Confrontation

Children confront you with your own stuff. All parents know this and as a new stepparent I'm starting to realize how true this is.

Chris is a lively boy with an ADHD diagnosis and an indomitable will. He's alsot 13 and is practising his clout in the world. One of the ways he does this is by incessant battles of will with his mom. Also his battles are always physical, barring her way to the kitchen, taking any object and keeping it away from her, endlessly and all the time.

Joyce calls it "puppy behavior". She sais: "Every day, sometimes more than once, he has to prove to me that he's stronger than me. It's playing, it's learning his strength, trying his wings." She has endless patience with him that way and sais it's all going to go away when he get's a little older. Then he's going to start protecting his mom, just like his older brothers do. I can't wait!

What's interesting is my reaction to it all. I'm totally impatient and intolerant of this type of behavior. When I want to go to the store I don't want a 13 year old blocking my way (or Joyces). I want to do my thing and not be bothered by his endless puppy behavior. And when I tell him to stop I want him to stop, this instant!
Well, Chris isn't going to change his behavior towards his mom just because I'm around and she tolerates it, even enjoys it.

I'm learning to just go away, leave the room or even the house when they are roughhousing around like that. I always get very emotional, very angry and charged. Afterwards I cry and the penny drops: too much like the way it was in my family. The constant threat of physical violence too much for me to handle. It's not my place to to force Chris to be other than he is, that would be more of the same stuff that was done unto me. I don't want that, not for him nor for me. In those moments it's difficult for me to see a little kid trying out his strength, I see a situation that is potentially explosive and it frightens me. My personal reality from growing up in a violent home.

So I'm confronted with my own childhood... I'm learning what parents seem to know intuitively: Stepchildren are your mirror, they'll show you what's what in your life.

For the sake of the children: Divorce!

A recent study at Cornell University in New York shows that if the parents argue all the time, the children suffer. If the parents are staying together for the sake of the children, it would generally be better if they divorced. Kelly Musick studied 2000 families to determine the influence of fighting parents on the children. The results were shocking: staying together for the children is worse for them than divorcing, provided the post divorce situation is stable.

Children from high-conflict families are more likely to develop psychological problems, use drugs and have behavioral problems. Their schoolwork suffers and they are more likely to develop a drinking problem.
The problem persist well into adulthood when the adult children of fighting parents can develop selfdestructive tendencies and have a difficult time forming relationships. Musick: "I suspect that children who come from such unhappy families have never felt the warmth and security they so desperately need".

A similar study recenly done in the Netherlands shows that only 1 in 6 children of divorced families get into trouble. It showed that if the parents fight a lot, or run into financial difficulty as a result of the divorce, this is very detrimental to the childs development. It appears that it's not the divorce is the cause of their problems, but the hostile atmosphere between their parents.

A quick look around the internet shows that "the effects of divorce on children" are very well documented. There are many sites available to help the children who's parents are divorcing. It now seems though that coping with parents who stay together for the sake of the child might be a more daunting task for the youngsters involved.

I believe it's time to look at divorce rationally, instead of through the panicky eyes of failure and disaster. Roughly 40 out of a hundred marriages end in divorce, divorce is a reality and a common one at that. About 16 percent of all children of divorce experience difficulty dealing with divorce, often because of their parents inability to accept and settle into a new routine. Instead they continue the bickering long after the partnership has ended. Remember the Cornell results: Parents arguing all the time is more detrimental to the childs welfare than divorce.

How many of the 60% of marriages that last are in fact a child's hell? Staying together for the children has been demasked as the fallacy it is. If you're in a situation like that, argueing all the time, domestic violence (22% incidence) or downright abusive (10% incidence) don't let the children be the reason to stay put. For the sake of the children, divorce!

sources: cornell university study