Parents of a Lifetime Children Need the Love of Both Parents

Introduction Divorce will bring a lot of changes to your family, but the only thing unchanged is the affection and love between your children and you.

Children need to grow up in a stable and warm environment. While divorce is only the separation of your spouse and you, both of you are always the parents of your children. Your estranged spouse and you have the responsibility to work together in satisfying your children’s need in this area.

Understanding the Psychological Impact of Parents’ Divorce on Children Parents’ divorce may cause trauma to children’s psychology. The followings are the possible emotional reactions and behaviours of children at different ages :

Pre-school Children (Aged 0 – 5)

Emotion : Fear of being abandoned, feeling guilty and self-blaming (thinking that it is their disobedience that leads to their parents’ divorce).

Behaviour : Bed-wetting, finger-sucking, not sleeping well, crying and yelling all the time and being physically over-attached to the parent who is living with them.

Primary School Students (Aged 6 -12)

Emotion : Sad, lonely, helpless, angry and feeling abandoned (thinking that their parents no longer love them).

Behaviour : Under-performing in school, poor academic results, or even getting naughty, ill-tempered, breaking school rules and clashing with peers. Try catching parents’ attention by habitual misbehaviour such as truancy and stealing with the hope that they will come together again. May also side with one of the parents to confront the other. Adolescents (Aged 13 – 17)

Emotion : Being withdrawn, frustrated, lonely, reticent, self-reproach, worried, dissatisfied and angry.

Behaviour : Being rebellious, trouble-making, under-performing in school and giving up on themselves.

If children can keep on getting the love, care, sympathy and support from both parents who have divorced, they will be able to give vent to the above possible emotions and adapt themselves to the changes, and be able to grow up robustly and happily like other children.

Help Children Face Parents’ Divorce in a Positive Way 1. Depending on your children’s ability to understand the issue, you should explain to them in simple words that you are separated owing to difficulties in getting along with each other, stressing that your divorce is wholly a decision of the adults and the children bear no responsibility to shoulder the cause or to fix the relationship.

2. You should prove your love, concern and care for your children by action.

3. Your should calmly listen to and understand your children’s confusion, anger and discontent with regard to your divorce and provide the children with proper ways to ventilate their emotion.

4. You should tell your children specifically about their post-divorce daily living arrangement, listen to their wishes as far as possible to enable them to be comfortable with and prepared for it.

5. You should provide your children with a stable environment and more support in daily living to help them overcome all kinds of difficulties while adapting to your divorce.

6. For smaller children, the parent who is living with the children should spend as much time with them as possible to build a sense of security. As to the parent who is not living with the children, you should still arrange regular visits so that children may feel being loved and find it easier to get used to the changes.

7. For older children, you should help them build a good relationship with their siblings, classmates, teachers and neighbors to enable them to get more support and care in the face of all kinds of changes resulting from the parents’ divorce, and to regain their self-respect and confidence.

If you can demonstrate how to handle divorce in a positive way, your children will be able to learn the positive way of dealing with problems.

Custodial and Access Arrangements 1. Whoever the custody belongs to, your estranged spouse and you are always the parents of your children.

2. Custody would not make your children close to you. Only care and love would give you a closer parent-child relationship as quality rather than quantity forms the basis. It is more important to make good use of the time when you are staying together with your children.

3. Regular and effective access helps maintain a good parent-child relationship between the children and the parent who is not living with the children. Furthermore, this helps them get adapted to the parents’ divorce and regain self-respect and confidence.

4. If children see that you still care about them in every way and work together whole-heartedly on custodial and access matters despite having separated, they will feel warm and secure, thus gaining confidence and hope in people.

Do your best to fulfill your responsibility as a parent by caring about your children’s needs and working together with your previous spouse.

Prevent Children from Becoming the Scapegoat of Parents’ Dispute

Both parents should : 1. avoid ventilating their discontent against the other parent on their children; 2. allow children to spend time with their father or mother alone and respect their privacy; 3. help children build a positive image of the other parent in order to maintain their trust and respect for him/her ; and 4. discuss matters relating to your children directly with each other rather than delivering messages through them.

As the parent living with your children, you should: 1. accept your children’s yearning on the other parent and encourage them to remain in contact with him/her ; 2. make arrangement for your children to meet the other parent when working out the schedules of the children’s daily living; and 3. allow your children to keep the presents given by the other parents.

As the parent not living with your children, you should : 1. discuss with the other parent to draw up a fixed time-table with a plan for regular visits to your children; 2. avoid missing the scheduled appointment with your children. If you are unable to meet your children as planned, you should explain to them directly and confirm the date of the next visit; 3. spend more time listening to and understanding your children’s needs and avoid discussing or comparing their daily living with the other parent when you meet your children; 4. remain in close contact with your children through other means, such as telephone conversations, apart from meeting them, to enable them to know that your care about them.

If you have mutual respect for each other and put the hard feelings of the divorce behind, not only would you be able to lead a happy life, your children would also be able to grow up in a harmonious environment. Social Welfare Department Tel. No.

SWD Hotline 2343 2255 Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Central Western, 2835 2733 Southern and Islands ) Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Eastern and 2231 5859 Wanchai ) Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Kwun Tong ) 2707 7681 Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Wong Tai Sin and 3188 3563 Sai Kung ) Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Sham Shui Po ) 2247 5373 Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Kowloon City and 3583 3254 Yau Tsim Mong ) Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Shatin ) 2158 6680 Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Tai Po and 3183 9323 North ) Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Tuen Mun ) 2618 5710 Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Tsuen Wan and 2940 7350 Kwai Tsing ) Family and Child Protective Services Unit ( Yuen Long ) 2445 4224

Others

Mediation Coordinator’s Office 2180 8063 2180 8065 Family Court Registry 2840 1218

July 2009