Divorce Without Dishonor

Child custody battles leave only casualties, no winners. Britney Spears’ problems last weekend are only the most recent example (see our January 7 post). Children need the love, support and involvement of both parents while they’re growing up. Sure, there are cases when one parent may not be capable of effective parenting or when a parent may actually endanger a child, but most of the time it is the anger divorcing spouses have for each other that muddies the child custody waters. Collaborative divorce can help parents set aside unproductive personal emotions and focus on their children. With the help of the collaborative divorce team, a couple can create a child custody agreement that provides for their children’s physical, emotional and financial needs while allowing both parents to maintain a close relationship with their children.

When children are involved in a divorce, the collaborative divorce team will usually include a child specialist. The child specialist works privately with the children to provide them with their own voice in the collaborative process. The child specialist is not a psychotherapist but a sympathetic realist who will help your children deal with the changes and challenges divorce will bring to their lives.

In talking with your children, the child specialist will gain important insights that can affect your custody agreement. She may be able to offer creative solutions to custody arrangements that will meet both your children’s and your needs. Should the collaborative process break down, like all members of the collaborative team, the child specialist, whose work is confidential, is enjoined from testifying for or against either parent in a court proceeding.

A divorced mother herself, therapist Rosalind Sedacca, has created an excellent new website, Child-Centered Divorce, that I can highly recommend. Built on her own struggles guiding her children through divorce, Sedacca has created a website that can be a valuable resource for parents striving to help their children cope with divorce.

The goal of the website is to provide parents with a support network that addresses the problems parents face with their children during divorce. Articles address the issues concerning the emotional health and welfare of children going through divorce. Parents will find the articles engagingly written and particularly useful. In each article parents will find new understandings and helpful tips they can apply to their own circumstances.

Sedacca shares her highly qualified experience in regular articles on the website and also draws on the knowledge and experience of a variety of experts. Some recent topics include:

• Magical Thinking: When Children of Divorce Blame Themselves
• Children’s Emotional Needs During Divorce and Beyond
• When Children of Divorce Act Out — Caring Parents Step Up!
• Child-Centered Divorce Secrets

Child-Centered Divorce was created this summer by Rosalind Sedacca, a Certified Corporate Trainer, author, national speaker and workshop facilitator. She is the author of the helpful  new book How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children - with Love! (see our October 29 post for a review).