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

Divorce brings with it all kinds of different emotions.  If your parents are divorced, you already know that.  Sometimes you will be sad, sometimes angry, sometimes lonely, and sometimes many other different emotions.  But, is it ok to be happy?  Shouldn’t you be upset and sad following your parents’ divorce? …at least for a little while?

Some kids are happy following their parents divorce, and that is ok!  Maybe your parents fought a lot.  That can be very stressful to you as their child, and maybe you are happy that you just don’t have to listen to it anymore.  Maybe your Dad pays more attention to you when you spend time together after the divorce than he ever did before.  That can definitely make you happy.  Maybe you’ve had to move or something else that you view your life like a big adventure, and going on that adventure makes you happy.  It doesn’t matter what it is that makes you happy, the important thing to remember is that it is perfectly acceptable for you to be happy following your parents’ divorce.  And, no one should tell you otherwise.

When you are happy, enjoy it!  Even if you are generally happy with the divorce, there will likely be times when that fades and you’re not so happy anymore.  That’s ok too.  Sometimes we are  happy, and sometimes we are not – that doesn’t change after a divorce.  The important thing is that we understand that however we feel, that’s ok.  It is also important to recognize how we feel and find someone we trust to talk to about it.  So, if you’re happy go find something fun to do and enjoy being happy.  There is plenty of time for other emotions at a later time.

With the increasing number of kids from divorced and disrupted homes, you may be left wonder how the church should respond to these changes in our society.

What We Need To Do In the Church to Help Spiritual Development

Judith Wallerstein, in The Unexpected Legacy, the Twenty Five Year Landmark Study, advocates for strengthening marriages. This can be accomplished through marriage retreats, Bible studies on what the Bible says about marriages and numerous other means. We have to model good marriages for the child of divorce. We have to mentor the children in divorced families and expose them to happy and healthy two-parent families.

Doug Dees in Baker’s Hand Book of Single Parenting calls it grafting. He says to graft a single parent family with a two-parent family. Grafting is where you place or join a single parent family into the healthy two-parent family like you would graft one plant into another one. The two-parent family can help parent the child in the single parent family. The two-parent family can walk alongside the single parent.

We need to teach children what the Bible says about divorce. We don’t need to heap condemnation on them but gently explain that divorce is not God’s design for us. They need to know that God allowed divorce because of hardness of heart but that He hates divorce. He hates it because he knows how much divorce hurts everyone, including the children. However, God’s forgiveness can extend even our parents when they sin.

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

When parents get divorced, there are many things that have to be divided between them.  Things like family pictures, checking accounts, vehicles and much more is divided.  Sometimes parents agree how to split these items up, and other times a judge tells people who are divorcing how their stuff will be divided up.

The same things happens for time spent with you.  Before the divorce, you probably spent time with both parents, but after the divorce there will be some sort of visitation schedule that determines who you will spend time with and how much time you will spend with each parent.

One of the other things that gets split up in a divorce is the family’s income (how much money your parents’ earn).  The judge, or your parents if they can agree on an amount, will determine who gets what portion of the family’s income.  The goal is to make sure both parents, and houses, have enough money to live on, but this doesn’t always happen because now the same income has to support two homes instead of just one.

Sometimes one parent earns more than the other parent – maybe your dad worked prior to the marriage and your mom stayed at home or vice versa.  In that case, one parent will earn more money.  In order to make things more fair, the judge may decide that one party has to pay support to the other.  There are two types of support a judge might order – alimony and child support.

When I was a kid and had a kids’ crush on some young lady, I would often pick a daisy, a beautiful wildflower, from one of the fields on our Pennsylvania Farm. It was a superstitious way to determine if the young lady loved me. You would pull off a petal and say, “She loves me”, then the next petal, “She loves me not”, and then keep going petal after petal with the hope that when you had one last petal left the verdict would be, “She loves me”. In reality, it meant nothing.

That’s the way many hurting kids go through life, wondering if anyone loves them one day, and the next day thinking that someone might love them. We all desire to be loved by someone. In situations of divorce a child is often left feeling like Mom or Dad doesn’t really love them. After all, maybe Dad, or Mom, has deserted the family. The sense of rejection and hurt from that is incredible. No one senses it more than the children. Sometimes Mom or Dad starts dating another and that new person becomes the new center of the parents’ universe leaving the children feeling pushed aside.

Today there are thousands of hurting kids going through life thinking they are unloved and rejected. I felt that way many times growing up, and know the raw emotion in the heart. It so reflects itself in the life of the child. You may see it as depression, it can be reflected in bad relationships and acting out or in turning to drugs and sex. Often times the negative behavior is a crying out for love, “Oh I want someone to love me”. Kids may turn to gangs or some other group just seeking some form of acceptance, understanding and love – even a very questionable “love”.

These same feelings carry on well into adulthood, and if they are not cared for can lead to some pretty dangerous places. There are those sitting in prison today that were on a search for acceptance and love. There are unwed Moms who were just seeking for someone to love them, and mistakenly thought sexual pursuits would provide it, only to find it did not. Some kids have made the ultimate decision to end their lives, all because they felt as though no one loved them and no one ever would.

Judy Blore, a bereavement expert, in her article, “How to Help a Grieving Child” says,

“Grief is an agony for anyone, any age, any maturity, any faith. Grief takes time. It is a process of letting go of something familiar and taking hold of something in the future.”

Have you ever considered the child of divorce or separating cohabitating parents as being in agony? Judy also says,

“Children will generally exhibit one of three behavioral responses to changes in their lives: they will act out, withdraw, or become the responsible manager of the family. Many, including myself, think that the third option is the most dangerous.”

The same thing can be said about the child of divorce, and I agree with Judy on the third option. For the child with splitting parents who has to take on the role of manager of the family, it only gets worse with time as one or both parents start to date. Now the “manager” tries to protect younger siblings, or they might become the confidant or best friend of the parent, a role that is too much of a burden on young souls.

This week our church has had Vacation Bible School, or as it is known in church circles “VBS.” Rooms throughout the church are decorated from top to bottom. Teachers have been trained. Supplies, snacks and treats are ready to go. Music videos have been practiced, and the gospel has been adequately presented. Every day kids come in with big smiles on their faces. They have laughed, danced, sung and shouted out the scriptures. As they leave each day we high five, do a fist bump and even hug many of them.

There has been one thing missing from our VBS though – there are very few children from divorced homes attending our VBS. I know these kids are in our community. After all, they are in every community. So, why aren’t they at VBS? I imagine most of your VBS programs are experiencing a similar dilemma.

Have you taken time to check your registration forms to see what the family make up is for the kids attending your VBS? More than likely you’ll discover that kids from divorced homes are largely missing. Why are there not more children from divorced families attending VBS nationwide? Have you ever wondered about it?

Years ago when I operated a child care in Oklahoma, I offered to transport children in our program to a local church for VBS. While the parents wanted their kids to attend VBS, they were working during the day and couldn’t take off from work to get them to and from the church. The most appreciative parents were those of the kids in single parent homes. Many of these parents didn’t attend church themselves, but they wanted their kids to go to VBS.

Many children’s leaders feel that children from divorced homes exhibit challenging behaviors. That might be because these children seem distracted. Or they just sit there with a blank stare and you are sure they aren’t hearing one word that is said. Or is it because these kids are hyper? They move and fidget and distract other kids. They try to run away or they yell, scream and even spit sometimes.

Have you ever come across a child that you are sure is …. uh….. well… to put it bluntly ….demon possessed or filled with an evil spirit? We read about demon-possessed and people filled with an evil spirit in the Bible.

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

It is very common for children whose parents have divorced to hope that their parents might get back together.  Most children of divorce experience this at some point following their parents’ separation.  This desire might last for a long time, and you may get angrier and angrier when it doesn’t happen.  Some kids even try to make deals with their parents or with God.  They might say,

God, if you let my parents get back together, I promise to keep my room clean and never to fight with my sister again.

Or, they might think to themselves,

If I just chip in more and do my chores, then my parents will see the improvement and want to live together again.

I like to think of the brain system as the “brain train”.

A Quick Review

The caboose (the brain stem) is the train car attached to the rear of the train and used primarily by the train crew. In older days, back when trains actually had a caboose, it was used as a place of protection where soldiers, or the crew, were stationed to protect the train from raiders and robbers and keep it safe. The brain stem is all about fight, flight or freeze. The brain stem asks,

“Am I safe?”

The passenger car (the limbic system) is the place where the people ride on the train and enjoy each other’s company. The limbic system is all about emotions and asks,

“Am I loved?”

When your parents divorce, your entire world changes.  Many times, you are find out or are given information about one parent or the other which impacts your view of them.  Perhaps one of your parents made bad decisions which and betrayed the trust of your other parent causing the divorce.  Sometimes, your parents’ actions will cause you pain. You may even feel like between you and your parent, you are the one acting like the adult these days.  Given all of that, how can you continue to respect and honor your parents?

Separating the Person from the Position

It is important to separate the the person from the position in your effort to respect and honor both of your parents.  Despite the actions of your parents, they have been put in your life and given the position of parent.  You can respect and honor that position regardless of the acts of the individuals in those positions.  Put another way, even though you’re your mother’s actions have left your father depressed and despondent, you can still respect her role as mother when it comes to setting rules and boundaries.