Making the difficult decision to get a divorce or being told by your partner that things are over, is a hard time in your life. You need to, however, find healthy ways of dealing with it. This ordeal is made all the harder when you have children involved and you need to consider their feelings and wellbeing alongside your own.
As a mother, you will instinctively want to shield your children from pain, but a divorce is an exception to this rule, the best thing you can do is to reduce the hurt they feel, rather than contribute to it. To help you out and take some of the weight of responsibility off of your shoulders, this quick guide will give you some pointers about how you can make this process easier on your little ones.
Taking the right steps for you and your children
The first thing you need to be crystal clear on is that a divorce is always better than being around an unhappy marriage where children are concerned. To take the right steps for your children, you need to seriously consider what is going to happen when it comes to custody.
Ideally, if the breakup of your marriage is amicable and mutual, then there will be no reasons not to file for shared custody and simply have your lawyers help you figure out who sees the kids and when. However, this is not always an option, so you need to know a.) why you might file for full custody, and b.) how to do it.
Grounds for full custody
Before you can move forward with the process, you need to know what the grounds are for full custody are. If your current spouse is:
-
An unfit parent
-
A parent who gets into heated arguments with you
-
The child’s preference
-
An absent parent
Then you have the grounds to be the sole custodian.
Taking the right steps to get the best result for your children
If the above applies to you, then the next step you need to take is to get in contact with child custody lawyers who will be able to help you get through the process smoothly.
It is also vital that you get a reputable lawyer to help you make the best choice for your children. During a divorce, emotions are running high, and children can often be thrown around in an attempt to hurt the other person, but this is never the right thing to do and can deeply hurt your kids.
Help your children through the process
As the process begins, your other responsibilities don’t stop, and, in fact, you will find you need to be there for your children even more. You need to make a proactive effort to understand what your children might be going through so that you can comfort them better.
All kids will deal with their emotions in different ways, so try to stay attuned to how your children process the news and try to cope with it in their everyday life. Keep the lines of communication open and make sure there are plenty of times for family fun.