The Pain Children Feel About Divorce But Can’t Say - Erica Komisar

You talk about divorce as something that children experience almost like a death in the family. What's being lost psychologically? So, when we when we have again, another politically incorrect thing or maybe politically correct thing to say, it's better to have two parents. It's better to have a mother and father because they serve different functions. But, as as they say in the UK, better to have an heir and a spare, right? So, the idea that you have two parents means that if you lose one, you have another. But, the concept is when you have a nuclear family, when you have two parents, you're under the illusion that it's a safe nest, that it is a safe, stable environment in which to grow up. And that stability provides you with the emotional security you need to develop in a healthy way. When that sense that illusion, you know, there is an illusion because there's no permanence in life, right? I mean, your parents could die, they could get sick, they could, you know, get hit by a bus, you know, I mean, there's no permanence, but we're born with a sort of a need for that illusion of permanence. Um, and in fact, people with very healthy defenses, me included, with everything that's going on in the world, as you know, um, which could be crazy-making, I my defenses help me not to obsess over it or focus on it because I can stay optimistic, my resilience allows me to cope with the adversity of the world. It's It's like having shock absorbers, right? On a It's And And so, it's that sense of stability and permanence. When you divorce, that permanence is the children are disillusioned in a way before they're ready. I always say every every child is born with the need for a sense of omnipotence in their parents. They need to believe their parents are perfect. They can do anything. They'll protect them. They're um Yeah. And so, I always tell this story of my husband when he was a little boy, um his father always drove. It was more traditional. His mother never drove when the father was in the car. And he would sit in the back and he said, "I always felt like my father knew every road on every map in the whole world." That's what childhood is. Is a sense of feeling protected and as if your parents are bigger and bigger than life characters. When they divorce, you see the imperfections of your parents and you start to see them as human before you're ready. But also the impermanence of relationships and the lack of trust, right? So, then you no longer necessarily trust in the permanence of those connections, of those romantic connections. So, you know, many kids from divorce, uh have trouble trusting in the permanence of of marriage and connections later on. Um not all. So, the reason I wrote this book is how do you how do you help them? The way you talk to them, the way you treat each other, the way you care about each other as a divorced couple, the way you work together and collaborate and cooperate and communicate, that's going to determine, you know, that you can put them first and sacrifice your desires and needs for fairness and put them first. All of that is going to dictate whether that child in the future can see relationships as trustworthy. Isn't it crazy, the idea of fairness, that that needs to be put to one side, that there is something unfair to the parents that is adaptive for the kid, that's good for them, that's good for their their upbringing? I think a lot of children blame themselves for their parents' divorces. Yeah. Why do you think that's such a common pattern? It's It's magical thinking. So, children who are very young um There was a great commercial on television. A little boy is in a Darth Vader outfit and he's got a a wand or whatever it's called a lightsaber. And A wand. Yeah. A lightsaber. Darth Vader going Expelliarmus. A lightsaber. Yeah. And he flashes it towards his car, the car the family car, and the father is behind with the the remote control and the father presses it. And the little boy goes, "Oh my god, I turned it off with my lightsaber." That's magical thinking. Magical thinking is something children have when they're very little and they outgrow, which is the belief that they are the center of the universe. It's a good thing. Um we're born if our parents focus on us as as if we are the center of the universe, then we believe that we are the center of the universe and that gives us a sense of steadiness and stability and security from which to develop. We outgrow magical thinking where we feel we're in control of everything, but it helps us to feel secure when we're little. So, if something bad happens to our parents when we're angry at them, like if your father or mother get into a car accident and die, let's say, when you are really angry at them because they didn't give you that toy or you know, and you have terrible fantasies and thoughts as a child that you wish they would die or you know, which aren't so terrible, they're just fantasies, Mhm. and that parent actually does die, that child then feels responsible for that death. That's magical thinking. So, basically, they believe they control uh what's around them. So, it's very common for children to believe that they are responsible for the breakup of their parents. And so, that's one of the things in the book that I talk about. How do you talk to children so you disavow them of those illusions that they are not responsible, that you know, that you will always love them because again, that that destruction of that sense of permanence in a relationship and that breaking of trust, children can easily understand parents break up as something parents could do. If If parents can leave one another, then can't they leave them as well? Mhm. >> And so, there's a lot of things that parents need to consider when they talk to their children, and there is a way to talk to children about a divorce. Is there a sense as well like how a lot of attachment wounds from early childhood get replayed in adult relationships that if I can redeem myself in this situation, I will fix the wound that existed before. That sort of classic Luke. Is there something similar to that going on with the magical thinking from the kids that if I caused it, I can fix it? Just line that I wrote in an essay a couple of weeks ago which was if as a child you're taught that you need to work hard to be loved, if you don't feel loved, you just need to work harder. Yeah. And it kind of feels a little bit similar to that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it again, I think it's very important, I'll say this, that if you if if you're going through a divorce that you get support, you know, and and I'm going to I'm not going to be one of those therapists who says like everybody needs therapy. Not everybody needs therapy, but a lot of people do, particularly if they're going through life transitions or traumas or, you know, and so if you think about divorce is a trauma for everyone, for parents, for children, and so parents need support. The one of the main reasons they need support is so they don't leak all over their children cuz it's very common for parents to overshare their pain with their children. To leak all over their children. >> Treating the kids, the kid of the separation as the therapist for the separation. >> Yes, and also just as a container a dump dumping into them about, you know, either over sharing about their loneliness or their pain or their or their sex lives or so so basically parents need therapy so they can so they can raise children without burdening those children. Children need therapy because they can't always go to their parents and tell them what they're feeling and thinking because they might feel uncomfortable. Um and so they need a safe space that isn't either parent to bring their feelings. Um that doesn't mean that parents aren't also safe spaces, but children need to have therapy to make sure that you're addressing these conflicts and these traumas early on. So as you say it, they don't carry them into adolescence and young adulthood and adulthood. What are the typical stages that children go through emotionally during a divorce? It's it's the same stages any morning process. Think of it as grief. They go through the same Kubler-Ross. I always say grief is grief, morning is morning. Uh it's a death and so when when someone dies, you go through the disbelief and you go through the sadness and you go through the anger and you go through the acceptance. Um and the problem is if your child gets stuck or if you as a parent as an adult while you're going through a divorce gets stuck. I've had patients who gotten stuck for a decade in grief. Meaning they get stuck in anger or they get stuck in sadness and despair where they can't you're meant to move through grief. Um so I'm Jewish so we say, you know, morning is a year. You know, from this from the moment someone dies, we don't unveil the stone. We don't take a cloth off the stone. We don't put the stone up actually for a year. So it's it's a year, but we have a year to go through the process, right? But then we're meant to unveil the stone and move on with life. Um what's happening is that people are holding on. They're getting stuck like almost like a scratch in an old LP record. They're getting stuck at certain stages of the grief and mourning process. And they'll either get stuck in the depression or the disbelief or the anger, but they many don't get to the acceptance stage. And children also aren't getting to the acceptance stage. They're getting sort of stuck in one stage of grief or another. Before we continue, as you're probably aware, I'm not a massive drinker, at least not anymore. But even if you too are not drinking, sometimes you just want something cold, frosty, and tasty without the fear of a hangover the next day, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co. Thank you very much. Their non-alcoholic brews taste just as good as the real thing. They've got IPAs, hazy goldens. They're so good that you'll forget that there's no alcohol in them until you wake up the next day feeling fantastic. 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