#divorce

How Child Custody Arrangements Have Evolved Over Time

Though child custody arrangements have evolved, click through to where adult children of divorce discuss their own experiences.

Getting Divorced? Self-Care During the Holidays

Let’s talk about the holidays- if you are going through a divorce, the holidays can be an emotional time for you. Whether it’s your first year without your kids, or the 10th year without them, it’s difficult to face the holidays alone. If it’s the first year you may be feeling isolated and alone. You might worry that your kids are going to miss you. Preparation is key. Here are 10 tips for spending the holidays alone: If you won’t have your kids with you, ask your family to a

Speaking Out: Voices of Adult Children of Divorce on Parentification

This is the 6th in a series of blogs on this topic. This has been a tough blog for me to write. Every time I schedule time to write about “Parentification”, something comes up and I’m grateful for the distraction. I think it’s because the idea came from the realization that my siblings and I often play a “parenting role” with each other. It can be easier to rely on your sibling and not have to choose a parent for guidance. It wasn’t a question on my original survey so I revis

Speaking Out: Voices of Adult Children of Divorce

“The divorce was officially referred to in our house as "the war." If something was gone and missing it was "oh well, we lost it in the war." Amy This is the fourth in a series of blogs on this topic Children of divorce may feel like they have two separate identities. The child may behave or act a certain way depending on which parent he or she is with at the time. Given the freedom to make their own rules, parents are setting up their homes the way they wish to for the fir

Speaking Out: Voices of Adult Children of Divorce

This is the third in a series of blogs on this topic. In my first blog of this series, I wrote about how parents told their children about the divorce (from the adult child's perspective) and how it felt to have divorced parents. In the second blog, I asked people what was the most difficult situation they faced as a result of their parents’ divorce. Today we look at the positive outcomes of divorce as felt by the adult children of divorce. If couples are unhappy in a marriag

Speaking Out: Voices of Adult Children of Divorce

This is the second in a series of blogs on this topic. In the first blog of this series, I wrote about how parents told their children about the divorce (from the adult child's perspective) and how it felt to have divorced parents. As I mentioned, I am a teacher for the court-required parent education classes for divorcing or never-married parents. The goal of the class is not to teach people how to parent but how to co-parent with their ex-partner. I liken the relationship

Speaking Out: Voices of Adult Children of Divorce

“It doesn't matter how old you are when parents divorce, in my opinion. It's always painful. It's a break, a rift, a severing of what was…” Lisa This is the first in a series of blogs on this topic. In Massachusetts, parents going through a divorce are required to take a parenting class. I’ve been teaching this class one to two times a month for the last year and I find that when I share with the participants that I’m a child of divorce, and have been for 45 years, they have

Space Matters

I was doing a role play at a Parenting class last night and one participant noted that I had asked my co-teacher to sit down before we started. During the role play, when he aggressively asked me why I was always late, it was less intimidating since we were in the same physical space, looking each other in the eye. I’ve always been interested in power dynamics and think carefully about how the room should be set up when meeting with clients. Since I’m a “couch surfer”, rentin