Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every little kid who had divorcing parents showed up in your class stress free? There would be no fighting, arguing or yelling. All the kids would want to be involved. They would want to form community and care for one another. The group would ooze kindness.

Impossible you say? I beg to differ. Many children who live in divorcing and stressed out families don’t know how not to be stressed. It is their way of life and, like we’ve said before, they will bring that chaos and stress with them. However, there are things we can do to alleviate some of their stress.

I want to share a few important tips I have learned down through the years.

• Always, and I mean every time, have someone at the door to greet each child and do so with a hello ritual. That might be a high-five, fist bump, hug, handshake, elbow bump or just a “Hello (insert child’s name). So glad you are joining us today.”
• Put on your most joyful face. Joy is contagious so feel free to share your joy. There is always more where it came from.
• If you don’t have a joyful face – fake it. Even faking joyful and happy feelings will help a child with a neuron-to-neuron connection. It’s called mirror neurons.
• Be prepared in advance and have everything in the room you will need and things laid out in an orderly fashion. When you leave the room, the children think you are leaving them for something more important. Nothing is more important than the children.

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One spring day I was walking in my neighborhood. As I rounded the curve I noticed a little girl that looked to be about 5 years of age, playing outside while her mom was working in the yard. When I came back around the next time the little girl was dragging out a large tub. As I passed by her house she began to pull out the garden hose.

The third time around the block, the hose was in the bucket, water was spilling out over the sides and the little girl was nowhere to be seen. In just a moment she came running out of the house and had on what appeared to be last year’s swimsuit. Evidently she had grown quite a lot over the winter.

She gleefully jumped in the tub of water. She tried to sit down in the tub. She stood, got out of the tub and walked around looking at it. With a look of determination she took a running jump and headed for the water again. No matter how hard she tried, she no longer fit in that small tub.

The little girl with her too little swim suit and the tub she could no longer fit into reminded me of a lot of single parents that have experienced a change in their lives. Some continue to try to go back and fit into their old life. Perhaps you have some single parents like that in your church. They have experienced a divorce and they just can’t quite accept how their life has turned out. They continue to try to fit into a life that no longer fits. Continue reading

Fidget Spinners are all the rage, and now Fidget Spinner Emotions will let you use a fidget spinner to help kids better understand and deal with their emotions. With kids ranging from 10 into their upper teens, I have seen first hand how they are all drawn to fidget spinners, and truth-be-told, I have a collection of them myself (though I tell people it’s only because of my work with kids).

How it works

1. Cut out the arrow pointer(s) you want to use.
2. Cut out the dotted circle and place the arrow pointer over the center of your fidget spinner. Use a piece of tape to attach it to the fidget spinner.
3. Place the fidget spinner over the gray fidget spinner outline in the middle of the emotions circle.
4. Spin the fidget spinner. When it stops, do one of the following based on the emotion the spinner lands on: Continue reading

Welcome back to Sunday Morning Strategies, a series looking at ideas you can implement in your children’s ministry and church to be more accommodating to children from disrupted homes.  In the last installment, we looked at some of the reasons it can be difficult to form relationships with kids from disrupted families.  This week, we are looking at seven things you need to do in order to overcome the barriers and develop lasting relationships with children of divorce and children from separated homes.

1. Know Your Role

In trying to develop a relationship with children of divorce, it is important that you are clear about exactly what your role is. You cannot, nor should you try to, replace a parent who has left and/or abandoned the child. You can be a friend, an advocate, a teacher, a role model, a confidant and so much more, but you will never replace that missing parents. It is important to accept that and establish those boundaries from the get go.

When dealing with hurting kids, it is natural to want to make the pain go away. Unfortunately, that is neither your role nor the best thing for the child of divorce. Dealing with pain is key to grieving process, and one of the worse things you can do is try to “happy up” the child of divorce. Continue reading

H4HK FAQs are designed to answer questions kids and teens ask when facing difficult situations and circumstances in their lives.

When your parents were married to each other, they may have talked about who you remind them of.  Maybe you look like your father or sing like your mother.  Maybe you’re more animated like your father or more analytical like your mother.  Perhaps you’ve picked up some of the habits of your father or mother that remind your parents of what the other was like when they were younger.

After your parents divorce though, these qualities may take on a whole new meaning – one that is less positive and care free.  Maybe your mannerisms remind your mother of your father or vice versa.  If she hasn’t gotten past her anger towards him, your mannerism may begin to rub her the wrong way.  Maybe you’ve heard something like:

“You’re irresponsible and inconsiderate of other people – just like your Father!”

It’s not fair of your mother to put you in that position, but then she isn’t acting like herself these days anyhow.  What can you do when one parent is irritated by your actions or your appearance or your mannerisms just because they remind them of your other parent?

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Editors Note: We are excited to welcome Kay Westwood to our team of writers at Hope 4 Hurting Kids. We have no doubt that her experience as both a parent and a mental health practitioner will be a blessing to the Hope 4 Hurting Kids community.

Sometimes we assume that anger is the only emotion in children that needs to be listened to and addressed. Many times though, particularly with children who are hurting, it is the silence that we should be listening to.

Why do children choose silence?

If you ask a child who is going through dramatic changes in their life if they’re okay, they will most likely say “yes.” Why is this, if it’s not what they mean? It’s because: Continue reading

Nationally the majority of divorced families leave the church. Some might stay and in rare situations both partners try to stay involved in the same church. But for the most part after a divorce, the family fades away never to be seen at church again.

Some of the research on adult children of divorce shows that many children are almost as disappointed with the church for their lack of empathy and neglect as they were at the parent who left the home. What can a church do to help the divorcing single parent family stay connected to the church?

#1: Learn and understand what is going on in the family

What do church leaders really know about divorcing families? Many know that divorcing families are messy. They know there is usually some fighting going on between the two people. They know there are many problems associated with the divorce. But how many really know what the problems are? What are the problems related to? I’m not saying you need to know all the lurid details but it does help to have an understanding of the situation.

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Many of the young people we work with here at Hope 4 Hurting Kids have experienced some sort of trauma in their lives. Whether we are dealing with the trauma itself or the side effects of it, it is important to understand what trauma really is and the impact it has on kids. This past week, I was listening to a podcast called the Trauma Informed Support podcast (www.tipbs.com) which included the most concise and clear definition I have heard. The podcast is directed towards teachers working with kids who have experienced a trauma, and I would expand the list of potential traumas included, but other than I think it is perfect for anyone working with young people. The name of the podcast is “What is Childhood Trauma?” Here is a transcript of the podcast which includes a link to the site.

“A traumatic event is an incident that causes physical, emotional, spiritual or psychological harm. The person experiencing the distressing event may feel threatened, anxious or frightened as a result. The term “childhood trauma” describes the problem of children’s exposure to multiple or prolonged traumatic events and the impact of this exposure on their development.

Typically complex trauma exposure involves the simultaneous or sequential occurrence of child maltreatment including psychological maltreatment, neglect, physical and sexual abuse and domestic violence that is chronic, begins in early childhood and occurs within the primary care giving system.

Experiences of elevated prolonged stress or trauma rock the very core of children and young people. In these circumstances, children are overwhelmed with the internal reactions that race through their brains and bodies. They do anything to survive, not because they want to but because they need to. They shut down their feelings. They push away memories of pain. They stop relying on relationships around them to protect them. They stop trusting and believing in others.

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Welcome back as we continue our “Sunday Morning Strategies” series designed to help you to accommodate children of divorce and children from single parent homes in your Sunday morning children’s ministry. For the last several installments, we have looked at different strategies for dealing with parents from divorced homes. In the coming weeks, we are going to look at developing relationships with children of divorce.  This week, we will examine some of the difficulties inherent in forming such relationships, and in the coming weeks we will look at some strategies you can employ to develop these relationships.

The Importance of Relationships

Relationships are key to any type of ministry. Ultimately, our goal is that the kids in our ministry will form a relationship with Jesus Christ. Toward that end, we endeavor to form relationships with these kids and to afford them opportunities to form relationships with one another. The relationships we develop with the children in our ministries allow us to speak into their lives and to model Christian living for them.

The Difficulty of Forming Relationships With Children of Divorce

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H4HK FAQs are designed to answer questions kids and teens ask when facing difficult situations and circumstances in their lives.

Next to your parents actually getting a divorce, the hardest thing you might face is when they start dating other people.  It’s weird to see your father with someone other than your mother or your mother with anyone other than your father.  And, it’s natural for you to not want your parents to date other people.  Sometimes, it’s hard to get past the “weird factor” and accept this new phase of your parents’ lives.  Hopefully your mom or dad has given you, and themselves, enough time to adjust to the divorce before they start dating.  If not, have a conversation with them about how their dating makes you feel, and try to come up with some agreed guidelines for their dating.  They are still your parent, but it’s important that they know how you feel about the situation too.

Part of the reason so many kids have trouble adjusting to their parents dating after divorce is because they still hold out hope that their parents will get back together.  Although this doesn’t happen very often, and it is very unlikely that your parents will actually get back together, many children of divorce continue to cling to a sliver of hope that their parents might reunite.  When parents start to see other people, even that small sliver of hope is dashed and that makes it hard for kids to accept.

Some kids don’t like the idea of their parents dating after a divorce because they are afraid that their parent will find someone they want to spend more time with and stop spending as much time with them. Maybe you are concerned that if your parents start dating they won’t be home at night or they’ll miss your dance recital or baseball game. Maybe you’re concerned that they won’t be home for dinner or to help you with your homework. If this is your concern, sit down and talk to your parents. Sometimes just talking about your concerns will help you to feel better, and it will let your parents know that this is something that concerns you.

Another thing that makes it hard for some kids to accept their parents dating is because they feel like they are being disloyal to the other parent when they like the person their parent is dating.  If your father has a new girlfriend, you might feel like you are rejecting your mother if you accept her and try to get along with her.  The fact is that no one can, or will, ever replace either of your parents.  You may end up with “extra” adults in your life, but your mom will always be your mom and your dad will always be your dad.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t accept the new people and their role in your life as well.

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