Mending broken hearts
The biggest worry for divorcing parents is how the separation will affect their children. Reem Leila listens to the available advice
Even before a divorce is finalised, many parents already feel contrition over the damage it will cause their children. Popular literature and the media constantly reiterate that divorce is harmful for kids, one of many reasons that divorcing couples often face the disapproval of relatives and friends.
Inevitably, divorce is painful for children. It requires adaptation to uncomfortable changes: two households instead of one, tightened budgets and the prospect of step-parents and step- siblings. As children inherently seek stability, none welcome such changes. According to Samia El-Sa'ati, professor of sociology at Ain Shams University, "the children feel abandoned, as if their parents have divorced them as well."
Although painful, divorce does not have to be permanently injurious to children. There is no reason for children to have to end up depressed or to lose developmental progress. There is no reason that children have to be cast into chaos or sustain trauma leading to lifelong scars. Nour Mohamed Afify is a 17-year-old student whose parents divorced nearly a decade ago. "I had to learn to accept the finality of the divorce as I started to build new relationships with each of my parents," Afify says. "It was painful but not very difficult for me to cope with my parents' divorce, as both of them helped me to overcome the expected problems."
Unlike the iron laws that govern divorce itself, sociologists and psychologists have no such absolute criteria for understanding the role of divorce in children's lives. As El-Sa'ati points out, "We [specialists] do know that the impact of divorce will vary from child to child depending on age, gender, maturity, psychological health and whether or not other supportive adults are able to be a regular part of their lives."
One danger to emotional health is the assumption by parents that children are naturally resilient and can emerge from a divorce with minimal scarring. But children of divorced parents who exhibit symptoms ranging from sleep disorders to extreme drug or alcohol abuse are saying otherwise. Specialists suggest that other key behaviours that portend trouble are struggles with school, nervous dispositions and regressive behaviour such as bed wetting or re-adopting comforting items, such as stuffed toys or even an abandoned blanket.
The first dilemma divorcing parents will face is how and what to tell their children. Said Abdel-Azim, a professor of psychiatry at Cairo University, highlights that while children can be helped, "they can never be spared". Therefore he advises parents to accept the fact that there is no pain-free divorce, neither for themselves nor their children. "Divorcing parents must find the language and words that suit the age of their child. For a young child simplicity and a minimum of details is best. Older children, however, need to know quite quickly how the break up will affect them in a practical way. For example, will it mean a change of school and will they be moving from their house," explained Abdel- Azim.
Shehab, a 12-year-old boy whose parents divorced when he was seven, says that he does not "really trust anyone. I am afraid they will run off like my father did". He wonders whether he was the reason he left.
According to Bassima Hemeda, owner of a summer school nursery, these questions appear frequently among children. "Even when children know it was not their fault they continue to wonder what they could have done to stop their parents from getting a divorce," she said. Many of the kids who attend her nursery have divorced parents. "Some parents try to brainwash their kids into thinking that divorce is not going to affect their lives. In reality, these are the kids suffering the most from feelings of loss and anger," Hemeda said. She explained these feelings are a result of illusions they are forced to digest by their parents.
Some adults like to believe that young children are unaware of what is really going on around them. Nothing could be further from the truth. "It comforts some parents to believe that if a mother or father leaves the home, the child will not suffer in any way. It is a way of consciously or unconsciously protecting themselves from knowing about their children's pain," Hemeda said.
And while children may seem to acclimatise themselves to the conditions of divorce, parents should note that in most cases they will not let go of the dream that their parents will get back together.
Fourteen-year-old Soha Ahmed, whose parents divorced when she was almost three and lives happily with her step-parents and their families, admitted that whenever one of her parents has a marriage problem she entertains thoughts of them getting back together. "I immediately have this fantasy that a second divorce will occur, followed by the second divorce of the other parent, and then my parents would remarry," Ahmed said.
While children are often able to overcome the day-to- day tension of shuffling from house to house, they still experience considerable pain around holidays and special occasions. Children also continue to struggle with whom to share their time, the mother or the father, the one whom they live with or the other who they see occasionally.
Specialists agree that the key to helping a child overcome divorce is for the divorced couple to adopt cooperative rather than antagonistic relations with each other after the divorce.
