There are many high conflict child custody cases where one or both of the parents have character flaws or the parent has created a negative situation which puts emotional pressure on the children. The other parent may feel it is important to tell the children about the other parent’s flaws or the negative situation to release the children from the pressure that the other parent's behavior has caused for the child(ren).
This article is written to help you determine whether to tell your children about the other parent's flaws/ issues that may be harming your children.
For more help, please read the book written Divorce Poison, by Richard Warshak, PhD. who goes into more detail about these issues.
The court authorities and professionals involved with custody cases frown on parents sharing anything negative about the other parent with the children. The judges, counselors and family therapists believe that children should have equal access to both parents (even when one or both of the parents is/are defective or has issues that may directly harm the children).
This article is not designed to encourage parents to bad mouth, blame, or bash the other parent,
nor is it as an outline on how to brainwash the children against the other parent. Family court and psychological professionals ideally want all children engaged in divorce or a family breakup to have good relationships with both of their parents, no matter how difficult one or both of the parents may be. Unfortunately, the court professionals really cannot monitor the emotional damage to the children when one of the parents has a personality problem, such as borderline, antisocial, narcissistic or addictive behavior that interfers with their ability to parent the children. When one parent continues to place their own needs above their children’s needs, the children always get hurt.
There are times when sharing the negative information about the EX actually takes the children out of the middle of the conflict because it allows the children to stop feeling defective, guilty, responsible or confused about themselves. Describing the negative issues and discussing the parent's problem in an effective way actually helps the children realize that it is not their fault.
Often, one of the parents has whitewashed the information or lied to the children about the other parent's problem in an attempt to protect the children. Unfortunately, the children do not understand this and instead get the message from the parent that they are the ones who are so bad or so defective that they have driven the parents into the breakup or the constant fighting.
One women felt because her mother never told her why she was always mad, that it must be her fault. When she asked her mother to tell her what she did wrong, the mother was always silent. The woman interpreted this to mean that she was soooooooo terrible that her mother couldn't even speak about how awful she really was. This woman grew up having major self esteem and relationship issues. When parents ignore the child's need to know the truth, the child believes it must be their fault because they can't give the children straight answers.
Begin to tell the truth to your children. Be careful what you tell them. Be careful how you tell them, but consider that there are situations when you should tell them negative information about the other parent. One criteria for the discussion about negative information would be when a parent has a problem that causes the chilren to suffer. If the children knew that it was not their fault, it was the parent's character flaw, the childre would be relieved from the burden of feeling guilty. Telling the children would help them relieve any emotional confusion about the situation too.
When a parent doesn’t stand up to the situation and correct or discuss it with the children, they are left to believe that they are helpless and must learn by themselves to sort out right from wrong. When a parent remains silent, or makes excuses for the other parent, then the children become confused about many emotional issues. One way the children handle the confusion is to become numb to emotions, both positive and negative ones. They also do not learn the skills to sort out the truth from the lies and this causes emotional problems for them as adults.
Please go to Part 2 of this article to continue reading this article.
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