When Co-Parenting During the Holidays, Better to Be Nice, Not Naughty
By Charles Drouin
Mar 6, 2012
It's that time of year when your stress level and emotions are at an all-time high. You keep making those lists and checking them twice, but the lists only seem to be getting longer. There is shopping to do, holiday parties to attend, greeting cards to send out, and that last-minute project at work to complete before the end of the year. On top of all that, your ex or soon-to-be ex-spouse is giving you grief over your children's holiday residential schedule.
For divorced and separated parents, the holiday season can be the busiest and the most contentious time of the year. For some, this is the first time a parent will spend a particular holiday without his or her children. Coping with the stress and emotional toll of separation or divorce during the holidays alone is difficult, but when accompanied by high-conflict parenting disputes, you may feel like the Grinch really did steal your Christmas. As a Seattle divorce attorney who helps clients navigate
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Be flexible. In order to effectively co-parent during the holidays, being flexible and cooperative is essential. While it is important to follow the parenting plan, especially if the parties are more prone to parenting disputes, there is no reason to be militant in enforcing the provisions of your parenting plan. The holidays will be more fun and memorable for your kids and less stressful for you when you are relaxed and can work together respectfully with minimal conflict. Also, it is important to remember that a holiday does not necessarily have to be celebrated on an actual holiday and that you can celebrate whenever the children are in your care. So long as the children can spend the time with you, it will not matter to them what day the holiday falls on. Also remember that your flexibility will likely be returned in kind and that the next time, it may be YOU asking for a small favor from the other
Hope Edelman, an author and newspaper writer, formulates in “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was.”, that when it comes to marriage it is not perfect, unlike the way that she had imagined. At the beginning of her essay, Edelman implicitly mentions her frustrations with the amount of time her husband was working, however, later on she explicitly becomes upset about her husband always working. Edelman mentions throughout her essay that before marriage, she believed co-parenting was an attainable goal. She talks about how she feels like her husband keeps working more and she has to pick up the slack at home. This imbalance causes Edelman to become angry and frustrated with her husband, she feels the no matter how hard they try, the 50/50 split does not happen. Throughout the article, Edelman
It is a rare occurrence indeed to stumble upon a nonfiction article as raw and true as “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was.” by Hope Edelman. The author of three nonfiction books, who has had her work published in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Seventeen magazine, writes about her expectations regarding an egalitarian marriage with equal parenting responsibilities, and compares them to the reality that comes from living in a household where both parents work full-time and cannot drop all of their responsibilities to care for a toddler. Edelman’s narrative is a flippant view on modern views of feminist relationships, from both the side of the feminist and the side of a woman whose marriage did not reflect those ideals. While she argues everyday gender roles, she may reach a deeper topic than just the sexes assigned roles of being either a nurturer or a provider, but never both. She mentions late in the article that the two
While everyone knows divorce is tough on kids, researcher and writer, Elizabeth Marquardt, says even when the split is amicable, kids still suffer. For her controversial new book, “Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce,” Marquardt spent three years interviewing 1,500 young adults-half from divorced families-who described the painful emotional, moral, and spiritual dilemmas they faced. Marquardt talks with NEWSWEEK’s Peg Tyre about the pain children of divorce may be harboring and what parents can do about it.
Divorce connects with the family stress theory where as stress plays a major role in the separation between the spouses and the relationships between the children. Individuals who go through a divorce can be very stressed out because it is known that divorce is one of the most stressful situations a family can go through where they have to worry and stress over a lot of stuff (Smith, 2009). When going through divorce families lose their spouses, parents, and confidante within their selves, as they are often the primary caregivers of their children. When going through the process of a divorce the family goes through a time where they have severe and mixed emotions which are made more difficult by the stresses and worries of legal and financial problems and also custody battles (Smith, 2009). Divorce has a major negative effect on the parents as well as they have to support and counsel their children who may be involved in the process and are suffering too. Families who are going through a divorce or a parental divorce if it is the spouses or the children are going to experience series of emotional stages due to the post-breakdown (Smith, 2009). Stress from divorce can lead from anger and depression to fear and frustration. Also, families who are coping and managing all the tasks associated with divorce can also lead to anxiety, panic, and depression. The spouses who are straightly involved in the divorce experience different ranges of emotions as they being adults direct the daily tasks and responsibilities of living under the circumstances of a divorce (Smith, 2009). Due to the divorce the required rearrangement of the family especially if children are involved will affect every aspect of the daily...
Within his book Helping Children Survive Divorce: What to Expect, How to Help, Archibald Hart (1996) offers parents and caregivers practical suggestions for preventing psychological and social damage that children often encounter as a result of parental divorce. While his credentials as a noted author, speaker, and family therapist draw people to reading this book, Hart’s personal experience as a child of divorce provides his greatest authority in offering useful information on this topic. Hart’s premise is that parents need to realize that children are unwilling and voiceless participants in the breaking up of their families; therefore, fathers and mothers must prioritize finding ways to cushion children as much as humanly possible from
Gordon, D. A., & Arbuthnot, J. (2005). Children in the middle: working with divorcing parents. (6. ed.). Athens, Ohio: Center for Divorce Education.
Divorce causes an enormous amount of stress in the lives of many; according to the American Psychological Association, in America, about 40 to 50 percent of married couples divorce. For most parents, missing their kids on weekends, holidays, and vacations can be very stressful; the parents are often stressing about what the other parent is telling the child and who the other parent has around the child. In a divorce, most likely, there will be some increased financial stress for one spouse or both. Possibly the house, the cars, the accounts, and maybe the dogs could be divided within both parties; it may work out good for someone, but both individuals will inherit some unmerited stress. Knowing, as a parent, children are likely to suffer due to the removal from a natural environment causes pain to a loving parent; most important, the stress it causes to a kid can be unbearable. The decision to cancel a marriage can be very chaotic and traumatic to all parties
Divorce is and has become a major issue in our society, the reason for that has been attributed to the drastic increase in divorce rates over the years. The most commonly reported major contributors to divorce were lack of commitment, infidelity, and conflict/arguing. The most common “final straw” reasons were infidelity, domestic violence, and substance use (Scott, Rhoades, Stanley, Allen, & Markman, 2013). Divorce often disrupts the flow of the family structure, increases discord, and affects how family issues are handled. Families dealing with divorce are often times in a state of complete confusion and disorder, and filled with frustration, anger, and pain. Power struggles between spouses, which often times spread to the children if there
Moon, Michelle. 2011. “The Effects of Divorce on Children: Married and Divorced Parents’ Perspectives.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 52:344-349.
The breakdown of a family can have many repercussions on the individual members with the least involvement. The children involved in a divorce are often times the most impacted victims of a divorce. Children with divorced parents are often left feeling neglected by the parent that has chosen to move out, unloved, and often times burdened with feelings of guilt. The poverty rates of single parented households are alarmingly high, and are often the result of divorce. With all these factors added together, divorce is a dangerous and scarring event in a child’s psyche.
Children will be suffered conflict with the interaction with their parents and siblings, and other aspects in their family life by cause of the divorce (Berk, 2010). Some parents who decide to get divorced that they were waiting the time on arguments and fights. Also, these parents use their children to punishment to one to each other. For this situation, children have a lot of conflicts on their emotions, and they have issues in their security. For instance, the custody’s fights are the biggest battle during the separation, and parents develop a lot of stress during this process. In the majority of the cases, mothers have the custody of their children, and they have to raise as a single mother. Also, the children tend to develop a lot of fears and about what they want to do. The divorce brings several negatives on children, and children live with a lot of stress during the divorce process. As well as, each child is different, and they
A single parent household is a house with only one parent and one or multiple children. Single parent households are becoming very common in all racial and ethnic groups because it is no longer required for people to be married before they have children. Most households only have one parent because of divorce, never being married, separated, widowed, or because of business. The most common are, separation, divorce and just simply never being married. In these cases it is usually the mother who is the single parent. It is not too often that you see a father taking care of their child by themselves. This is usually because they do not know how, or they simply do not want to take care of their child. Statistics show that family structure has a big impact on certain characteristics of a child such as their attitude and level of respect. Children tend to be less respectful to people because they do not respect the parent who is not around. In many cases a child may become depressed living with only one parent causing them to get out of control and do things that they shouldn’t. Sometimes the child may feel like they are incomplete leaving them to do crazy things to find what they feel like they are missing. often times the child feels that they are the reason their parents are not together.
Divorce can be difficult for children and adults alike. One of the challenges for single moms and dads is avoiding projecting their negative feelings toward the other parent onto their children. This can be especially hard just after a divorce, when many of the negative emotions are still raw. While it is not always easy, there are several things you can do as a single parent to avoid creating a negative environment for your children.
In the world we live in today, divorce has unfortunately become a normal thing in our lives. Many married couples are getting divorced for many reasons; problems in the marriage, either a spouse having an affair, a loss of feelings, and many other types of complications. Many divorces involve children who are young and due to their age do not understand what is really going on. We all know someone who has dealt with divorce. Children are the ones who are typically affected the most by the divorce and they will have to learn to cope with their parent’s divorce at such a young age, affecting them in positive or negative ways.
Our imperative family tradition was a summer vacation. Completely neglecting any responsibilities for a week, vacations were the perfect excuse. Fostering an environment for bonding, our annual vacations helped in creating lifelong memories. According to a Disney Time Survey conducted by Kelton, 82% of time on vacation is considered family time. This finding is evident, especially in one of my recent vacations. The months preceding and following this specific family trip, were filled with various milestones which prohibited much bonding: my mother’s diagnosis of Lung Cancer, my older sister’s wedding day, and my senior year preparation. If it wasn’t for our last hurrah, we may not have been able to successfully sit the needed amount of time