Reducing transitions makes divorce easier for the kids
Your goal is to make your impending divorce as easy as you can for your children. You and your spouse want to split up, but your kids had no say in this decision. You love being a parent and you don’t want it to negatively impact them.
One area you may want to focus on, especially when creating a child custody arrangement and a parenting plan, is the number of transitions the kids need to go through. The more you can reduce the sheer amount, the easier it will be for them.
Examples of serious transitions for children include:
- Changing to a new school. This can be intimidating for a child, who is leaving more than just the physical building. The child also loses connections with teachers and friends.
- Moving to a new house. Kids value stability and they feel comfortable in what may be the only home they have ever known. Moving to a new house makes them feel, at least for a while, like they’re living in a house that is not their own.
- Seeing a decrease in income. This can impact the children’s quality of life. While you may not be able to avoid the decrease if you’re dropping from two incomes to one, do what you can to keep the children’s quality of life the same. Remember the value that children put on leisure activities and extra-curricular activities, for instance.
- Watching the parents begin dating again. This doesn’t mean you can’t date again, but make sure you do so carefully and consider how you expose your children to it.
Remember, many of these things can be addressed in your custody arrangement, so make sure you know what steps to take.
Source: Life Hacker, “Three Ways to Make a Divorce Easier on Your Kids,” Heather Yamada-Hosley, accessed Jan. 30, 2018
