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 HOW CHILDREN MAY COPE |
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Jennifer
wishes she were half as lucky with her eight-year-old son, Sammy. She and
her ex-husband's divorce proceedings mirror those of Linda and Steve, yet
Sammy's reaction to the divorce is almost the exact opposite of Shannon's.
"I can't seem to reach Sammy," says Jennifer. "His grades are slipping in
school, he lashes out at both me and his father over the smallest things,
and he often refuses to do his chores. The hardest part for me is watching
my bright, happy-go-lucky son transform into a moody, angry little boy."
Most people reading this would agree that Sammy -- and probably
his parents -- need some counseling to help him adjust to his parents'
divorce. Many would also agree that Shannon is every divorcing parent's
dream: a child who seems to accept his or her parents' divorce with little
or no fuss. However, while Sammy might seem as if he's headed to detention
hall for life, Shannon may be the one who's more in need of counselling.
Michael Cochrane, an author and lawyer specializing in family law,
sums up the three basic categories children fall into when coping with
divorce: "There are two extremes of behavior that divorcing parents often
see: the super-good children, who believe that if they're on their best
behavior, their parents will patch things up; and the complete opposite,
where children use negative behavior to draw attention to themselves. The
worse they act, they reason, the more likely their parents will become
united in a common cause to handle the problem."
The third
category, Cochrane points out, is the one most parents overlook because
they want to believe that their kids are coping just fine with the
divorce. "Shannon is a good example of the kind of child who doesn't ask a
lot of questions, get upset, or act up during and immediately after the
divorce," says Cochrane. "However, children like Shannon are probably in
shock or denial: they don't know what to say, so they don't say anything.
These kids have a longer, slower-burning fuse than kids who act up, and
eventually -- whether it's a year or five years -- their fuse will blow."
1 - Emotional injuries
2 - How children may cope
3 - Warning signs
4 - When to seek help
5 - Consider getting help if...
6 - Coping varies from child to child
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