How to Prioritise Children Throughout Your Divorce

Divorce is always going to be challenging, particularly when children are involved. No matter how amicable, this big life change can be distressing and confusing, especially for young kids.

Fortunately, there are plenty of different ways you can make sure that you are always putting your children first and allowing them to feel supported by both parents.

Focus on routine

Routines are helpful for both parents and children.

For parents, a routine allows family life to run smoother. Being more organised means there is less stress and greater opportunities to enjoy time together.

For children, routines create feelings of safety, and the predictability allows the building of healthy habits.

Where possible, if a routine can be stuck to during and after divorce proceedings, this will be incredibly beneficial for everyone involved.

Keep communicating

Children are observant and will likely notice the change in behaviour from both parents so it’s better to be open and explain certain things rather than leaving them guessing. If they don’t fully understand what is going on, this can lead to the child blaming themselves.

While it may be difficult, having an open and honest conversation with your child/children about what is happening will give them a much greater understanding and allow them to feel that they can come to you with any questions they may have.

As well as an initial conversation, there needs to be continuous communication during and after the divorce. Create a safe space where your children feel able to speak freely about divorce and how they are feeling.

Don’t put them in the middle

Although it may be tempting, it is important to restrain from complaining about the other parent to your child or asking them to pass on messages.

This can put great strain on a child’s relationship with both parents and is more responsibility than they should be handling. Instead, make use of local family lawyers for support.

By getting support externally, you can ensure that your child doesn’t feel they are in the middle of the divorce, and you can focus on nurturing them and providing reassurance during this difficult time.

Ask their opinion

While the final decisions and details of a divorce will be decided by both parties and a judge, it is important to consider the opinion of your children and what they want.

For older children in particular, they may have specific preferences about how often they would like to see each parent and where they would like to live. It might be hard to hear these opinions, especially if your children would prefer to live with your former partner but try to remove the emotion from these decisions when having these challenging conversations and focus on what is going to work best for them.