Returning to school after their parents’ have separated or divorced can be difficult for any child. You can ease the transition, however, by opening the door to the many resources available to you through the school. The key here is in forming a cooperative relationship with key personnel.

Making your child’s teachers aware of a major change in your home environment is helpful both for them and your child. That’s because school is really a second home for children in our culture.

Regardless of their age, children can’t be expected to turn off their emotions during or after a divorce any more than their parents can. Fear, insecurity, shame, guilt and other emotions are usually triggered when a parental marriage ends. These complex feelings can affect a child’s focus, self-esteem, relationships with their friends as well as their academic performance.

Many children trust and feel safe with their teachers. By talking to the teacher in advance and explaining the status of your post-divorce arrangements, you can go a long way toward helping your child feel more secure or less alone.

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Many children’s leaders actually end up discouraging the very children we want to encourage and should be encouraging. Our conversations can set the stage for discouragement by how we approach a subject or by the very words we use. When children are discouraged their fears are stirred up and their sense of failure becomes paramount in their minds.

Kids who are fresh in the divorce experience may already feel a sense of failure. They may think the reason a parent left is because they weren’t good enough and they begin to measure everything they do by this plumb line. Karen Stephens says,

“Kids can become so stressed they freeze, cry, give up, or quit trying all together …”[1]

It is the child’s perception of the situation and a child’s perception is never wrong because it is how they perceive things to be.

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Welcome to Fidgets 101. In this series, we will review a variety of fidget toys over the coming months. Before we do that though, an introduction to Fidgets 101 is in order. Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the last couple of years, chances are that you’ve played with, seen or heard about Fidget Spinner. They burst onto the scene in the Summer of 2017, seemingly out of nowhere, and became the focus (pun intended) of young people everywhere. Fidgets, though, have been around forever. From the Chinese baoding balls (sometimes called Chinese Stress Balls) created in the 14th century to greek worry beads known as kompoloi which were used by monks 800 years ago to todays fidgets spinners and cubes, there have always been outlets for human’s insatiable need to fidget.

What is A Fidget?

A fidget is any sort of object that people fiddle with to help them to maintain their focus on something else. As described in more detail in the video below, a fidget is a kind of coping mechanism.

The science is still out on why fidgets work. One theory is that fidgets occupy our “floating attention.” We all have what is called “floating attention” which is that little bit of attention that is placed away from our principal activity no matter what we are doing. For some people, their floating attention isn’t well regulated and gets spread across tons of activities. Using a fidget gives that “floating attention” something to focus on which allows you to focus better on the primary items of focus.

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The teen years can be a particularly hard time for children to experience the divorce of their parents.  “Helping Parents and Teens Adjust to Divorce” from Risa Garcon explains why and offers some practical advice to both parents and teens. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Divorced parents of teens often wonder if their children’s behavior and family relationship challenges are due to simply being a teen or due to the separation or divorce. A simple answer is that it may be both. A more honest answer suggests that it will depend on both the parent and the child. Some parents say that it depends on the day or the hour.

Certainly, adolescence is a time of working toward independence and establishing an identify separate from each parent’s. This change doesn’t occur suddenly; it happens over time. Everyday tasks that were once prescribed by parents now may become a point of contention with the child, including how bedrooms are kept, when homework gets done and how parents monitor their adolescent’s whereabouts. If a parent has built a fairly healthy relationship with a child in the past, the parent and child may continue to have a civil relationship.

What happens with separation and divorce is that it makes home life more complicated. Parents are going through their own losses and have a boatload of stresses being a single parent. Parents may also mourn a loss similar to the loss their children experience — the loss of the family unit as they knew it. Teens are greatly affected by family change. Although some teens express relief that they don’t have to listen to their parents fighting anymore, many of their peers grieve the loss of their family, worry about money, worry about their parents’ well-being, worry about the family pets and feel guilty thinking that they might be part of the reason their parents are separating.

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Many children’s church workers and volunteers fall into ministering to the child of divorce. What do I mean by that? These kids show up at your church, and before you know it you are trying to figure out how to minister to them. You are usually doing it on the spot and you might not feel very confident in your ability to impact this child. You want to help them. You know you should help them. You want to bring the love of Jesus to these kids. You understand what the Bible says about the orphans. So you fall into ministering without any thought of being intentional.

Have you ever thought about the power of being intentional? And I don’t mean a far Eastern religion or the power of intention mind-set that you find all over the Internet. You know if you just think on this and intend for it to happen it will happen and how much inner energy you get from the power of intention.

I’m talking about

• The power of purpose
• Having an aim
• Having a goal
• Using a plan
• A resolve
• Being deliberate

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From kidshealth.org, “Advice For Parents Getting A Divorce” is intended to help parents who are currently going through a divorce. The article starts with the following honest assessment:

What’s the best way to help your family get through a divorce? Every situation — and every family — is different. But some stress reducing guidelines might make the adjustment a bit easier.

These suggestions can make the process less painful for kids, teens, and families. Parents will need to interpret them in their own ways; honesty, sensitivity, self-control, and time itself will help the healing process. Be patient — not everyone’s timetable is the same.

This article includes helpful advice for parents on:

• Helping kids to manage their feelings.
• Sheltering kids from adult arguments.
• Keeping kids out of the middle.
• Dealing with resistance to dating and remarriage.
• Getting help

Here is one important piece of advice from the article:

It’s important for divorcing — and already divorced — parents to sit down with their kids and encourage them to say what they’re thinking and feeling. But you’ll need to keep this separate from your own feelings. Most often, children experience a sense of loss of family and may blame you or the other parent — or both — for what is going on in their lives. So, you’ll really need to be prepared to answer questions your kids might raise or to address their concerns.

LINK: http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/talk/divorce.html

Take a moment to think of someone you care about or someone that has impacted your life in a positive way. There are a lot of people that have impacted my life – especially in ministry. When I think of one lady in particular, and how she has blessed me down through the years, I get the “warm fuzzies.”

You know that feeling where you just feel better inside, under your skin and in your heart. You feel all warm inside and right with the world. My friend has been with me through thick and thin; through divorce and death; through the good and bad. She’s in her eighties now and still relevant and intentional in ministry. She lives on the West coast and I live on the East coast, but she is always with me in my heart.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit alerts me when there is a problem. This happens so I will know to pray for her. For instance when her husband, Jim, passed away suddenly I knew instantly something was wrong. I started praying for her not really knowing why or for what. But the Lord knew. In my prayers for her I am always grateful for her friendship.

Brain research shows that when we feel gratitude or thankfulness there are chemical changes in our brains. Thoughts physically alter the brain wiring. Many times children can sense the emotional state that you are in. What might happen if when a child comes into your group you silently looked at the child and thanked God for allowing this child to be in your group? Or you looked at this child with gratitude for what he or she might teach you today about being a kid? Or as Dr. Becky Bailey says, “You wish the child well.”

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A few years back, my then nine-year old daughter (Lyndsey) and I went to her school’s Father/Daughter Mother/Son Valentine’s Day Dance. I brought her flowers and she had a corsage. I ironed a shirt and put on my suit. She got dressed up, and we headed off for the elementary school gym. When we got there (we were fashionably late), the place was packed. The second we walked in the door, my daughter announced,

“Bye, I’m going to find my friends,”

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“Helping Teens Adjust to Stepparents” from the TeensHealth portion of KidHealth.org helps teens deal with adjusting to having a new stepparent.  Many times adjusting to a parent dating and/or getting remarried can be harder than the initial divorce.  The article does not sugar coat the situation:

In some families, new adults and kids seem to fit in easily, as though they’ve been there all along. But some families brought together through marriage can be so different that the best everyone can do is grit their teeth and work hard to get through a weekend together…Sometimes a stepparent can feel like a stranger who is suddenly inserted into the most personal aspects of your life. The pressure to get along can be intense.

Despite these issue, the article presents some practical things teens can do to adjust to these new step family situations including advice on how to deal with emotions like:

• Keeping a journal
• Seeking support from a friend
• Talking to your parent or another trusted adult

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Imagine looking like your father and being proud of that fact. Perhaps at some point in your young life your grandmother proudly said to her friends,

“This is Sonny’s boy. Doesn’t he look just like Sonny?”

And all of her friends proclaim that yes you were the spitting image of your father and you even look a lot like your grandfather. A smile crept up on your face as you listened to this talk.

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