Many of my clients worry about how to best support their children through their divorce and beyond. The portrayal of divorced families in the media, as somehow broken doesn’t help to assuage those feelings of fear, guilt or shame.

I am here to reassure you that your children can flourish after divorce - it doesn’t have to “damage” them.

My top tips to support your children through your divorce and beyond:

Your children will follow your lead

I believe that where you lead, your children will follow. Children learn by modelling the behaviour of those around them. So if you find yourself dwelling on the negative or talking about how difficult things are, they will follow.

When they see a parent who is calm, takes a breath before responding, and who can make choices in a crisis, they will learn how to adapt, how to handle challenge, how to process their emotions and move forward.

Your children are on their own journey

Children will go through their own grief or healing curve at the end of your relationship. Just like you, they will probably experience all or most of the following stages at some point:

shock & denial - this is not happening
anger
bargaining - eg. if only I had been better, this would not be happening
depression & sadness
acceptance

They may feel angry, upset, depressed, confused, shocked, and all sorts of other feelings too, sometimes all in one day. Their journey through the healing process is likely to be different to yours.

Remember they may swirl around through all of these stages. Their emotions, like yours, are likely to be up and down, and this is normal.

Practice active listening

When you actively listen, your children are likely to feel heard. Remember that you are listening to UNDERSTAND, rather than to FIX (I know that can be challenging as a parent!)

How to listen actively·

Just listen and be neutral
Be patient, and don’t fill in words for them
Ask questions
Reflect back what you’ve heard, eg. I heard you say that XXX, and that you feel sad about that
Ask for clarification, eg. can you tell me more about that?
Summarise what they said

Help them to identify their feelings, give them a name, acknowledge them, and reassure them that their feelings are normal.

Show them how to be in control of the questions in their head

I like to think of my brain as a bit like Google – it answers the questions I ask it.

When you ask questions like, “why is this happening to me?”, your brain tries to answer, and there are rarely any helpful answers. Perhaps your children are also asking similar, negative spiral questions?

Instead, you can choose to ask different questions to reframe your situation. Try asking your child:

If there was one teeny weeny upside to this, what would it be?
If you could see a silver lining, what would it be?
What are you glad about today?
What happened today that cheered you up?
What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?
What have you done today that you are proud of?

Stick these questions up around your house on post-it notes so that you remember them when you need them. When you practice asking this sort of question, it becomes a habit, and it gives you a whole new way of approaching any challenge. You could create a list of all the answers and stick that up, too, so that when you next feel down, you can remind yourselves of the upsides and the things you are proud of and glad about.

Be the best role model you can be

Regardless of what your ex does or says, you are in control of what sort of parent you are on YOUR time. Be the parent you want to be when the children are with you.

Your children will also learn from how you interact with your ex – if you can co-parent successfully, your children will learn great lessons in compromise, flexibility, listening, discussing, give-and-take. If you aren’t able to co-parent with a challenging ex-partner, but you set firm boundaries and stick to them, they will learn how to set boundaries themselves – a really useful skill if you have a parent who is difficult!

Aim for consistency

All the parenting books out there talk about consistency, the importance of routine, consistent boundaries and guidelines for children.

Where you can, try to agree consistent approach to important things across both households – that might be around internet usage, mobile phones, general acceptable behaviour.

But if you can’t, don’t beat yourself up. It’s OK – I always tell my children that Dad and I don’t always agree on the right way forward, just as their friends’ parents might have a different approach, and that’s OK. There can be different rules at Mum and Dad’s houses.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

Remember what you can and can’t control – you can absolutely keep consistent boundaries at your own house, but you can’t stop their other parent from letting them stay up late sometimes or having the occasional MacDonalds. When it comes to co-parenting, pick your battles wisely.

However old your children are, you will always be their parent, and they will always look to you for a lead. Show them that despite your divorce, you are there for them when it matters.

You have the remote control to your brain, and you can do this, however hard it might seem. Remind yourself that you once loved each other enough to have children. Do your best to find the good in each other rather than expecting the worst. It might not always be easy, but your children will be grateful for it.