Parents who are separating (or still together), or never been married parents. Please consider how important this following information is to the welfare of your children.
One of the worst things a parent can do is talk badly about their child's other parent to their children.
THIS IS DEVASTATING TO YOUR CHILDREN...IS IT WORTH IT???
The brain of a child does not work like your adult brain. Kids can not think the way you do. Children imagine as if it were a fact that THEY are the cause for things that happen around them. They think they are the reason parents get divorced. They blame themselves.
Consider that if mom tells her child that dad is a jerk. The child's only reaction is to think that since dad is a jerk, I (the child) must be worthless too. Imagine what happens if Dad is also telling the child that his or her mom is a worthless XXXXX . The result is that the child internalizes that and the child ends up convinced that because both of his or her parents are (fill in the blank) that I am worthless too.
You child ends up feeling inferior, branded, a loser, pathetic, ... How can the child feel any other way? Your child will also blame him or herself for YOUR anger, partially because your child is who you are showing your anger to. Your child feels your emotions! This has been documented time after time. This is the way children's brains work. Sure, if you are stuck, maybe you can't get past hating your ex. Sure, maybe you feel driven to say bad things about your ex. However is it worth making your children suffer emotionally for the rest of their lives? Please please please !!! Do not do this to your children. Don't make them pay and suffer for the rest of their lives because you and your ex made mistakes. This truly is one of the worst mistake you can possibly make. In addition consider that is it quite possible that...
Your children will resent YOU for every bad thing you say about their other parent
Please call me or Kid's Turn and we will be happy to explain this to you.
If you are in a conflicted separation or divorce situation. Please I urge you to try to get both parents and your children involved with the Kids Turn Program. Divorce is something that is supposed to help fix a bad marriage. Let your divorce do that! Let Kid's Turn help if you need it. It is a great program that will help make the rest of YOUR life better (both parents!) And it also will make the rest of your children's lives better. Please check out their website at: (click on link ("Kid's Turn"), or copy and paste in address bar)
Kid's Turn
http://www.kidsturn.org
And, About that "need" to hate your ex.
Do you really like that feeling? Does that feeling serve you well? Anger often is born from hurt feelings. We hate to have our feelings hurt, so we often turn that feeling into anger. Anger is a much easier emotion for us to deal with.
"How could she do that to me?" or "How could he treat me that way?" often turns into hate and anger.
Counseling is a great way for you to come to a better understanding of yourself. It is a great way to understand and lessen your pain
(I do understand pain)
Would you feel better if you could lessen the impact of your pain on your daily life? You could feel so much better! It would be so much easier to deal with the rest of your life.
If you feel stuck, call a counselor, we can help.
