Kids are resilient, but they are not insensitive
The golden rule to parenting is never to fight with your spouse in front of your children. That rule broke years ago. The golden rule to co-parenting in two household situations is never to fight in front of your children. That one broke also. The new golden rule is never taking the fight to either one of your houses when the children are there. Sigh, that broke last week.
After the ex left my house, my daughter turned to me in a ball of tears and said that it was very upsetting for her to see us fight. It was upsetting for me as well. I looked at my daughter and I told her straight that it was very unfortunate that her mom showed up and had words (what we were fighting over is really irrelevant). I wasn’t trying to win points with my daughter, but I told her straight-up that it was very inappropriate for anyone to show up at someone’s house and have an argument. Since my divorce, the only exchanges with my ex are through sparse emails and the lawyers. Seems like I drew the short straw and do not have an amicable relationship with my daughter’s mother. As much as I try to shield this drama from our daughter, I cannot help but to think what type of memories she will keep as a child of divorce. Kids are resilient, yes, but not insensitive.
Emotional scars are invisible. Sport an arm in a sling and everyone will ask how you got it; but nobody sees bruised self-confidence. And to the child, when nobody asks, it will seem that nobody cares – further pummelling self-confidence.
As parents, we are so focused on their physical well-being that sometimes, we paid less attention to their mental well-being — an entire side of our children that is invisible. Physically, my daughter has suffered through a fair share of injuries: scrapes and bites from running through the woods; lacerations from falls off rocks; she’s even slipped off my bed and hit the iron radiator resulting in blood gushing from her head! I will treat all physical injuries and have even threatened to make her wear a bike helmet the next time she goes on the monkey-bars. But rarely have I asked her to dig deep into her ego and super-ego to tell me her unmasked emotions. It’s probably because I’m not a shrink and I don’t want to spook her with weird questions. But mostly, it’s probably because her emotional scars are invisible and she’s done a great job at masking or suppressing it. Forget the children, I think the adults in our society as a whole does an excellent job of this anyway. Sport an arm in a sling and everyone will ask how you got it; but nobody sees bruised self-confidence. And to the child, when nobody asks, it will seem that nobody cares – further pummelling self-confidence.
As much as I engage in conversations with my daughter and look after her physical, social and mental health to the best of my abilities, there are things I need to be careful. She is after all, only a seven year-old girl. While I will do little to resolve the conflicts she has with her friends, I need to be sensitive to anxieties my daughter may have as a child of divorce. Issue with closeness is one of the emotions that I suspect why my daughter still likes to crawl into my bed at 2am. For this same reason, I haven’t been completely insistent that she remain in her own bedroom.
There is a lot of focus and money being spent on educating and dealing with mental health not only in adults, but adolescents. Studies have found that when anxieties aren’t recognized and dealt with early on, problems will likely emerge in adulthood. This should be of no surprise to anyone. As parents to young children, we have an opportunity at this critical time not only to recognize when our child is upset, but deal with it adequately so that it doesn’t develop into something unresolved when she grows older. It is true that children are a product of their upbringing. But I think a more impactful image is the ripple of discontent that can flow outward to become a tsunami of anxiety if things aren’t dealt with early on.