When I was going through my divorce, I didn’t know what to say to my kids. I was doing my best to protect them so I didn’t share much with them about the divorce. I assumed they would open up to me if they needed to talk. Knowing what I do now, I would do things differently. Following are some key points to help kids open up during divorce. 

1. Start things off with honest communication.
How you are going to communicate with your children during divorce starts when you tell them about the divorce. It’s important to tell them together - with both parents if possible - without blaming either parent. You don’t have to give too many details, but answer their questions as they come up.

Kids are focused primarily on themselves and mostly care about how the divorce will impact them. They’re typically not thinking about their parents’ feelings too much.

You can give them information like: 

• How their school situation may or may not change.
• Reassure them that they’re going to see both parents. 
• Give some detail about what parts of their life are going to stay the same.

 2. Create situations where your children feel they can open up.

It’s so important to  be available to your kids when they want to talk. You can intentionally create situations where they’re relaxed such as when you’re driving in the car or before they go to bed. Here are some ways to encourage them to open up with you: 

• Ask “How are you feeling?” Open-ended questions help encourage children to talk more
• There are no wrong answers- don’t tell them how or what to feel - respond with understanding and acceptance
• Talk to them while doing a puzzle, legos or coloring together 
• Take a walk or bike ride together

 3. Know what’s normal behavior and when there are signs that you should get help. 

Kids live in the present moment - they’re much better at doing that than adults. When they don’t like what’s happening, they may say hurtful things to their parents. Try not to get caught up in the things they say during a stressful moment. They may seem extremely upset one day, but that doesn’t mean it’s how they’re going to feel the next day or next week. Do your best to let little things go and not to take it personally. As a parent, it’s devastating to know they’re hurting, but kids are very resilient. Their moods will not last forever. 

However, there are times that you should consider reaching out for help. There are some clues to show if your child is simply upset and processing their feelings or if they are having deeper struggles. Here are some examples:

• Your child is withdrawing and losing interest in activities they enjoy. 
• Your normally agreeable child starts arguing and acting up at home or school. 
• Their performance at school is declining. 

 
These behavior changes are signals that your child isn’t coping well with the divorce and may need extra help from a counselor or professional.

The great news is that the most stressful parts of your divorce will not last forever, and that there are clear ways to keep the lines of communication open with you and your children. Many times, parents can have even deeper relationships with their kids after divorce when the strain of the marriage isn’t a part of the parent/child relationship. In the meantime, these strategies can give you a positive direction for how to get your kids to open up.

Divorce is a painful experience that can leave you feeling lost. No matter how many years you’ve been married, your identity has been impacted by being a married person. When you lose this identity, it can send you reeling. Acknowledging all the big and little losses is an important part of healing. Take some time to journal about this loss of identity and talk about it with supportive friends and family, a divorce coach or a therapist. 

The next step towards healing from this loss of identity is clarifying who you are and where you’re going. When you got married, you may have lost your identity as a single person, but didn’t realize it because it happened slowly. When you’re going through divorce, you get the chance to find yourself again and learn how to be happy in an authentic way.

Finding yourself is simply knowing yourself, what matters to you, and what makes you happy.

One painful part of divorce is that it shakes up our lives and we aren’t sure what will be left when the dust settles. But you get to choose who and what you want to keep and what to release and leave behind in your old life. You get to rebuild your self-esteem and confidence by knowing that you’re strong enough (you are!) to come through this even more healthy and whole than you were before. 

One of the positives of divorce is the opportunity to find who you are and develop a future that aligns with that.

Start with remembering what you enjoyed before you were married. Write down answers to the following questions:

• What made you happy? 
• What were your hopes and dreams?
• What did you want to accomplish? 
• What character traits were important to you?​

Take some time to think about these questions. Get to know who you are, what your priorities are and how you can move forward committed to living in a way that is fulfilling to you. This journey of finding out who you are can be exciting. Do you want to take up a new sport or other hobby? Do you want to volunteer and help others? Do you want to change careers? You have the opportunity to learn and grow from your divorce and the power to live in a more authentic way. Grab this chance and just do it!!

When you have children and get divorced, the final agreement must include a parenting plan to clarify what will happen after the divorce regarding the care of the children. A parenting plan outlines the parenting schedule - when each parent will see the children and the logistics of how that will happen. It also covers other relevant issues like how decisions should be made about medical situations, the children’s education and religious affiliation. 

Everything that’s put into the agreement is part of a legal document, the Marital Settlement Agreement or the Separation Agreement, that’s filed with the court. Parents must follow that agreement and can be brought back to court if they don’t.

A child-centered parenting plan is one where you put your children and their wellbeing first. There are many things that get in the way of putting children first like work schedules and significant others. However, when you center the plan around the needs of the children and what’s best for them, it will help create a structure for them to grow into emotionally healthy adults.
Here are some key tips to keep your parenting plan child-centered:

• Don’t base your decisions on how to get back at your ex. Children should not be used as pawns. Even if you’re angry with your ex, you need to put that aside because it’s important for your children’s well-being that they have a strong relationship with both parents.
• Consider your specific children’s needs when making the parenting schedule. Are your children very organized or scattered? Do they need to be with one parent during the week who has more time to help with homework? Do they have a learning disability? All of these things need to be considered when making the parenting schedule.
• Make the parenting plan detailed so that you and your children understand how it all works. Include what will happen when there are holidays, 3 day weekends and vacations and how you’ll communicate about requests for changes.
• Include the right of first refusal. If you need to be away from your children during your parenting time, it’s usually best for them to be with the other parent rather than a babysitter. You can include having the right of first refusal for any minimum amount of time - from a few hours to an overnight. 
• Think about the differences that will occur when children get older. Parenting plans will last until the child turns 18. Many parents think about the current situation and forget to include how the plan works as children grow as they have more after school activities or time with friends. 

It’s helpful to get advice from a divorce coach, therapist or attorney to make sure that  you craft a child-centered parenting plan that will work for you and your children. The work that you put in to making your parenting plan a child-centered plan now is going to pay off in the peace it will bring to your family in the future. 

​The experience of divorce often involves intense feelings of anger. Whether it’s due to an ex’s behavior in the past or the adversarial divorce process, it’s tempting to hold onto that anger. However, letting the anger and pain dictate how you function each day will not help the healing process or get you where you want to go. It’s like trying to ride a bike with flat tires, you’re not going to get anywhere!
 
As good as it feels to point fingers at your ex’s mistakes, focusing on that will only create more animosity and won’t move you forward in your life. Yes, you probably have many reasons to be angry and frustrated at your ex but save those conversations for a therapist or a trusted friend. Don’t talk about it to your children, your attorney or your ex. Talking to your children will negatively impact them – they love their other parent and feel badly when anything negative is said about a parent. Talking to your attorney can cost you a significant amount of money. And talking to your ex about his or her mistakes will just escalate things and slow your progress in the divorce.
 
So how do you handle all the anger and emotions? You need to have a place where you can process what happened. A therapist, a trusted friend or a divorce support group are all great options. I run a Facebook support group – Separation and Divorce Support Community – which is one good option. Once you’ve started to process all the feelings that you’re going through, it helps to put your intention on learning from the past instead of reacting to it. What have you learned from your relationship with your ex? What can you do differently because of this learning? Take the time to come up with a plan for yourself and what you want in your future.
 
This may seem unfair because you weren’t treated fairly or you aren’t getting a fair deal. But what’s more important in life – fairness or peace? Fairness or happiness? If you could be happy and peaceful, what is that worth to you?
 
With every door that closes, another one opens. Embrace this new opportunity as a new stage of your life with happiness, peace and hope. Your personal transformation is an exciting time with endless possibilities. Let go of the anger and go for what you want. You deserve it!!

​We can get provoked or “triggered” by many things – a fight with a spouse, a child who won’t listen, a boss who treats you badly, an aggressive driver, etc. Being triggered simply means that some event has impacted us emotionally and we have a difficult time reacting rationally. When we’re triggered, we do things that we shouldn’t do. We yell back at our spouse or child, we say something inappropriate to our boss, or we leave in a huff. How wonderful would it be if we could somehow, in the moment that we are triggered, find a way to detach?
 
One skill that you may have tried in the past when you’ve been triggered is deep abdominal breathing. Deep abdominal breathing is where you push your stomach out as you breath in and pull your stomach in as you breath out. This enables your lungs to expand much farther than if you take the typical “chest breath”. When you do it correctly and for long enough, your brain will release a hormone that will calm you. This calm will enable you to detach. Once you’re detached, you can respond logically rather than emotionally.
 
Sometimes deep abdominal breathing doesn’t work. You try it and you’re still triggered and unable to detach. Grounding is another technique that can be helpful in these circumstances. Grounding is a type of coping strategy that is designed to “ground” you in or connect you to the present moment. You can only use grounding if you have given yourself some space from the person that you were interacting with. You can say that you have to go to the bathroom, ask them if you can talk about this a little later or find some other way to get to a separate space. Once you’ve gotten to a separate space, you can try these steps for grounding:

• Grounding can be done anytime and anyplace
• Keep your eyes open and scan the room
• Do not talk for the moment. You want to distract yourself from your feelings, not get in touch with them.
• Stay neutral – don’t judge yourself or anyone else as “good” or “bad”.
• Focus on the present, not the past or future.
• Mental Grounding:

1. Describe your environment using all of your senses. For example, “The walls are white, there are six chairs in the room around the table, there are sounds of children playing outside…” Describe objects, sounds, colors textures, smells, shapes and temperature.
2. Use an image to take you to a calm place. For example, “I’m on a raft floating in the sea.” or “I am on a mountain looking at a beautiful sunset.”
3. Count to 10 or say the alphabet very slowly.
4. Repeat a positive statement or affirmation: “I am calm and peaceful. I can handle this. This too shall pass.”

• Physical Grounding:

1. Run cool or warm water over your hands.
2. Grab an object tightly such as a ball or pillow.
3. Touch various objects around you such as keys, a book, the table and notice the way it feels, the colors, the materials, the weight.
4. Jump up and down.
5. Stretch yourself including your arms, legs, neck, etc.
6. Walk slowly. Notice each footstep and say left, right as you walk.

 
The key to being successful with these techniques is to practice them when you’re not being triggered. You can also make up your own method of grounding that enables you to distract and detach yourself from your emotions. Learning to detach is a powerful tool that can help you to be more successful in your communication skills and improve your relationships with your spouse, children, boss and anyone else important in your life. Let me know what techniques work for you!

It’s hard to let go of anger: anger at our parents, anger at a former friend, anger at a betrayal, anger at an ex-spouse, anger at ourselves.  It’s understandable.  Someone has done us wrong and we’re angry. We don’t have to forgive them.  We can hold onto the anger for the rest of our lives if we want to. It’s our right to do that. But forgiveness can be healing and enable you to move on.
 
Holding on to anger can consume you.  You start thinking about it all the time. Special occasions can be ruined simply because the person you are angry with is there.  Relationships can be damaged as you project what happened to you in the past onto your current situation.
 
In order to get to forgiveness, you must work through your anger. A beneficial way address anger is to express it. Although anger is a normal emotion, it must be expressed in a constructive manner.  Problems develop when the root of the anger isn’t recognized and the feelings aren’t expressed.
 
One of my clients was angry at her father for leaving her and her mother when she was a child. She carried that anger into her marriage and became angry at her spouse after their child was born.  She felt that he was acting like her father even though he wasn’t anything like her father. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Her husband left her.
 
With some guidance, my client learned how to express her anger at her father and went through all of the feelings she had about him which included sadness, anger, regret and grief.  After expressing all of her emotions, she was actually able to forgive him.  After forgiving him, she was able to move on in her life and develop a deep, intimate connection with a man.
 
It’s like a jar with the top on. If you keep the top on the jar, the anger stays inside. But if you open the jar and let the anger out, it goes away. Once you release the anger you can start the path to forgiveness. Remember forgiving the person is for you, not for the other person. You’ll feel a sense of relief when you aren’t burdened by the anger anymore. Through this process, you’ll be amazed at your ability to heal your past wounds, let go of your anger and move on in your life.
 
 
 
 
Effective methods of releasing anger:

• Talk about it with the person you’re angry with
• Write a letter
• Speak to a friend or a therapist
• Journal your thoughts, feelings and emotions about the person
• Draw your feelings
• Meditate on your feelings
• Physically release the anger by exercising, punching a punching bag, screaming, stamping your feet, ripping paper, hitting a tree with a stick, throw water balloons at a wall or some other physical activity