as well, something especially painful at the time of divorce. To help them, help yourself: |
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Get enough rest and exercise, and eat healthy. |
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Put yourself in places where you can meet new people. |
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Get busy with renovating your new lifestart with renovating your house or apartment! |
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Take an adult education class. |
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If necessary, go into psychotherapy for a while. |
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As the custodial parent, you have a lot on your plate. As long as your ex-spouse is in the picture, though, you are not entirely alone in the raising of your children. |
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