Study Finds Children of Divorce Much Better Off When Parent’s Find Ways to Co-Parent and Maintain Civility.

            Are you wondering how you can help your children during and after divorce?    Robert Hughes, Jr.’s blog post discusses this very topic.  A study has found that children of divorce fare better when their parents learn to co-parent and maintain civility when dealing with each other.   Continued conflict creates damaging stress and interferes with a child’s ability to learn how to manage their own emotions. 

            At Hess Family Law, we recommend that you have an agreement or court order that provides specifics in an effort to eliminate future conflict so that you and your spouse can develop positive interactions in the future rather than arguing over items that could have been resolved.  For example, your agreement or order should include visitation dates, times and other important details.  We understand that sometimes clients want flexibility and life often requires it.  If you and your spouse or former spouse are co-parenting and maintaining civility, you can always choose to agree for a particular visitation to change the pick-up date, time, or location. The benefit of having specifics in your agreement is that it provides a default plan if you cannot agree to do something different, and therefore lessens the need to argue.  

There are many resources available to parents who are divorcing, such as therapists and mediators, who can help with communication and problem solving.   Parenting plans can be drafted to address specific concerns and allow both parents to be involved in their children’s lives.  A new resource developed by Sesame Workshop called “Little Children Big Challenges:Divorce,” provides a series of activities both online and offline for parents and children.  The website is designed to help children ages 2-8 understand their parent’s divorce and provides parents advice on how to talk to their children about divorce in an age appropriate manner.      

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