This week on the Life After Podcast I am going to answer a question from my inbox and share the 5 pieces of advice that were most helpful supporting my kids post divorce. This was a great question from someone who was going through a divorce, their kiddos struggling, and they asked if I work with kids. And my response was, I don't work with kids because
I feel like that requires some very specific training. I am Happy to work with a mom to give her some strategies because that's something I've navigated with my own kids. Reflecting on her question, there were some things that I found extremely helpful for me.
The first thing that is always really important, especially if your kids are struggling, is to take care of yourself. For one, you deserve that and two, Because kids co-regulate off of us. Especially if your kids have experienced some trauma and seen some things that kids shouldn't be exposed to, whatever that might look like for your situation, they're gonna be hypersensitive to shifts in energy.
I have a kid that's like this .I can see it in their body language. They will pick up on something that's off before I even pick up on it. I've learned to really tune into that . It saved us from some things like there was one particular instance in a youth program.
I noticed it. The dude gave me the heebie-jeebies too and we found out the dude was not doing great things. So anyways, kids can really sense your emotions.
Post-divorce, it's hard the kids are adjusting. You're also adjusting. You're adjusting to not having a partner in the home with you, even if it was a crappy situation.
Sometimes it's better when you are on your own but you're making a lot of adjustments. Do what you can to take care of yourself. Figure out what that looks like. Even if you've got 10 minutes in the day, what can you do in 10 minutes that will fill you up so that you have more capacity? I highly recommend learning how to do box breathing or other breathing strategies because no one knows that you're doing it and you can bring yourself in that way.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1. For anxiety, five things you can see, four things you can touch. Three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste , is another great tool. just find the ones that work for you. .
Second thing- find people that get you, even if that's online, it's good to have a sounding board, not someone who will just agree with you, but who will really listen and give you some good feedback.
That might be an online group. It might be a close friend, it might be a coach, it might be a therapist. But find someone that can be that support for you.
The third piece of advice, my therapist gave Was you need to keep things as normal as you can. So whatever your, rhythm/routine for the day was, keep that as much as possible.
And we really did. I really strived to make the minimal amount of changes possible. That meant that even though I really wanted to move,. I didn't, I tried to make sure they still had their friendships and that their bedtimes plus expectations for the day were the same.
Having a a good rhythm for the day. Doesn't have to be anything crazy and complicated. . I love Nanny jojo, but when you're going through all of this, if you ever watched Super Nanny how she's got the big board and like every five minutes, it's something that's gonna be too stressful for you and it's gonna be too stressful for the kids, especially if that's not something you've ever implemented before.
It can be something as simple as we get dressed before breakfast. If they're school age, then we go to school. If they're not school age, we're gonna have some play time. We're gonna get our chores done first. We're gonna make sure our homework's done, and then we're gonna do something fun- a craft or a board game, something that both of you enjoy.
The third Thing that is really smart to do is to normalize that families look different. We know that now, right? Hopefully, it's 2023 that. Some families have one mom, some families have one dad. Some families have two moms. Some families have two dads. Some families have a grandma, some families have a grandpa.
Some families it's aunts and uncles and that's all okay. It's really helpful if you can find books about it. There's lists online. The thing about a book when you read it with a kid is if you can find your situation in a book, that means that you're not the only one that's experienced that situation. It's also a great way to be a conversation starter. If books aren't their thing, there's a cartoon out there, that might fit this situation . It might take some YouTubing searching through that. It might take some Googling, but just normalize it. Affirm to the kids that this is something that we needed to do for everyone to be happy, safe, however you wanna frame that. We both love you. We both have our own households. It might be different at my house and it might be different at your other parents house, but this is how we do things here.
The fourth thing , if you can find one, 'cause the wait lists are terrible. is Finding a trauma informed therapist that gets kids that can give them a space to talk to someone where they're not talking to a parent, they don't have to feel like they need pick sides because sometimes kids are very sensitive and they might not wanna say things that they feel could be like siding with one parent or the other.
Or they might be genuinely scared to bring up something the other parent is doing for fear of repercussions. For my kids we kind of have a Vegas rule for my kids where if they do have a concern with something that's going on in any scenario, I will find a way to address it that know one knows they were a part of it.
it's also helpful too, if you have a professional to keep eyes on the kid. Because maybe there is something going on, they can pick up on those patterns. And they're just a neutral third party.
The last very helpful thing that I was told was that above all else, and though it may not make sense, you need to have fun with your kids and you need to do it daily, weekly.
It doesn't have to cost you a lot of money. This could be, let's go explore around us. Let's find a new trail. Let's find a new park, what local arts activities are going on. Maybe you can make a little bit of side money, whether it's turning in cans or something else just to set a little bit aside. We have theaters sometimes here that do like free movie days and things like that. When I took this advice, definitely our financial si situation was definitely Not great. I , had been in a car accident, had a baby. It was a whole lot of chaos. And so a lot of this was a challenge of, okay, if we've got $15, what can we do today to go have some fun? And that was almost as much fun for my kids as whatever we were doing , giving them some ownership , to work that out .
I wish I would have been going These five pieces of advice in one shot and not had to figure out over the course of a couple of years.
If you know someone that this might help, please share this episode . I'm here to support clients in different capacities, you can message me on Instagram if you need the info on that.