Losing a parent to death or to divorce is catastrophic for any child. There are different issues in the grief process between the death of a parent and death of your parent’s marriage.

When a child loses a parent due to death even young children can understand the concept that the body quit working. They all come across toys or things that break and quit working. Most have experienced the death of a pet, a goldfish or an insect they have found. While I’m not comparing the death of a goldfish to the loss and the grief involved in the death of a parent, the concept I want to convey is the idea of things no longer working. The goldfish’s body quit working. The toy quit working. The body of their parent quit working. That is the beginning of understanding the death of their parent.

In the death of a parent, other family members, the church, neighbors and possibly even the co-workers of the parent surround most families. Meals are brought in; gifts for the kids might be left. The remaining parent grieves and may weep and hug their child a lot. There is a lot of support and acknowledgment of the death. Ever so slowly the family develops a new normal and life moves forward.

There is no fighting about the kids and which parent the child will live or when the child will visit the other parent. There is no confusion about the parent that died loving the child. The parent is gone but the child still knows the parent is still part of the family unit, even if he or she is in heaven. The child doesn’t question the unity that brought him or her into existence. The other parent may pull out pictures and the child sees and remembers family life and the love that existed.

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Emotions Jenga is a fun game you can play with kids to teach them about emotions. When children have a better emotional vocabulary, they are better equipped to deal with difficult emotions when life throws things at them.

Here’s how Emotions Jenga works:

• Find a colored Jenga game. We found this one from Lewo on Amazon. If you can’t find a colored version, or just want to use the traditional version, you can use colored dots or write the names of the emotions directly on the blocks.
• For each color make a stack of notes cards with a variety of emotion names on them. You can see the ones we used below. We found colored note cards at Hobby Lobby (on sale), but you could use white cards and just mark a color on them.
• The child can pick any block to remove from the Jenga game. They then pick a card from the pile associated with that color. For whatever emotion they get, have them do one of the following. You can choose one activity, let the kids pick which one they one to do, or even use a die to determine which activity the child has to do:
  • Act out the emotion on the card.
  • Show what their face looks like when they feel that emotion.
  • Share a time they felt that emotion
  • Share a coping technique/something they like to do when they feel that emotion.
  • Show what the emotion looks like in clay.
  • Describe what their body feels like when they feel the emotion.

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Divorce conflicts between parents can get ugly. And too often parents tend to vent or share this anger about the other parent with one or more of the children involved. The results can be devastating – not only for the “target” parent, but for the children, as well. This is just one form of parental alienation which is a serious and very complex set of behaviors which often feel justified by the alienating parent.

The problem is that children get caught in the middle, are often confused about being told disrespectful things about their other parent and can learn to manipulate both parents in ways that are destructive for the child’s socialization and ultimate well-being.

When any parental disagreements reach into your children’s lives, you are treading in dangerous territory with long-lasting consequences. How you handle the situation could play a crucial role in determining the ultimate outcome in your family conflict.

Here are some important strategies to consider, suggested by divorce therapists, to open the door to healing your relationship with the children you love:

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Editor’s Note: Several weeks ago, we shared with you the story of Kelley Rose Waller, a Foster mom and contributor to Hope 4 Hurting Kids in an article titled The Winding Road of Foster Care and Adoption as Kelley and her family prepared for and attended what they hoped would be the final court date for their foster son of the last two years whom they’d like to adopt. This past week, Kelley wrote the next installment in that story which we share with you now. 

We have presented excerpts from each of Kelley’s three articles below and encourage you to click-through to her blog to read the rest of the story.

Part 4: Waiting for Tomorrow

I can’t handle another emotional adrenaline rush, so I’m just enjoying today. Tomorrow we go to court. Again.

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Here at Hope 4 Hurting Kids, we strive to resource individuals who work with kids to help the hurting children in their lives. Those adults include parents, grandparent, other relatives, teachers, coaches and many others who have the ability to influence the course of a child’s life. Another important group are the dedicated men and women who work with kids week in and week out at churches all over the world. Sunday Morning Strategies is a series for those children’s pastors and children’s ministry workers to help equip them to serve children from disrupted families more effectively.

It’s easy to talk to churches about starting programs like Divorce Care 4 Kids or The Journey or referring teens to sites like Hope 4 Hurting Kids, but one of the biggest questions we get asked by people who work in children’s ministry regularly is:

What can I do on a Sunday morning to help these kids?

People who work with kids have some of the most tender hearts I have ever encountered. I have been blessed to work with these people week in and week out for years now and to meet hundreds of other children’s pastors and children’s ministry workers from around the country and the world. When you talk to these children’s ministry workers about children of divorce they will naturally empathize with them and desire to help them however they can, but many of them just do not know how or what to do.

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About the Book

Stop Picking On Me: A First Look At Bullying by Pat Thomas is part of the “A First Look At…Book” designed to help kids in Kindergarten through 3rd grade cope with different events and circumstances they may find themselves in.

Who Is This Book For

The book is meant to help kids understand bullying including who does it, why it happens and how to prevent it. The targeted age group is kindergarten through 3rd grade though we think it would be beneficial if read to younger kids and even for slightly older elementary aged kids who could read through it themselves.

Our Synopsis of the Book

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A Scream Box is a fun and effective way to vent some of those intense emotions that build up inside like anger, fear and stress. While breathing, physical activity and talking about it are great ways to help deal difficult emotions, sometimes you just need to scream! Handled correctly, this can be a therapeutic way to vent some of that frustration. Screaming however is not always socially acceptable or appropriate. That’s where the Scream Box comes in handy.

The pictures in this article are of a scream box my 13 year-old daughter made.

You can decorate your box however you want, but here are the basic steps:

1. Gather up the following ingredients:
– Cereal box (preferably an empty one).
– Cardboard tube from inside a roll of paper towels.
– Old newspaper or packing paper (regular paper or tissue paper can also work)
– Tape (duct tape works best, but packing tape will also suffice)
– Construction paper or wrapping paper to cover the cereal box
– Items to decorate your box (markers, pencils, stickers, glitter or whatever you want to use)

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In the article “Leading and Managing Kidmin Change,” Greg Baird wrote:

Fear – people are naturally afraid of change. Change is unknown, and we’re usually afraid of the unknown.

The reason this caught my attention is because it opened a door in my mind about why children’s ministers might be reluctant to want to minister to children of divorce. It is a change from the “normal” kids that usually come to our churches.

It makes sense that fear of the unknown, aka divorce, logical.

Some of these fears might include,

• Divorcing families are messy.
• Supporting divorce goes against my moral standards.
• I don’t know much about divorce except there are lawyers and angry people involved.
• How would I comfort the kids?
• How could I fit them into our kid’s ministry when they might not come on a regular basis?

I’m sure there are many other fears that keep churches from purposely reaching out to the child of divorce. Let’s look at each of these and see if we can lessen the fear for you.

Divorcing families are messy

All of us that work with children are acquainted with messy. We do messy things all the time. Silly string is messy. Art projects can be messy. Serving snacks to two-year olds is messy. When we do these kinds of things, we prepare our environment and ourselves. We are aware we will need to do some cleaning up afterwards so we move forward.

The same kinds of thoughts can hold true when starting to purposefully minister to children of divorce. Prepare yourself, and just know that there might be some cleaning up to do afterwards. Besides, not every divorcing family is messy. If a church can host a support group like DivorceCare for the adults and Divorce Care 4 Kids [DC4K] for the kids, it makes life not quite so messy for the kids after all.

Just like you wouldn’t do a messy art project with a group of kids alone, don’t do ministry to children of divorce alone. Find some kindred hearts to walk alongside you. This might be a person that you can vent to or share your thoughts with. Sometimes, we find clarity when we can talk through a situation. It would need to be someone you can trust to keep things confidential.

Supporting divorce goes against my moral standards

There is a funny thing about this thought process. Divorce goes against God’s directives and His standards too, but He still loves the divorced person. Don’t think of it as supporting the act of divorce but as loving the divorced person. What can you do to make these kids lives easier? How can you be someone who shows them the love of Christ?

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Our view of, and relationship with our earthly fathers has a lasting impact on our view and ability to relate to our Heavenly Father. This is especially true for children of divorce and children who have been abandoned by their fathers.

God the Father

The father image of God is pervasive in scripture. Indeed, the Holy Trinity consists of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Bible refers to God as Father over 250 times (primarily in the New Testament). The image of God as a personal father to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ is clear. Here is just a sampling of some of the many verses describing God as Father:

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I recently received correspondence from a young woman who is going through a divorce. She has young children aged three and five. The five-year old in particular is having issues with the divorce but burying her feelings deep inside. This article is adapted from my reply to her on how to help preschool aged children adapt to and deal with the divorce of their parents.

Introduction

Divorce is a traumatic event, and in so many of the cases, the parents get so caught up in their own struggles and circumstances that they don’t pay attention to (or even realize) what their kids are going through. Just noticing that your child is having trouble or keeping emotions buried deep inside is a significant step. The preschool years (defined roughly as aged 3 to 5) are a time of rapid development in kids. The principal focus of this article is the higher end of that range, though hopefully the advice will help with all children in this age group.

Every child is unique and every divorce is unique. How any individual child reacts will vary depending on their personality, their parents and the details of the divorce. Factors such as the length of time since the separation/divorce, the involvement of each parent in the lives of the children after the divorce, the nature of the relationship with each parent prior to the divorce, the conflict level during and after the divorce, and the addition of other major changes (like moving or changes schools) will all impact how the child reacts and copes.

Even though every child is different, and every child will experience divorce a little bit differently, there are some common reactions that many preschool aged children will experience. Even if a particular child isn’t exhibiting those reactions at a given time, there is a good chance that they will at some point.

Guilt – A Prevalent Reaction

Preschool aged children are at an exceptionally tough age when it comes to divorce. They are old enough to realize that something is drastically different, but they are not quite old enough, and don’t have the cognitive skills, to really understand what divorce is or what the ramifications of divorce are to them. Oftentimes, this will lead them to misperceive the events of the divorce. All they really understand is that Mommy or Daddy doesn’t live with them anymore. Also at this age, children are naturally egocentric. They think that the world revolves around them because they are accustomed to people meeting their every need. That is not a bad thing at this age – they are just at a stage of development where they believe that the things they do and say make the world run the way it does.

These two factors (a lack of understanding combined with a very egocentric view) oftentimes lead children to conclude that they must have done something to cause their parents’ divorce. This can lead to intense feelings of guilt that they don’t really have the capacity to deal with. Many kids will assume that the divorce is the result of something they did or didn’t do on the day they were told about the separation/divorce. The most common advice given to divorcing parents when it comes to helping children is, “Tell them that it is not their fault.” This is absolutely essential, and something they will need to be reminded of over and over again. I would not suggest using the language “your fault” because some kids will assume that when you say it isn’t their fault – it actually is. Instead find age appropriate ways to tell kids what the reason really was behind the divorce. Remind them that divorce is an adult decision and that nothing they did caused the divorce or contributed to the divorce. Repetition and consistency is important in this regard. No matter how many times you tell a child that the divorce isn’t their fault, they may still be convinced that it is. I recall one young lady who parents’ divorced years ago who explained to me that she and her sister “knew” it was their fault even though their parents said over and over that it was not. If there is another trusted adult who can help to reinforce this message both now, and as the child gets older, that might help them to accept it and not continue to blame herself.

Other Emotions

The divorce of parents brings with it a litany of emotions for all children. These emotions often represent brand new emotions to a child at this age. They likely haven’t experienced grief or loss or loneliness the way they might following a divorce. Even the emotions they are familiar with (like sadness or longing) they will experience in a deeper and more profound way following a divorce. Obviously, divorce brings with it a bevy of emotions for adults too, and though they may seem hard to deal with then, imagine what it must be like for a child who doesn’t even have the vocabulary to talk about their emotions let alone understand them.

In addition to guilt (which we’ve already talked about), there are some other very common emotions and reactions that kids this age may feel. Many kids get angry following the divorce of their parents. Some kids act out in their anger and present behavioral problems. However, many kids will turn that anger inside and not let it out. It’s important to let them know that it’s ok to be angry and provide outlets for that anger (kicking a soccer a ball or some other physical activity are great ideas).

We’ve already touched on some of the confusion that kids experience when it comes to divorce. They are confused about what is happening to their family and what is going to happen next. The best thing you can do is be available to answer any questions and provide information as needed. Things like schedules and routines also help to alleviate some of the confusion.

Another prominent emotion in children at this age whose parents divorce is fear or anxiety. They wonder if one parent left why the other one won’t leave as well. You might see some symptoms of separation anxiety when you try to leave your child at school or the baby sitter’s house. At this age, their biggest concern is what is going to happen with them. If they have experienced other changes, like a move or changing schools, this anxiety and fear can be compounded as they try to adjust to unfamiliar surroundings. They are left feeling powerless to affect the world around them. It is important that they are reassured that they will be taken care of and provided for. When they are dropped off somewhere, provide gentle reassurances that you will be back to pick them up, and provide plenty of physical affection. Kids dealing with fear and anxiety will be comforted by your physical presence.

Denial is another very common reaction in kids at this age. They have an active imagination life and may maintain fantasies about their parents getting back together. As an adult, you need to make sure that you don’t do anything to “feed” these fantasies. If a child is experiencing denial, you can’t force them to move past that, you can only help them to deal with the emotions and be there to help them cope.

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