Single parent gets depressed just thinking about the up and coming year. It has been a heavy burden just surviving this past year and now another one looms in front of them.

What can you do? How can you help? How do we minister to the single parent in a positive light and help them see the up and coming year as a transition year; a year where things are going to get better and they can draw closer to God, their children and others?

Describing a “transition year” to a single parent might go something like this:

It is the year where you put your business of parenting alone in the hands of the Lord.

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Words can be powerful when they are used in the right context. Usage of kind words can motivate children. Unkind and cruel words can hurt children. Think of the child of divorce who comes from an abusive home. Maybe the child wasn’t abused, but the spouse was – or there was a lot of shouting and crying. The words the child heard, even if the child was asleep, can negatively affect them for the rest of their lives. You should not underestimate the power of words.

In some states there is actually a law called, “In the Presence of Child.” If there is domestic abuse when the child is present, even if the child is asleep, the perpetrator can be convicted. Don’t believe words have power? Think again. Research was done in this area before these laws came into being. Make no mistake – negative words will impact a child’s inner voice for years!

Kind and pleasant words can be a driving force when helping a child to process their parent’s divorce. Commenting on the child’s effort will go a long way in helping the child understand they have the ability to work through the hurt. Praising their effort doesn’t mean you are praising their intelligence. It means you comment on their persistence in moving forward. It means you praise their effort to control their anger and how they are making strides in how to handle depression. It means you give them hope that life is going to get better. You are truthful with them, and when you are asked questions you don’t have an answer for, you let them know you don’t know.

Generic praise is the use of words that a lot of us say but which don’t have much meaning. They are actually judgmental. You know the “Good job” or “Good boy” types of praise. It is your judgment that what the child did was good.

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Why do we work with the many hurting children in our congregations? I have often thought about this issue. This really pricks my heart at holidays and special times of the year. I know most of us work with the hurting children because we love the Lord and we want to further the kingdom. But, what is the motivation year after year. I came up with the following devotional for children’s ministers with thoughts about why we do what we do.

First

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:6-7 ESV)

For every little soul that comes to church, the birth of a Savior was foretold years ago. To each of us and to all our hurting kids this Savior is called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. His peace knows no end. With this Savior, there is justice and righteousness even for the hurting child.

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We can learn a lot about adults in the lives of children of divorce when we look at the story of David fighting the Philistine, Goliath, in 1 Samuel 17:38-46. We pick up where King Saul tried to dress David in his adult clothes.

The scriptures say,

“Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. ‘I cannot go in these,’ he said to Saul, ‘because I am not used to them.’ So he took them off.”

King Saul was proud to try to dress David in his own outfit. But, when David tried walking around King Saul’s garb, the “garb” did not fit David. Of course it didn’t fit! David was a young shepherd boy. The outfit was not made for him. It was made for King Saul, not a small boy.

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Many children of divorce appear to breeze through the divorce at the time the divorce happens. Many of these are little girls who identify with their mothers. They will hide their feelings and say and do the things they think the adults expect and want from them. However, the divorce experience remains alive – but as memories that they push to the back of their minds. Little boys tend to express their frustrations and tear through their feelings using sports and active behaviors. Their negative thoughts about the divorce of their parents appear to fade away.

As girls grow into adulthood, become involved in a relationship and marry or start a family, the memories from the divorce of their parents pop back into the brain – the sleeper affect kicks in. They begin to worry if the other person in the relationship will walk away. They wonder if their marriage will fail like their parent’s marriage. The worry if they know how to be married.

They feel doomed in their relationships. They don’t know how to be in a relationship. One young woman told me she could only breathe and trust her marriage after she has surpassed the number of years her parents had been married. She said she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For 17 years she had waited anxiously, but after her 17^th year of marriage she felt she could finally relax because they were going to make it.

Judith Wallerstein, author of “What About the Kids” and a pioneer in the psychosocial effect of divorce in children says this about the sleeper effect, Continue reading