Helping each other protect our kids... thoughts?

[peaceful_spirit]

As I was reading BFM's thread about the kids and OW, I got to thinking about how difficult our role is, as the LBS, in protecting our children from this chaos.

So, I though I'd start a thread where we can support each other in doing the right thing for our kids to help them survive and thrive in the face of the mess our spouses have created.

For many of you, the difficulty comes when your spouse introduces the kids to OP. And while that hasn't happened to me, it almost did at one time. My H was living with OW and started saying his visitation with the kids would be at her place. It made me sick. Sick.

So, how can we protect our kids when our spouses take them around OP (which legally, they can do)? My thoughts are these... first, we need to find peace within ourselves about it. It's so hard, becuase this is the person who "stole" our spouse from us, and now they're getting involved with our kids. So, we need to find inner peace about it. We need to accept that there's nothing we can do if our spouse choses to do this.

Once we reach that point of acceptance, we will be in a more sound place. It is at this time that I recommend talking to our spouse in a calm and reasonable fashion about how this could impact our children. Perhaps reach some sort of agreement about how often, where, what types of PDA is exhibited in front of the kids, etc...

Third, we need to have open conversations with our kids about what is happening (depending on their age), WITHOUT bashing OP or WAS. Hard to do, I know. But it will benefit the kids in the end.

In my case, what I struggle with is the constant instability of my sitch. My h is here, he's gone, he's on the couch, he's in the bed, etc... My H has been so unstable for the last year and a half, that my 4 year old gets confused. He asks everynight, "is daddy sleeping here tonight?" He doesn't know what to count on.

My approach... I've just started telling S4 that mommy and daddy are trying to work some things out. And that we may not sleep in the same bed sometimes and sometimes daddy sleeps at his place, but it's only because we're trying to figure stuff out. When H does leave, I tell them that daddy isn't feeling well and he's trying to find a way to get better.

I also make sure to tell them that even when daddy isn't here, he thinks about them all the time and he loves them and mommy very much.

Is all this the right approach? I don't know. But it's the only way I can think to protect my kids from the madness.

We are all in such difficults positions. We are dealing with our own heartache. And at the same time, we have to go into protect mode for our kids and put up a strong front. We have to put our own emotions on hold for the sake of our kids.

In the end, this makes us all stronger. It makes us better parents. It makes us better people.

So, if anyone else has any thoughts on how we can help our kids through these various situations, please share.

[Lissie]

I am so, upset by all of this ,that I see my self, trying to change laws, and have a Lifetime movie about the story of my life, and how I brought down these OW's (sigh)


The only thing we can do seems like prayer, and honesty.

My situation is very hard, b/c Puffy will not, can not, co parent with me. He is a compulsive liar, and he does not have the best interest of the children in mind.

B/c his mind does not work.

So i have totally let go of the fact that he will help me with anything.

Now, How can I be the sole parent to give the "right" advice to my kids.

I don't know, that is when I call in the troops of my family.

I let them around the kids, and the kids have pretty much a good idea, that the whore is not their mother, and that how papi is with her is wrong.(even tho Puffy says it is a friend)

No Louie is a friend of mine that is male. And Louie is not hidden, Louie is part of the family. Louie is a real friend.

Do I ever say that your father is a bad person? never. But what he is doing is wrong.

But even tho he is doing it, it does not mean he loves them any less.

But My son said, but if he left us, and that is a sin, then he does not love us as much as you love us.

I said buddy, I am so sorry you feel that way, let's pray that we all just make the best decisions.

B/c I learn everyday.

There is nothing legally to stop this BS.

This is why there is so much Divorce in this damn country, b/c morality has gone out the window.

The kids see it, and then they think it will be ok to, do this to their families.

My brother tried to tell my mom, that he wanted to leave his wife once, she hit him on the head with a broom and told him , his wife and kids will live with her, and he can have a good life.

B/c he never saw any disrespect like that in our home, and she would be damned if he was going to bring that type of disrespect around any of us.

He didn't leave his wife.


My father would of never have had the balls to disrespect ME, by doing what Puffy is doing.

But like my dad says. When puffy's dad did this to him, Puffy had no where to look to for advice, or a good parenting role model.

His mother in turn dated everyone under the sun, he saw different men coming in and out of his life.

And he thought that this was the norm

It isn't.

I will sacrifice orgasmsm with some guy, if I have to, as long as my kids are ok and safe. That is not a big deal to me at all.

They are my priority, and double time , b/c their father is lost soul.

So I think if anybody has come up with a good way of handling this crap, when it comes to these OW please share it.

I will post all the links I have been reading.

They met the OW once, but Puffy has told me that he will bring them around her before the D.

So this is something I have to brace myself for, so I am reading as much as I can about it.

And sadly i have to say, that the kids are traumatized in these cases, with all I read.

Even if the OW is playing "nice" it does not matter.

These meetings are breeding the wrong message in our children, and it is breeding a society of horrible moral.

But all i can do is my best in MY home.

Thank you for starting this thread, I am looking forward to all the suggestions.

[MidwesternGirl]

The thing about kids is that you cannot hide what is going on or shelter them.

They are very smart.

From the very beginning my H admitted to the A but kept it up.

He certainly seems to be a one of a kind in that he has never introduced the kids to OW and also, he and OW do nothing except go out to dinner once in awhile. I know this to be true and he has no $$$ to wine her and dine her.

I do not worry about his taking the kids out because I know he would never bring her around or have her meet them somewhere.

He has never said he wants them to meet her either and she has never said she wants to meet them that I know of.

I feel for all of you whose spouses have introduced your kids to the OP because I do not think it is right at all. Of course, the MLCers are not in their right minds either.

[MotherMovingOn]

Steve has posted some good links about parenting children during divorce/separation, but I can't find the link. Here is a good one though, and there are lots of others:
http://www.childrenanddivorce.com/

I think this is a very important topic peaceful spirit, I'm glad you started the conversation and I very much agree with what you wrote.

~Althea

[Lissie]

http://www.divorcecare.org./dc4k/


http://homeword.com/

http://www.yenra.net/catholic/prayers/parentsprayer.html

http://www.womansdivorce.com/children-and-divorce.html

[peaceful_spirit]

Great links.

Lis mentioned something very important that I forgot... letting go and accepting means giving it to God. Trusting in Him and His plan for us and for our children. That will be the other key element to helping our kids through this.

Also, I think that if our spouse is not being a good role model for our kids, we can look to friends or extended family to be a positive role model. I am fortunate in my life to have a great father and brother who my boys can look up to. I also have a two very close male friends. I say male becuase i have boys and I think thta role models often come in the form of a same-sex family member or friend.

I do think that being honest with our kids is important. But I also think we need to filter it at times, depending on their age. If they're teens or adults, total honesty is probably a good thing. In my case with very young kids, I try to be as honest as I can in a way that they will understand and not be scarred.

[peaceful_spirit]

I came across a book the other day, and I plan to order it. What I read of it really spoke to me.

Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

Here's an excerpt:
"That's because good parenting requires more than intellect. It touches a dimension of the personality that's been ignored in much of the advice dispensed to parents over the past thirty years. Good parenting involves emotion.

In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships. For parents, this quality of "emotional intelligence" -- as many now call it -- means being aware of your children's feelings, and being able to empathize, soothe, and guide them. For children, who learn most lessons about emotion from their parents, it includes the ability to control impulses, delay gratification, motivate themselves, read other people's social cues, and cope with life's ups and downs.

"Family life is our first school for emotional learning," writes Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence, a book that describes in rich detail the scientific research that has led to our growing understanding of this field. "In this intimate cauldron we learn how to feel about ourselves and how others will react to our feelings; how to think about these feelings and what choices we have in reacting; how to read and express hopes and fears. This emotional schooling operates not just through the things parents say and do directly to children, but also in the models they offer for handling their own feelings and those that pass between husband and wife. Some parents are gifted emotional teachers, others atrocious."

What parental behaviors make the difference? As a research psychologist studying parent-child interactions, I have spent much of the past twenty years looking for the answer to this question. Working with research teams at the University of Illinois and the University of Washington, I have conducted in-depth research in two studies of 119 families, observing how parents and children react to one another in emotionally charged situations. We have been following these children from age four to adolescence. In addition, we are in the process of tracking 130 newlywed couples as they become parents of young infants. Our sties involve lengthy interviews with parents, talking about their marriages, their reactions to their children's emotional experiences, and their own awareness of the role emotion plays in their lives. We have tracked children's physiological responses during stressful parent-child interactions. We have carefully observed and analyzed parents' emotional reactions to their kids' anger and sadness. Then we have checked in with these families over time to see how their children developed in terms of health, academic achievement, emotional development, and social relationships.

Our results tell a simple, yet compelling story. We have found that most parents fall into one of two broad categories: those who give their children guidance about the world of emotion and those who don't.

I call the parents who get involved with their children's feelings "Emotion Coaches." Much like athletic coaches, they teach their children strategies to deal with life's ups and downs. They don't object to their children's displays of anger, sadness, or fear. Nor do they ignore them. Instead, they accept negative emotions as a fact of life and they use emotional moments as opportunities for teaching their kids important life lessons and building closer relationships with them.


Here's a bit about effects of emotional coaching in divorce...


With more than half of all marriages now ending in divorce, millions of children are at risk for problems many social scientists have linked to family dissolution. These problems include school failure, rejection by other children, depression, health challenges, and antisocial behavior. Such problems can also affect children from unhappy, conflict-ridden homes even when their parents don't divorce. Our own research shows that when a couple constantly fights, their conflict gets in the way of their child's ability to form friendships. We also found that marital conflict affects a child's schoolwork and increases the child's susceptibility to illness. We now know that a major result of the epidemic of ailing and dissolving marriages in our society is an increase in deviant and violent behavior among children and teenagers.

But when the Emotion-Coaching parents in our studies experienced marital conflict, or were separated or divorced, something different happened. With the exception of the fact that these kids were generally "sadder" than the other children in our study, Emotion Coaching seemed to shield them from the deleterious effects suffered by so many who have this experience. Previously proven effects of divorce and marital conflict, such as academic failure, aggression, and problems with peers, did not show up in the Emotion-Coached kids; all of which suggests that Emotion Coaching offers children the first proven buffer against the emotional trauma of divorce.

This will be my focus for my kids. I can't control my H or what he does or what kind of parent or hustand he'll be. But I can control how I raise my kids. It gives me a greater sense of peace in my ability to positively shape my kids even though their parents may or may not be together.