Greetings… I heard a paediatrician say recently that research indicated divorced parents get their post-divorce relationship right for their kids about a third of the time. Those parents who struggle (but occasionally succeed) to have a decent relationship with each other make up another third. The last third are apparently disaster zones; they have destructive, warring relationships with each other and the kids suffer greatly as we’d expect.
I’m sure we can all identify divorced parents we know that fit neatly into these three generic groups.
The worst extreme of the latter example is, of course, those headlining stories in national news bulletins where father or mother tragically murder their kids or former spouses.
Think for a moment… Only one third get it right for their kids.
Isn’t that sad? The best possible scenario for the kids of divorced parents is that these parents simply get it right--one could argue this is a basic right for all children--to be raised effectively and with unconditional love, with good relationship modelling at hand.
We see here a continuum with effective team-parenting at one end and destructive, selfish, life-threatening parenting at the other. With continuums there is the obvious range between these vast poles. The former side of the continuum (effective team-parenting) requires much humility and selflessness on the part of both parents. When we think about it, fair’s fair, it is an obligation to get it right for one's kids.
So, what do divorced parents owe their children?
Divorced parents needn’t be best of friends with each other, but they do have some obligation to play as a team for their kids’ sake.
No matter the circumstances of the divorce, parents who’ve failed at their marriages with children do owe their kids--a lifetime. This is not to make these parents feel guilty; guilt has nothing to do with it. But amends has.
The greatest duty one parent has for their children in the divorce situation is to do whatever is humanly possible to shatter the generational curse on these young lives. Bringing up well-adjusted kids to be adults of value should be the primary aim of these parents’ lives.
Well-adjusted kids are built from cooperative and humble team-parenting with heapings of unconditional love.
I wish you, the reader, well as you ponder these thoughts. I certainly will. God’s blessings to us both in that.
Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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