by Kelly Tobey

What can we do to make divorce less devastating for children?
In an ideal world, all children are fully loved and supported by their birth parents who, in turn, love and support each other. Back on planet Earth, this ideal seems to be in short supply. Even though a parental breakup is clearly not ideal for the children involved, in some circumstances it is far less ideal for the children if those parents stay together.
What can be done to support children with separated parents? Simply, the parents can do the necessary work to learn to love and accept each other, even though they no longer live together. This doesn’t however mean having to agree with or condone each other’s behaviours.
Parents who love and accept each other, yet have separated, have a more supportive impact on a child than parents who stay together just for the sake of the children. True acceptance differs from just a tolerance of each other. It is healthy for a child to know that two people can have differences and not live together yet still have the capacity to love each other.
Unfortunately, by the time many parents separate, their love has been obscured by a build-up of dislikes, resentments, insurmountable problems, and in some cases, a growing hatred. When children witness this, they will often start to question their own ability to love. For example, children who love a father and mother who have forgotten how to love each other may question unconsciously, “If Dad doesn’t love Mom, maybe I’m wrong to love her,” or “If Mom doesn’t love Dad, maybe I’m wrong to love him.”
Often children will feel compelled to pick a side in an attempt to settle their confusion. If the parents don’t know better, they may even encourage the children to pick their side.
Unfortunately, when a person suppresses his innate calling to be loving with another, he injures his ability to be deeply intimate with everyone else in his life. If children start to believe that people have to stop loving each other when they have differences, then they will automatically start to close their hearts to everyone with whom they have differences, even those that are close to them.
What a difference it would make if parents and children could learn to develop openhearted boundaries. That way, they could learn to say no to the differences that are not appropriate for them, but still keep their hearts open.
Often because parents never learned how to set appropriate boundaries in the first place, their breakups have harmful repercussions. Many people who think they have to stop loving in order to say no also think that if they do love someone they must always say yes to them. With these behaviour patterns in place, a person cannot refuse any request that comes from a loved one unless they first close their hearts and block the flow of love. If they haven’t learned openhearted boundary setting, they will tend to say yes from a place of inappropriate sacrifice to any loved one who asks for something rather than experience the pain of closing their hearts.
For example, a beloved relative might call and ask the person over for a holiday dinner, and, even if they don’t really want to go, they will feel bound to say yes anyway.
Continually making these kinds of sacrifices eventually causes a build-up of resentment. If people never learn to set appropriate, loving boundaries, eventually they will close their hearts to the other person. Sadly, it’s the only way they know how to give themselves permission to say no and be protected from self-sacrifice.
Because of this dynamic many parents resist loving their ex-partners. They are unconsciously afraid that, if they were to love their exes, they would not be able to say no to getting back together no matter how inappropriate it might be. They will unconsciously use anything, from numbness to hatred to self-protection and maintain their distance.
This can have fearsome consequences for children who tend to pick up traits from their parents. If the parents aren’t tolerant and loving of each other, even in spite of certain traits, how long will it be before they recognize those traits in their children and shut off their love the way they did with their ex-partners? Children unconsciously sense this possibility, and it can make them feel very insecure.
So what can parents do? They can learn how to make appropriate, openhearted, loving boundaries, so it feels safe to love without inappropriate sacrifice. When children see that their parents can love each other despite their differences, they don’t have to live in fear of the day a parent will stop loving them simply because they resemble the other parent.
Whether a breakup has happened recently or long ago, parents who commit to opening their hearts will serve their children as well as themselves.

Kelly Tobey is a transformational facilitator from Calgary, Alberta. His Vancouver weekend workshop is October 15-17. Contact Jinny Jiwa at 604 277-9679 or Kelly Tobey at 403 217-5533
mail@kellytobey.com www.kellytobey.com. See display ad for details.