Simply put, normal children of divorced or separated parents want their parents:
- not to make custody a turf war.
- Honor your children’s right to a strong loving and trusting, relationship with each of their parents. Divorce or separation does not initiate a popularity contest and zero-sum game between parents for the affection and loyalty of their children. Don’t make or try to make your kids feel guilty for looking forward to and enjoying the time they get to spend with the other parent.
- if they can, to live close enough to each other that the children can go to and from school easily, play with the same friends, and get to and enjoy their activities regardless of which parent they may be living with at the time. Children hate it when their parents live so far away that they can’t make friends in both neighborhoods or when they end up missing out on an activity or being able to play in a game (because they are in that neighborhood every other week or every few days).
- to provide consistency in following the schedule, so that they know they are important enough to you that you keep your “appointments” with them each week, so that they know on a regular basis where they are going to be.
- don’t enforce 50–50 custody so rigidly as to drown the benefits of 50–50 custody in the demands of “perfect” 50–50 custody at all times. Both parents need to be flexible and subordinate “my time with the kids” to what the kids need from the schedule.
- (even though the children will claim otherwise) to observe certain basic rules, expectations, and routines across both parents’ households, so that the children receive the benefit of consistency and are not burdened with having to switch into “Dad’s house mode” and then “Mom’s house mode” at every custody exchange.
- to provide them with a place they feel “at home” in. This doesn’t mean that kids are catered to like royalty (spoiled kids are ruined kids), but they can’t be treated as an afterthought. Make sure you prepare their meals. If you can afford it, get a residence with their own rooms (not a sleeping bag rolled out on the living room floor). Have at both parents’ respective homes, the things they need, so that they aren’t having to lug their clothing and toiletries and other things back and forth between homes.
- essentially to “speak well of the other parent or don’t speak of them at all.” It’s draining for children to have to listen to a parent bad-mouthing the other parent all the time. Treating one’s children as a captive audience who must listen to the disparaging rants is a masturbatory level of self-absorption. Children know—whether expressly or implicitly—that a little of you and the other parent are both a part of them; if you tell your children that Mom or Dad is evil or worthless, you’re telling the kids that a part of them is evil and worthless too.
- That stated, this does not mean you must speak well of a bad parent to your children, especially when doing so would be lying to them or misleading them to believe they are safe in the care and custody of a bad (i.e., dangerous or irresponsible) parent. Still, that’s not an invitation to lambaste the bad parent to your heart’s content. If Mom/Dad abused you or the children, or is an alcoholic or drug abuser/addict, a petty crook, etc., you can tell your kids that if and when they ask. It’s not wrong to share the truth with your kids when time and circumstances are appropriate. Indeed, providing them with information they need to understand and deal with a parent safely and successfully is your obligation to your children. Telling children to love and get along with a parent who is himself/herself cantankerous and apathetic, neglectful, or cruel creates a cognitive dissonance that does a child more (and lasting) harm than good.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277
