Learning for Court Ordered Parenting Classes for Divorce

1. Divorce Hurts Children, Even Grown Ones
In response to Mark Banschick's September Psychology Today post, "The Intelligent Divorce," there is
no such thing.
Divorce isbad, plainandsimple. I am a psychologist with an excellent education and the daughter of a
divorce. In school, I read everything I could get my hands on, academic and anecdotal.
I talkedto everyone Iknew,youngandold.Italkedtopeople whostayedinunhappymarriages.Italked
to people whohadmarriedmultiple times.Fromscientific articles to Hemingway on divorce, no source
was overlooked. Believe me, there is no such thing as an intelligent divorce.
Duringthe 70s, whenthe psychological literature first discussed the effects of divorce on children, the
general view was that divorce doesn't have to harm children. But, it does.
Children,evenintelligentonesorolderones,oftenthinkitistheirfault.There isalotof. Grades suffer. I
lost my motivation in school. My grades went down. Not studying was a form of rebellion, anger, and
apathy.
I really didn't care what became of me. Perhaps, the kid is stuck with a depressed mother who can't
leave her room, clean up the kitchen, or take the child to school.
Thischildisashamedto invite friendshome fromschool andfriendshipssuffer.Mybrothercouldn'tplay
Little League because there was no one to drive him to games. Extra-curricular activities suffer.
Then, there is the lost contact with a loved parent. Without a father around, I was very promiscuous. I
sought affection from adolescent boys. I was unsupervised and got into trouble.
There was no one to set limits, no one to ask where I was going. And there is the shame of going to
school and being the kid from a single-parent home.

2. Everyone else, it seems, has two parents watching them at the holiday school play or a family to go
campingwith.Notto mentionthe financialloss—alosthome,alostneighborhood,lostfriends. For me,
I lost my entire extended family: beloved grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Divorce hurts
children and it hurts them immediately, in the short term.
Psychological theoryof the 70swas heavilyinfluencedbyMaslow and self-actualization theory. People
believed that it was OK to get divorced for self-growth.
It was OKfor parentsto leave familiestopursue adream of happiness. This is selfish, plain and simple.
Who puts their children at risk for their own dream of happiness?
How many fathers left their own children only to adopt the burdens of someone elses' children?
Children are vulnerable. They are minors. They are dependent on an adult. Adults are supposed to be
the responsible ones.
Some people believe in hard-and-fast rules about divorce, like divorce is acceptable in the cases of
alcoholism or substance abuse.
There are no rules.Norightdivorcesandno wrongdivorces.Itis just not that simple. Divorce is a case-
by-case issue. People have told me they stayed in bad marriages with spouses, who had problems, to
protect their children.
For example,if bothparentsare livinginthe home, one can prevent the drunk spouse from driving the
kidsaround.However,if the parentsare separated, the better parent is much less able to protect their
children.

3. Many divorced spouses are in and out of court all of the time. Family lawyers are fond of saying
"litigationisrecreationfordivorcedparents."There are ugly e-mails, violent phone calls, and frequent
trips to family court.
Big threateningjudgesindarkrobestake preteensintosmall roomsandaskthemwhotheywantto live
with. "Choose your mother or father."
It is naïve to think this doesn't impact children. And, family therapists talk about mediation. Just bring
the parentsinto therapy and they can work things out. Be real. My mother? She would have come and
then she would have further blamed things on me. Children suffer.
Divorce evenhaslong-termconsequencesforgrownchildren.First,it affects their relationships. I went
intomarriage knowingIcouldleave.Statistical studies indicate that children of divorce are more likely
to divorce.
I also wascautiousabouttrustingothersbecause I knew they could leave me. Parental divorce affects
children's' future relationships. My parents' divorce still affects me today, many decades later.
It affectedme asa child,itaffectedmymarriage,andit affectsme today.Inrecent years, my father was
unavailable as a grandparent to my children because the second wife's grandchildren took priority.
Furthermore, I was cheated of an inheritance from my biological grandfather because it went to the
adopted children of my father's second marriage. They were children of his wife's first marriage.
They had no biological relation to my grandparents and this was against my grandmother's wishes.
There is no such thing as an intelligent divorce.
There are nofirmrulesabouta gooddivorce or a bad divorce.Divorce hurtschildren,even grown ones.
My parents' divorce has had lifelong effects on me and I am still feeling them.

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