Parenting: Saying You Stayed for your Child is a Burden on Child, Experts Say
Graduates whose celebrations are tempered with the news that their parents are divorcing need as much support as they can get, according to family therapists.
However, if it were up to Barbara Fontana, Ph.D., parents would remain together until after college graduation. Fontana is a licensed psychologist and certified imago therapist from Long Island, New York.
“My first choice would be for people to work hard on their marriage. When people are willing to do the work, they really can reconnect, and they can heal different things that have happened between them that have caused anger and resentment and hurt feelings,” Fontana said. “If that doesn’t happen, they can hang on, but if they really don’t want to be together, then I think they should wait until after college. After college, kids don’t necessarily return home to live with the family. Their relationships with their parents become more adult, which makes it less disruptive when their parents break up,” she said.
“Attempting to break up just as kids are leaving for college may be too great an adjustment. They are already trying to get used to new friends, a new living arrangement, and a new community,” Fontana said. “That’s a huge transition for kids, and to throw into that divorce, it’s too hard.”
DO KIDS SENSE THEIR PARENTS’ DISCORD?
“Having parents who may not have a happy marriage is less destructive than a broken family,” Fontana said. While there is a persistent idea that children will bounce back from divorce, the process is much more detrimental. “I think adults too often think, ‘Oh the kids will be okay,’” Fontana said. “I think that is becoming pervasive. It’s really hard on kids.”
“Barring addictions and physical or emotional abuse as reasons for a divorce,” Fontana said, “parents should stay together for the sake of their children. There are more benefits to having a two-parent household than the benefits of a happy marriage for the parents. I think it is better for them if they can just stay together,” she said. “It’s certainly hard. It takes a lot of maturity on the part of adults, to work on their marriage and put in the effort to make the marriage better. It’s hard.”
Fontana said that most kids are unaware of the problems between their parents. “Whatever is going on under the family’s roof is just normal life to the children involved. What is more important is the children’s equal access to their parents. Divorced parents can never really coparent,” she added. “One parent will always have more time with the children. For example, those conversations in passing, the chances to interact in small increments during the day, offer recurring chances to connect with kids,” she said.
“If you are not the custodial parent, you miss all of that — those opportunities for your children to talk to you,” Fontana said. “I think it makes a huge difference, and I know that there are a lot of people who agree with that, and say ‘kids will be fine,’ well kids will not be fine.”
One therapist who disagrees with Fontana is Amelio D’Onofrio, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist from New York City, and clinical professor and director of the Psychological Services Institute in the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University. He said it is a fallacy that kids don’t notice the problems in parents’ marriages. “Hostility in the home, even if it is not verbalized, that is expressed in subtle ways,” D’Onofrio said. “That is communicated to the children.”
“Children internalize their parents’ conflicts,” D’Onofrio said. “They then take responsibility for their parents’ unhappiness, and they feel like they need to somehow keep their parents together. They are often the first ones to pick that up. The problem is, the younger the child, the more they take on the blame for those problems. It is harder for them to separate themselves from their parents’ problems.”
“As children age, the internal effects of the divorce becomes less substantial,” D’Onofrio said. “However, the hard feelings emanating from the family unit can’t help but damage the children. The impact of divorce decreases on children the older they get,. But if there is discord in the family, discord has an impact on children’s sense of self and self-esteem.”
CARRYING THE GUILT OF PARENTS’ UNHAPPINESS
Deepening the impact on children’s self-esteem is telling children that the discord in the home was partially as a result of the choice to stay together. Parents who choose to stay together until their children graduate and move on into their adult lives make an enormous mistake by telling the children that they made that choice.
“I think it’s a big mistake for parents to ever tell children, we’re staying together because of you. It’s a tremendous burden,” Fontana said. “I think any child will feel guilt about that.”
Most kids who experience their parent’s divorce in this situation tend to respond in one of two ways, said Dr. Jay Granat, a psychotherapist from New Jersey. “They are either grateful that the parents made a personal sacrifice to keep the family intact, or they wish the parents had divorces sooner so that the children could grow up in a conflict-free home,” he said.
Given the choice, Granat would choose divorce over subjecting the children to marital discord. “It doesn’t make sense to stay together,” he said. “Most families do fine. People recover from this.”
“There is no way to avoid the hardship for kids when their parents divorce,” said Robert Emery, Ph.D., professor of psychology, and director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law, at the University of Virginia. “But telling them that their parents have waited for years to divorce just for their sake can be devastating to kids. Kids can feel that their entire childhood was a lie. No one wants to hear, ‘I did this miserable thing for you.’ No one wants that burden of responsibility.”
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT FOR KIDS
“Children whose graduation season coincides with the breakup of their families need extra support from the adults around them,” D’Onofrio said. “Divorcing parents must be as open as possible with their children about the serious problems in their marriages, and that those problems are in no way the children’s fault. Don’t deny the marital discord because children have already sensed there are difficulties. This is a fine line, to be open enough with the child, but not to burden the child with their problems. So that communication needs to be age-appropriate.”
“The children need as much warning as possible,” Emery adds. “As difficult as it may be to deliver bad news, the children need honesty from their parents.” And to the children who are experiencing this kind of emotional upheaval?
“I guess my reaction is, well, this stinks and I’m sorry. You need to tell yourself, and tell you parents, that their decisions are their business, and your feelings are your own business,” Emery said. And whatever is going on, kids have a right to be upset.
About the author: Michele Bush Kimball has a Ph.D. in mass communication with a specialization in media law. She has spent almost 15 years in the field of journalism, and she teaches at American University in Washington, D.C. She recently won a national research award for her work.
