Shield Your Child – Chapter 10

Lesson:

Your child’s psychological well-being and self-esteem are tied to how they view each of their parental figures. This is because your child’s self-esteem is not separate nor fully developed. Sadly, many divorcing parents will either intentionally or unintentionally harm their children when they speak poorly of the other parent. Your child’s sense of self depends upon the two of you. If they are told that one parent is immature, cruel, or irresponsible, the child will fear they have these same negative qualities. Children fear they are worthless or unlovable if one parent walks out of their life. Similarly, when your child hears these negative comments, they fear they too are damaged. 

Parents often believe they provide positive encouragement about the other parent to their child. Unfortunately, we can quickly negate all those positive words with one negative comment or hostile body language. For your child’s emotional well-being, you must help them view the other parent in a positive light. You may be thinking right now that the other parent is horrible, and you want to warn your child about them. This is a huge mistake. Instead, let your child figure out exactly who the other parent is without any help whatsoever from you. You may think this sounds like lying to your child, but it is not.

Consider your child walking in from school angry and complaining that their teacher is smart enough to be a teacher. Your child is disillusioned, and confused. Would you encourage them to go back to school and tell their teacher what they really think about them? Of course not, you would empathize with your child but remind them to manage their negative feelings and act respectful. Is this asking your child to be dishonest, or is this just using good sense and good parenting? Learn to show value in the other parent. This is truly a gift to your child.