TBT -- Diverse Divorce... What have your kids faced?

This week, I'm featuring a guest blogger on Throwback Thursday. I'm reposting because this is such a relevant subject for many of you. This post originally appeared in 2013.

 

 

Today, I'm happy to welcome guest blogger, and writing colleague, Lisa Lawmaster Hess. Lisa spent years as a school counselor and shares about a special group she ran for kids dealing with divorce. As many of you have children facing these issues, I asked Lisa to write a guest post for me. Please see her bio below for info about her book, Diverse Divorce.

 

When I was a school counselor, one of my favorite small groups to run was my group for children of divorce. Early on, I used a literal definition to identify potential group members, but it didn't take me long to discover that children of divorce don't define themselves in legal terms, or even in adult terms.

Children who joined these groups were united more by their sense of loss than any specific, adult-centric rules about what constitutes divorce. While I certainly had children whose parents met the legal definition of "divorced" or "separated" in these groups, I had just as many group members who'd lost a significant adult to the breakup of a relationship that did not include marriage. Some of these children had never met one of their parents -- usually their father, for obvious reasons -- while others had lost contact because their parents or parental figures were incarcerated, disinterested or simply gone. 

 

Parental figures weren't limited to biological mothers and fathers. They were boyfriends, girlfriends, aunts, uncles, stepparents and grandparents as well. I had some children in my group who'd never experienced a marriage that stayed together; their parents were divorced or never married, as were grandparents, aunts and uncles. These children of broken relationships had many concerns in common, and often struggled with the same issues again when a new paramour or stepparent left, unable to sustain the romantic relationship, let alone be a parental role model.

 

Please understand -- I'm not trying to redefine marriage or family -- just saying that children look at parental loss differently. For my kids, the “who” was less important than the “what.” Someone they loved was gone, and they were hurting. There was a hole in their lives where a grown-up had been and they felt as though they were the only ones in the world who felt the way they were feeling.

 

Depressed? Don't be. Remember how I said these groups were among my favorite ones to run? That's because the support these children provided for each other was unrivaled. Once they got over their astonishment ("you mean someone else feels this way, too?"), they bonded. They shared. They asked questions that were both surface and probing out of genuine interest and a desire to help, and many formed friendships within the group that extended beyond our meetings and into the real world of classroom and playground.

 

And these kids never ceased to amaze me. They shared openly (more openly than some of their parents would have liked, I’m sure), respected the privacy rule that was the group’s foundation, and formed bonds that allowed them to help one another in a way no one else could. In the safety of my office, they laughed, cried, built pillow forts, chided each other and sympathized. I will never forget the meeting where one eleven-year-old looked at another (who was proudly recounting how she went out of her way to make her father's girlfriend unhappy) and said, "Don't you want your father to be happy?"

 

"Of course I do," the second one replied.

 

"Then why are you so mean to his girlfriend?"

 

Why indeed.

 

One refrain I heard over and over from my group members was that before they came to the group, they never knew that anyone else felt the same way they did. And it was precisely that shared experience, that mutual sense of loss that made the privacy rule redundant. These kids didn't share each others' secrets, not only because they didn't want anyone sharing theirs, but because to do so would be a betrayal.

 

United by the common thread of loss, these kids used that thread to build a web of resilience, one I hope will sustain them in future relationships. I know that during the time they spent in my room, they learned to sustain themselves and one another, and many days, their infectious compassion sustained me as well. We had a great deal of fun discussing a subject that was not so much fun, and I hope the connections they made taught them a little bit about respect and relationships so that as they climb out of the web of elementary school, they know not only what to look for in a friendship, and by extension, a romantic relationship.

 

Someday.

Lisa Lawmaster Hess is a transplanted Jersey girl who spent 27 years as an elementary school counselor, and is now trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. Her current roles as wife, mother, author and instructor/speaker keep her both busy and happy.

 

Lisa is the author of Acting Assertively and Diverse Divorce, both inspired by her interactions with her students. Her first novel, Casting the First Stone, was released in 2014 and is available in paperback and on Kindle.

 

An organizational work-in-progress, Lisa enjoys teaching and speaking on unique ways to get organized, and is at work on a book on that topic. She continues to write articles and novels as well.

Parenting styles -- authoritative vs authoritarian

Many of us choose to parent differently than our own parents did, while others repeat the patterns established by their upbringing, both good and bad. Today, guest blogger, Lisa Lawmaster Hess, weaves some parenting lessons in with a quick peek into her new novel, Casting the First Stone. 

 

Warmth, Control and Style

An unexpected pregnancy at sixteen marked the end of Marita Mercer’s privileged upbringing. Quietly dismissed from the Christian school she’d attended since kindergarten, she was forced to complete her high school education at home. The combination of lack of contact with school friends, a changing body and the prospect of impending motherhood curtailed what had once been a very active social life, one in which Marita had done whatever she could to rebel against the restrictions imposed by her parents. And while Marita’s parents were willing to support her and her baby daughter Charli financially, any support was on their terms -- the same terms Marita had spent her adolescence trying to redefine.

Living an adult life in her childhood home, Marita was anxious to get out from under her parents’ control. The older Charli got, the more Marita felt the clash between the parenting style that had defined her life and the one she wanted to use with Charli. The college experience she’d always dreamed of was no longer a viable option -- not if she wanted to be hands-on in raising her daughter -- and law school (her father the judge’s dream, not hers) was replaced by an associate’s degree and a court reporter’s license -- the fastest and most palatable path Marita could pave to employment and a home of her own.

Marita is a fictional character, the protagonist in my novel, Casting the First Stone, but her situation is not unlike that of many young, single mothers. Unable to afford homes of their own, or to juggle the demands of motherhood, school and work, they raise their children in their parents’ homes. Food, shelter and emotional support become a trade-off for independence, and co-parenting between parents and grandparents living under the same roof often leads to inconsistency and disagreement.

Psychologist Diana Baumrind classified parenting styles along two dimensions: warmth and control. Although her initial studies are nearly 50 years old, psychologists today still believe that an authoritative parenting style (high degree of warmth, high degree of control) predicts the best outcomes for children. More recent studies have indicated that children raised by authoritative parents are academically successful not just in elementary school, but into college as well. In other words, Marita’s choice of parenting style for Charli could mean that her daughter’s future would be very different from her own.

Although Marita would have had no knowledge of -- or interest in -- Baumrind and her studies, she knew how she wanted to raise Charli. Raised in an authoritarian (low warmth, high control) home, Marita learned quickly that she had little choice but to say and do what her parents expected -- at home. She had no qualms about making her own rules, however, whenever she thought she could get away with it. Marita was certain that she wanted a different relationship with her daughter. Although her parents were less strict with Charli than they’d been with Marita, Marita knew that the only way to avoid a style clash was to raise her daughter on her own.

Fortunately, that opportunity presented itself when Charli was small, and though Marita was operating out of pure instinct, her instincts were good. By the time she turned twelve, Charli was an independent, happy child who had friends and did well in school. Despite a less-than-desirable start to her life, Charlotte Mercer Alessio benefited from the parenting she received from a mother whose personal choices may not have been the best, but whose parenting choices were right on the money.

Parenting is a tough job, and most parents, like Marita, receive no instruction, except the experience they’ve gained from their own upbringing. Some young parents mimic the style in which they were raised; others, like Marita, rebel against it, perhaps (unlike Marita) even becoming too permissive in an effort to spare their children the oppression they felt when they were growing up.

It would appear to be common sense that children need both love and structure (what Baumrind dubbed warmth and control). Common sense or not, the research (so far) is clear and the results are evident. Children raised in authoritative households fare better than their peers raised in authoritarian, permissive or disengaged households. Taught limits, the children of authoritative parents are more apt to exercise self-control. Allowed to speak up and negotiate respectfully, they are more likely to become competent and persistent. Taught that their opinions are valued, they are more likely to value the opinions of others.

Admittedly, achieving this parenting balance is much easier in fiction than it is in real life. And when a fictional character misbehaves or annoys, the reader can just close the book and walk away. In the real world, we have to consistently afford our children both the warmth and the limits they need, even when they misbehave or annoy.

Fortunately, the real world rewards we receive for our efforts are far more fulfilling than those of the fictional variety. 

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Lisa Lawmaster Hess is a transplanted Jersey girl and former elementary school counselor. She is currently an adjunct professor of psychology at York College of Pennsylvania.

Lisa is the author of Acting Assertively and Diverse Divorce, both inspired by her interactions with her elementary school students. Her first novel, Casting the First Stone, was released in January 2014.

Lisa's first guest post, Diverse Divorce... What have your kids faced?, can be accessed here. 

 

Her second guest post, Being Assertive without the Army Boots, can be accessed here.