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DEAR PARENTS: We take the view that the children are the most important resource in developing better ways to deal with high-conflict custody issues, and together with professionals in a wide range of fields, aim to develop preventive strategies that can help families cope with divorce and custody issues more effectively. The Kids Link is a tool for parents who want to better understand their children´s experiences, and for children and parents to help themselves and one another through constructive dialogue. Read through the articles and pages in this website, submit articles of your own, network with children and parents of all ages, and be a part of creating positive change in the ways divorce, custody and visitation are dealt with in our society. Visit our forum and bulletin boards and chat with members of The Kids Link. Together we can work together to create stronger bonds between all members of the family, one link at a time. Some of us are parents ourselves, and we understand the pain and devastation many of you are going through. Below are a number of articles written for parents in need of inspiration and hope. Also check out our Great Links section for links to other organizations that search for abducted children and provide support for separating parents. Great Links Your efforts on behalf of your children will not go unrewarded. This is not about mothers vs. fathers rights, or vice versa. Children need BOTH parents in their lives. Check out the Great Links section for links to other organizations that search for abducted children and provide support for separating parents.  As an adult parentally abducted as a child, I hope that sharing my story will help parents going through separation or divorce to understand the damage they do to their relationship with their children by interfering with their children´s relationships with their other parent. I just turned 4 when I was abducted by my father. My father agrees today that my mother did not interfere with my relationship with my father. He came for meals, took me on vacations and trips, and called me often. My mom took me to visit him when he worked temporarily in a different city, & I had the joy of having both parents in my life. One sunday in April, two months after I turned 4, my father came to pick me up for a day at a local park. We were all going to eat dinner together later in the day. We never came back. My father took me from Norway to the United States, and I would not see my mother again for 14 years (except for a short visit in court, but my father & I ran off a second time during trial). For these 14 years I lived the life of a fugitive, in hiding and on the run, in terror of being found by a mother who had become a stranger, and who I came to perceive as a threat because I had forgotten what she looked like. We disappeared without a trace, and I made no attempt to contact my mother during those 14 years. Only as an adult have I been able to look back and begin to understand how easily a child can be distanced, both physically but most of all emotionally, from one of their parents. Everything that once was familiar became foreign, and I clung to my father. I felt I needed to choose (a really sucky feeling for a kid), and in desperation chose the parent I had become most familiar with. After being told terrible things about her, seeds of suspicion and fear crept in. I forgot her love. I think my father didn´t want to share me with my mother. In the beginning, my father got angry when I asked for her. He told me that she would be coming soon, but was "busy" and could not come just yet. I yearned for her. When I asked to talk to her on the telephone, I was told that she did not have time to talk. And when I asked again one day, I was told that she decided not to come, not ever, and that dad would take good care of me instead. I soon learned not to mention the M word again, not even to myself. It hurt too much. As such a young child, it took a relatively short time for memories of my mother to fade. I forgot what she looked like, what she was like, and together with the hurt of feeling abandoned by her, and being told that she and her family were Nazi sympathizers and did not love me, I learned to be happy that I was away from her. Later on, told that she had changed her mind and now wanted to take me away, I willingly lived a life of hiding, terrified to be found by the person who I had lost nearly all memory of and had been taught to fear. The next 14 years were spent living on Greyhound buses and traveling through 3 countries and 34 of the 50 United States. At times I had to pretend to be a boy, dye my hair and change identities, all to hide from a mother who just wanted to love me. I believed that my father was sacrificing his happiness to protect me, and that I would lose everything I knew if I did not cooperate and help. It was a life of homelessness, of sleeping in a different place every few days or weeks, and of telling lies to avoid being found. I had to remember which name to use where, and beg for money and food at times. I was told not to trust anybody because they would take me back to my mother if I was not careful. There was a constant aura of suspicion and fear. I lost trust in the world. It took a long time for me to begin to see the truth, that I was living a lie, my father’s lie. As I grew older it became increasingly clear, whether from calling my father’s sister at 15 (my father had not allowed me to speak to her until then), who told me that my mother was a lovely person, from seeing my picture on a milk carton as a missing child, from sensing the tremendous anger that my father held inside and his tendency to exaggerate supposed "wrongs" against him, and from retrieving long hidden memories, that what had happened might have been very wrong. It was. What he did was meant to hurt. And it did. And the irony is that it hurt him too. We do not have much of a relationship today. Today, my mother and I have a relationship, but it has taken a lot of work to get here. I had to first deal with and accept the reality of my father’s actions. For a while I tried to hang on to the belief that what he did was justified, because it hurt so to believe otherwise. It was hard to let my mother in, hard to get close to the parent who had been the "bad one" for so many years. Now I know how wonderful she is, but despite her love and caring, it was difficult to start from where we started from, shared pain and lost time, of knowing of each other but not knowing each other, of having to do so much healing. It was difficult, but we made it. We are officially mother and daughter now. It is a real gift. We are the lucky ones. So many others are not this lucky. As a person involved with missing children’s issues today, I know so many others who cannot seem to heal from the past, reestablish relationships with the parents they were distanced from, or move forward in their lives. They must live life with unhealed wounds and lost love. Ever growing numbers of children will have to deal with these and other issues. A painful past, an uncertain future, feeling trapped between 2 worlds. Children who have been forced to feel they must choose feel an emptiness in their hearts and souls. They may not be able to talk about it with you, but they can feel it. These are the pains, such unnecessary pains. Not knowing who to trust and what to believe, how to let one hurting parent into your life and somehow come to terms with the hurt the other has inflicted. Based on my own experience and those of other children I have met, I believe that it is only a matter of time before most children who have been forced to choose realize that what was done to them was wrong and for them to want to seek the truth. Fathers & mothers going through the pain of separation or divorce, if you truly care about your children and hope to enjoy a lasting relationship with them, please realize that kids deserve and need both of their parents in their lives. Please don’t put them in the middle of a tug of war between you and your spouse, no matter what the circumstances. Love, Ceci Sarah Dawn Dibenedetto is the mother of two sons parentally abducted to Saudi Arabia. Tarik was 9 years old when abducted to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 18th, 1994. He is now 15. By the grace of God, we communicate, by subterfuge. This began about 3 years ago through 100’s of persistent calls and hang-ups. My mother finally got through. Tarik succeeded in his first collect call. Now he has taught his brother. The calls are intermittent and at odd hours from the most unusual places, a bathroom… a locked bedroom in the middle of the night… a relative. I live for those calls. In January 2001, I asked Tarik if he would mind if I asked him questions, kind of an interview format for publication in The Link. I explained to him what the newsletter was about and he said that I might not like his answers. I told him that all I ask is that he tries to be true to self… and the rest would fall into place. Our next conversation occurred February 24, 2001. I read to Tarik what Cecilie had written to me: "It sounds like Tarik will answer as I would have at his age—that while I recognized that my father did what he did under deceitful circumstances, I was happy with my life and with the fact that if he hadn’t abducted me, I wouldn’t know what the true faith was, wouldn’t know God. I felt bad for my mother but was afraid that my faith would be threatened. Maybe ask Tarik if what I say is something he relates to." Tarik: "Yes." Mom: "What would be the best case scenario for the future for you as relationships with your father and me?" Tarik: "For you to get back together. But I know this is impossible. So the next best thing is for both of you not to hate each other. Or if you can’t do that… not to talk about each other, at all. "Even if you do it in another language, I could tell. I could tell just be looking in my father’s eyes. At first maybe for over a year, he never said anything. And then he’d say just bad things. He would think I didn’t understand when he talked to others. But I understood everything. I could have gotten my father into a lot of trouble but I didn’t want to." Mom: "But he’s your father. If you hurt him, you hurt yourself. Is that how you feel?" Tarik: "Yes. But it’s different now. I am not a small boy. He can’t hit me like he use to. I have a temper like him." Tarik recalls a recent family dispute over pancakes that escalated into a battle… Mom: "Ideally where would you want us to live?" Tarik: "Saudi Arabia. You both should live in Saudi Arabia but not for a long time. Maybe 2 to 5 or 6 years. That’s all. Mom you think that it is like jail over here. That we are in jail. But it’s not like that. My father has written a book that has been published. Everyone is saying it’s very good. It’s on ‘Parenting’. I think he says a lot of good stuff, but doesn’t do it." Tarik’s cardinal rule numero uno comes to mind--not to talk about each other, at all. I swallow my editorial and am silent. Um Tarik wa Ryan Mother of Tarik & Ryan (and Noelle too) Seeds ‘Left behind’ parents do many things on a thread of hope, like a seed thrown to the wind. It is with that faith that we must continue to plant those seeds. You do it with doubts that plague you…it won’t get to my child..this is useless…it’s a waste of time. But, let’s discuss some ‘seeds’ that have borne fruit. 1-A son taken to Saudi Arabia recently communicated with his mother. He asked if she had sent him a book bag years ago. The mother said yes, and it had your name embroidered on it. Having mastered the puzzle, he told her that his father had told him it was from his stepmother’s family…but he inwardly questioned it. The miracle was not that he got the bag…but it’s route and the tales surrounding it! The seed took over 3 years to germinate. J 2-The abducted child recognizes her picture on a milk carton. It started a silent search process from within…and she reunited with her mom 6 years later. J 3-The tape sent by the distraught ‘left-behind’ mother that had been discovered by the child years later…and listened to by the child. That seed fueled the discovery of another parent. J So parents, don’t let the downside of abduction suck out your ability to plant. We must throw seed out in every way we can. Whenever possible, cultivate them with positive communication to family members (even the abductor’s family), agencies and law enforcement. Memorialize (and keep a scrapbook of) memories to reflect upon…but MOST IMPORTANT…don’t ever give up hope. Catherine Meyer: A Mother’s Struggle Catherine Meyer is the mother of two sons who were abducted to Germany by her estranged ex-husband. Catherine Meyer decided several years ago to use her tragic experience to help others in a similar predicament. In 1999, she co-founded ICMEC, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and has worked tirelessly to raise the profile of parental child abduction as an issue which requires international attention, and to promote new legislation and better laws to protect children. Child abduction is a parent's worst nightmare. Losing a child for a few minutes on an outing is frightening enough - but imagine returning home where all your children’s possessions remain, but they are gone. Your world collapses. The pain is joined by panic. Emotionally traumatized, parents have to cope with daunting obstacles--finding help, dealing with unfamiliar legal systems, bearing the financial costs of pursuing justice. And they are often misunderstood. Instead of sympathy, they are often faced with disbelieving questions. And the pain never goes away, because the wound cannot be healed. I have lived this pain for six and a half years. On July 6 1994, I sent Alexander and Constantin, aged 7 and 9, to spend the summer with their father in Germany. They never returned to London. In defiance of our custody agreement, my estranged husband kept the boys and disappeared. For weeks I had no idea where they were. Very soon I found that neither the police nor the authorities could help me. There was nothing I could do. Despite initial court decisions in my favor, and the pleas of American, British and French officials, I have been unable to get my sons back. Worse still, I have hardly been able to even see my two sons. I have met Alexander and Constantin for a total of only 24 hours in over six years. But if this has been a nightmare for me, imagine what it is like for a child. All children find it difficult to cope with divorce. Children are not only hurt and disappointed, they often feel guilty, believing that they are the source of the family breakdown. When a separation leads to abduction, the trauma is that much more severe. Not only do children experience the breakdown of their family, they find themselves wrenched from a loved parent only to realize there is a war between the people they need and love most. A common thread in many cases of child abduction is the sustained, vengeful effort of the abductor to deprive the other parent of contact with the child. The abductor may be bitter and angry or feel betrayed. Initially, there can be justifiable reasons for these feelings of bitterness. But when these feelings grow into obsessive hatred, child stealing easily occurs. The abductor will enmesh the child in his or her personal feelings of anger against the other parent, and the child can hardly combat this process. The abducting parent has run away with the child because he or she wants nothing to do with the other parent and cannot accept the idea of common parenthood. The aim is to flee one jurisdiction in order to reverse custody decisions and destroy the other parent’s relationship with the child. The child becomes a tool for revenge against the other parent. In custody hearings if and when the child is found, it becomes of paramount importance to the abducting parent that the child says the ‘right thing’ to the judges. The child, traumatised by the loss of one parent, is now in fear of losing the remaining parent. In time, the child replaces positive memories of the absent parent with hurt and anger and blocks out the left behind parent. Then, the child ends up asserting that he/she does not want contact with the other parent. Commonly, the abducting parent is seen as ‘all good’ and the other as ‘all bad.’ There are no longer the usual mixed feelings. One parent is perfect, while the other parent is a source of contempt, with no positive characteristics. When these children are asked to give compelling reasons for their rejection of the left-behind parent, they are unable to provide them. They may have had strong bonds with the absent parent yet positive memories seem to have evaporated overnight. These children often deny negative influence from the other parent, who supports this "independence" vociferously. In fact, alienators will typically proclaim that they had nothing to do with this process and the child’s rejection of the left-behind parent is purely a result of their own experiences. When judges are not aware of this symptom, they can easily decide that it would indeed be in the child’s best interest not to have contact with the left-behind parent. However, when a child is deprived of a healthy relationship with one parent, the perceived rejection becomes internalized and can lead over time to self-loathing and depression, and over time the child learns that hostile behavior and manipulation are a normal part of relationships. I have met many children who were forcibly separated from one of their parents. I have heard their stories; how they were led by one parent to believe that the other is bad; that they should have nothing to do with them. I have understood how easy it is for this to happen. They had already lost one parent, and for fear of losing the other, they had no choice but to identify with the latter. Yet in spite of all this, some of these children eventually sought contact with the estranged parent. The healing process was hard, often impossible in its entirety. But many were able to establish a new bond, predictably but sadly too often to the detriment of the abductor whose turn it becomes to be seen as the ‘betrayer.’ I think of the day: the day when my sons will be free to reach out and find their way to me, their mother, who had to stand by helpless and watch them grow without her love and attention. It is a day that I dream of constantly. I wait for it with a mixture of hope and apprehension. Will I be able to deal with my sons’ pain? Will they be able to reconcile themselves with the past? But then, love can overcome everything. Catherine Meyer Founder, Parents of Abducted Children Together www.pact-online.org February 11, 2001 Reunification: My Story (by Ceci Sarah, founder of The Kids Link) Reunification is the process of rebuilding a broken relationship between a parent and a child. This can be VERY painful for both! After 14 years apart, my mother and I were in no way prepared for the pain, the issues that would arise, and the pressure and torment we would both feel while in the early stages of rebuilding a relationship. And we had no roadmap or support to help us back in 1988, which is when we met for the first time after 14 years living on different continents. It would have been a big help if we had guidance or advice from others who had been through something similar. At least we would have had some idea of what to expect. So much grief could have been avoided. But there was nothing out there for people like us, so we had to deal with things the in the best way we possibly could. It was a really lonely road for a while. For both of us. Everyone thought that now that I was "found" we would live happily ever after, not understanding that a whole new set of issues and struggles was about to begin. These issues had all been dormant, lying just under the surface for many years. They needed to be brought out into the open, but it was painful to do so. I had wondered for years what my mother looked like, whether she missed me, what my life would have been like if I grew up with her. I wanted to know who I looked like, why my father always wanted me to sing songs to him (he said that my mother sang like an angel), and why my father's sister, in hushed, whispered tones, urged me to contact my beautiful mother. I wanted to know why I had thin hair, why my nose was so different from most people I knew (it's a Scandinavian nose), and what being half Norwegian meant. I wanted to know if she missed me, and if part of me was "bad" because I was a part of her. I wanted to feel whole again. I wanted to make peace with that unknown part of me. It was frightening to open the door to that unknown; to something so intimate, yet so foreign, that it was impossible to reconcile the two. It was something I had lived in dire fear of. I was always wary, wondering if the woman on the check out line in the grocery store was her. I worried that I would lose myself, all that had become precious and familiar, if I was forced to move in with her. I didn't want my father to go to jail. I loved my father, and he loved me, even if his actions were immature and self-serving. The good news is that my mom and I survived, and we are a real mother and daughter today. We do the things mother and daughters do best, like talk for hours on the phone, shop together, and argue occasionally. The relationship feels normal today, rather than like something strange, threatening and pressured, which it felt like for a long time. I learned that I didn't have to lose myself, sacrifice my identity, to have a relationship with my mother. I share the fears and the process in the hopes of helping others go through similar processes less painfully. Letting my mother into my life meant confronting the fact that my father had done something terribly wrong, and that 14 years of running and hiding had been in vain. My father had led me to believe that my mother was a bad person, and that he had to abduct me to save me from her. When I began to realize that this was not the entire truth, I felt a terrible sense of pain and betrayal. Through no fault of her own my mother was a reminder of my confusion about my relationship with my father. This alone made it hard for me to connect with her. Letting her in would mean that I was accepting that what my father did was wrong, and that was hard. But the hardest part by far were the expectations, the pressure to connect, and dealing with my mother's huge sense of loss and desperation. I had a hard time dealing with it when she cried on my shoulders after seeing a little jacket of mine from around the time I was abducted, and when my culture and beleifs stirred criticism and a sense of estrangement from her. I did not want to leave my entire life for something strange and new. I felt guilty, overwhelmed and objectified. I was supposed to make it all better, but I couldn't. The cost would be that I lost everything all over again. It took a long time for me to contact my mother after being abducted, almost fourteen years. I was four when I was abducted and nearly eighteen when I called her for the first time. I was terrified when I picked up the phone and said "Hello, this is your daughter calling," to the person who answered the phone. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. "Are, are you okay?" preceded by a long stunned but joyful silence, were my mother’s first words to me. It was good to know that she cared. We talked for a little while, both of us tentative and unsure, and arranged to meet a little while later. That first meeting was really hard. My mother was devastated at the loss of a child and the years of searching. I was devastated by the betrayal of my father and life on the run. Both of us were depressed and had unrealistic expectations of one another. I wanted my mother to be cheerful all the time, untroubled by the past and accepting of the emotional walls that I put up. My mother wanted to shower me with love and be a part of my life. She wanted to give all the pent-up love she had inside. But I wasn’t even sure I wanted a mother. After our first meeting I wrote my mother a letter asking her for some space, saying that I needed the relationship to go more slowly. It was very hard to accept my mother’s love and interest. In my eyes she was loving a fantasy, the 4-year-old who had been abducted, and I was a very different person from that little girl. I felt like she loved someone else, not the person I had become. It was really confusing. I felt bad about who I was, guilty, confused, torn apart. I wasn't sure who I was anymore, and what I was supposed to believe about my very own self-defined self. It had all been turned upside down. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was "supposed" to be someone else. If I hadn’t been abducted my name, religion and language, to name just a few things, would have been completely different from what they were. Meeting my mom confronted me with the fact that if I hadn’t been abducted I wouldn’t be who I was. I worried that my mom wasn’t happy with who I had become, or that she wished that I were someone else. I know that my mom thought that I felt the same way, that I wished she was a different person, more like me. It was really painful for both of us. We did have some culture clashes in the beginning. I was raised in America, my mom is Norwegian. Even though my mom speaks English really well, we had trouble understanding each other’s contexts, frames of reference, nuances, at times. I remember telling my mom that she is "special." She seemed a bit sad when I said that, but said, "yes, I am very special," which confused me. The seeming arrogance & sadness combined was impossible to fathom. It turns out that in Norwegian, the word "Spesiell" has a negative meaning, sort of like, special in a strange way. It would be used to describe an eccentric neighbor who never talks to anyone and wears clothes 20 years outdated, or such. It took me a few years, and a Norwegian course, to understand that one! Until we felt more comfortable questioning one another and asking for clarification, we got into hot water at times. I felt threatened by my mother’s questioning of my religious beliefs and practices, and I was sure that my mother hated Jews because my father is a Jew. My mother was sure that I held it against her that she was non-Jewish. It turns out that neither of our assumptions was true. We value one another regardless of our belief systems, and there is ample room to learn and grow together in our differences. With the years against us, it was going to take a long time for my mom and I to build a relationship! To put it mildly, there were issues to deal with. But in spite of it all, my mom and I are doing fine today! It wasn’t easy, but it has been well worth it. At one point we almost gave up. One day, after the wall between us had gotten so thick that neither of us could bear it, my mom turned to me and with tears in her eyes asked me if it would be easier not to have her in my life at all. I was shocked, but realized that she had reason to ask this. Things had been getting worse and worse between us. I also felt hopeless about our relationship, but after doing some soul searching I knew that I couldn’t live life without her. There was an emptiness in my life that could only be filled by her. I needed my mom. There were times that I resented my mom’s push for closeness. It would have been easier had my mother been prepared for the feelings of rejection that she felt from me at first, and to have been able to let go a little, and if I had felt less guilty for needing as much time and space as I needed. Things changed once we began to go to therapy, both together and individually (something I highly recommend). We were both so focused on the past, and so hurt by it, that it was hurting our realtionship. It was all we had to connect us at first, but was too painful a connection. We needed to connect in other ways. Once we started healing, we were able to move forward and start building on the present. My mom and I are close today, although we still struggle at times. She is a wonderful person. I only wish she didn´t live in the pain and self-doubts as much as she does. It´s painful to feel like the source of so much pain. I understand that I didn´t cause the pain, but on an emotional level it´s hard not to take it personally. Please, parents, take care of yourselves physically and emotionally and don´t be afraid to ask for lots of help and support! Why did it take so long for me to call home? I was traumatized and needed time to sort things out. I worried about feeling manipulated into giving up too much of myself and my identity. It was a coping or survival reaction. Contacting the left-behind parent required challenging everything I had beleived, which can be very painful. My mother was a wonderful mom to me for the first four years of my life, yet it took me 14 years to call. I had been insidiously yet powerfully brainwashed against my mom. First, I was told she didn’t care about me, that’s why she wasn’t coming to see me. I must have felt abandoned and angry at her. Then I was converted to another religion and alienated towards hers. To cement the negativity towards her, the simple passage of time, especially in the life of a little child, caused memories of her to fade away. She became little more than a stranger, one whom I grew to fear as the person who would take me away from everything that had become familiar... I couldn’t have called earlier. I wasn´t ready. It had taken me until then to begin to question the abduction and my father’s motives, and to summon up the courage to deal with what might end up being a big event Here's a letter from my mom, Tone, about some of the things she has experienced... It is almost impossible to find words to describe how it felt to lose my child, not knowing anything about her well-being or where she was. It was constant worry and torture mixed with hope that her father soon would let me get in contact with her. But days, nights, weeks, months and years went by. And I received not more than four cards in all those years, in three of them a small little picture and a few words. I gave those pictures and envelopes to the detectives in the hope that they could have a way to trace the address, but they did not succeed. I did everything in order to find her, and when she was six, I did find her in New York. It came to a court case. The result of this hearing was that I was granted the right to see my daughter two times each week until the school year was finished. Then I was to take her for a summer visit to Norway, and bring her back to New York in the fall for a final custody trial. But one day, when I came to pick her up for a visit, she was gone again. her father had taken her and left. No one knew where they had gone. When I finally got in contact with her again she was a young, independent woman of 18. I had the great pleasure to meet the most wonderful young daughter a mother can dream of. It is now my hope that I can do something good for her in the years to come. It was not easy for either of us at first. But we worked hard at it, and our relationship is now a warm and open one. It is heaven for me to finally have the opportunity to be with her and to speak with her. I love her just the way she is! She is fighting for what she believes in, and in doing so she makes the world a better place to live in. I wish there were many of her kind around. It is hard for me to think about what she has gone through all these years. She has lacked the stability that every child is entitled to benefit from, but she came out of all these difficult years with dignity and strength. My precious daughter; I respect and love you very, very much! You are wonderful! I am very lucky and thankful to be your mom, Tone Finkelstein To the parents who have experienced this terrible torture: We must appeal to the national and international community to take these cases much more seriously. Otherwise, there will be an increasing number of children around the world not getting their born right to have contact and care from both parents. Religious groups and leaders play a very important role in hiding kidnapped children. A strong appeal from all the parents who have experienced this torture must be given to these leaders as well as to the women in these groups who for the most part are the caretakers of these kidnapped children. The religious groups often put themselves over the law in so many societies all over the world. The time is more than mature to give a strong appeal to their leaders from a large group of parents. Legislators and judges should put other cases aside when a child's right is at stake. The time factor is a crucial one, their priority should always be the children. The legislators should also see if the written laws in these cases need to be changed, both on a national and international level. Tone Finkelstein Cecilies mother Divorce & abduction are not one time events for children. They are continuous influences which shape and reshapes children´s lives throughout childhood and adulthood. Research has shown that children of divorced parents who have succesfully created a positive environment & foster their children's relationship with both parents, in other words parents who reduce loyalty conflicts and hostility, adjust best psychologically (Wallerstein, Wolchik, et al). Our own observations have led us to believe that parents who work through their pain and anger most constructively have better relationships with their adult children than those who do not. Disparaging talk, visitation chaos, time sharing quarrels, loyalty binds, criticism of parenting styles, all take a big toll on the children in the middle. They feel responsible, scared, confused and vulnerable. Ironically, most parents feel they are acting in their children´s best interests when fighting with an ex-partner about the children. In an atmosphere of constant conflict, the children suffer. Here are two true stories that highlight this. David and Carrie were married for 13 years and had 1 child, 10-year-old Jake. They divorced 5 years ago and share custody. Jake moves back and forth between his parents, who live close to one another. David is Christian, and Carrie converted to Islam after the divorce. They are both deeply religious, and Jake feels that he cannot please one without disappointing the other. They have been to court numerous times about everything from Jake´s holiday schedule, to his schooling, to his religious upbringing. They have each sought full custody, each out of the firm belief that Jake would be better off without the other parent being so involved in his life. Jake is failing in school, which of course both parents blame on one another for. All the high points of jake´s life have been tainted by his parent´´s quarrels. Both parents use him as a message relayer to the other parent, and ask him pointed questions about the life and doings of the other. Rather than offering him permission to love both mother and father and to enjoy spending time with each of them, they require that he chooses sides, reports to the other about the other parent, and has responsibility to make each one feel good at the expense of the other. Jake is being denied the chance for a happy childhood. William, age 14, is the child of never married parents. His mother is French, his father is Swedish. He was parentally abducted by both parents numerous times, each time in the sincere belief that it was best for William to be taken away from the other parent. He now lives in hiding in Sweden with his mother. William doesn't trust adults, and feels frightened all the time. He tries to get close to people that he admires, but something holds him back from being himself with them. He is always guarded, and fearful. His mother tells him all the time how dangerous his father is, because he will take William away from her and from Sweden. She tells him about everything from his father's sexual issues to his problems with saving money, and this is distressing to William. He only has distant memories of his father, who he hasn't seen for five years. William tells people that he has no father, because it is too hard to explain what really happened. He wonders about his father, about what it would be like to have him in his life. He feels an emptiness that he tries to run away from, telling himself that he is lucky not to have his bad father around. William's inner life is painful and chaotic. He feels dirty, like the parts of him that are like his dad are bad and must be washed away. William, like thousands of other parentally abducted kids, is going through the heartache of feeling terrified of one of his parents without reason. A relationship gone bad, heartache, anger, hatred, have led William to lose something precious and important: knowledge of his roots, the love of both parents, and a sense that his parents put his well-being before their issues and anger. IMPORTANT: Domestic violence puts parental abduction and custody litigation into an entirely different perspective. While false claims of domestic violence exist, such claims must be taken seriously. Domestic violence is real, and false claims of violence are too. In many cases, only those involved know the truth. If you are a perpetrator of violencee, seek help. If you are a victim, you have a right to protection for yourself and your children. Please do not lie, as this only creates chaos and fear for your children. The quality of the relationship between parents after divorce, and the individual parent-child relationship are the most important determinants of a child's mental well-being and success in adulthood. Invest in therapy, read, connect with other parents and children who are experiencing similar things. Work actively to enhance of your relationships, get support when you need it, talk things out instead of letting things simmer and boil, find coping tools that work. Do not put your children in the middle. Promote positivity when you are together with your children. Have fun instead of talking about your ex and putting him or her down. This is the most important gift you can give your children. They will appreciate it greatly in the future! Much of the information below is from a wonderful book called Caught in the Middle: Protecting Children of High-Conflict Divorce, by Carla B. Garrity and Mitchell A. Baris. Wallerstein (in the American Journal of Child Psychiatry, 1991) lists six tasks that children of divorce must master in order to fully move forward in their lives. These are: 1. Resolving anger and self-blame Children often blame themselves for the divorce, and get angry at themselves and their parents for allowing the divorce to happen. Many children feel that there must be something wrong with them, or their parents would not have divorced. They can get very depressed and withdrawn, and stop communicating with their parents out of anger and fear. Many children can feel very lonely. 2. Resolving losses A child´s entire worldview needs to shift after their most important foundation splits apart. Divorce is a loss of innocence and safety. 3. Accepting the permanence of divorce Many children of divorce, even as adults, dream that their parents will reunite someday. This makes it difficult to accept reality and te finality of the break. 4. Acknowledging the reality of the marital rupture Learning to accept that the marriage has fallen apart. This means not pretending that parents are "really together," when they live apart, have divorced, etc. 5. Disengaging from parental conflict and distress and resuming customary pursuits Learning to do this to the point that the divorce is not the primary focus of the child´s time and energy. 6. Achieving realistic hopes for their own relationships Many children of divorce create an "all or nothing" view of relationships, and when the smallest thing goes wrong, run away instead of dealing with things patiently and constructively. From the professional point of view, there are seven primary factors that help to determine how well a child will cope with divorce. These are not the same for parentally abducted children, for reasons discussed further along in this article. Temperament Some professionals say that with knowledge of a child's temperament they can almost predict how that child will cope with a divorce. Easygoing children seem to bounce back from and be resilient against the greatest odds. These are the children that can accept being told no, have good social skills, and deal well with occasional rejection by peers. Age There is no "good age" that assures a positive outcome, but age does seem to play a role in how children react to the divorce, and what sorts of divorce-related issues become primary for them. Children under five often hurt the most initially, but do best in the long-term. This might be because they have fewer memories of an intact family, and integrate with less distress into new family structures. Children between ages five and twelve openly grieve, have reunion fantasies, and express anger at one or both parents. Academics and peer relationships often suffer, and this age range brings with it much chaos and disruption for the children. Teenagers are highly vulnerable as they begin their path towards self-definition, explore their sexuality, & prepare to leave home and form their own relationships. It can be difficult for them to feel confident about these things after experiencing divorce. They can act out, get depressed, and take sides in their parents battles. It can be a challenge for them to cope with the divorce, talk it out, and get help that could assist them in dealing with things better. Gender Research has shown that gender doesn't make as much of a difference as was previously thought. Both genders suffer, though in some cases in different ways and at different times. While one set of studies found that girls did better than boys in the initial years after a divorce, later studies of the same children found that for girls troubles came up during adolescence. Environmental Stability A new home, school, friends, financial difficulties, all are stressors that only add to a child's distress. More loss, on top of the loss of an intact family, only creates more instability. Generally speaking, the less environmental change the better. Psychological functioning of the residential parent If the primary caretaker is depressed, withdrawn or angry all the time, their effectiveness as a parent can temporarily or permanently be altered or impaired. Children need greater connection and comfort during the divorce, and the more connection, the better children will fare. Intensity of conflict between parents This is seen as the most influential factor in children's welfare post divorce. Fortunately it is the one parents have the most control over. Aggression, behavior problems and depression are frequent early responses to conflict between parents. Children are most likely to heal if their parents heal. Often in the first year post-divorce, parents battle furiously. They belittle each other values, verbally and even physically attack one another, and often force the children to take sides. The sooner this abates, the better off the children will be. Ongoing conflict is a constant message to the children that their right to be loved and cherished by both parents, and placed before all other issues, is on shake grounds. They are not most important, is how children often perceive ongoing conflict. They may get the sense that the battleground, who wins or loses various small or large battles, is more important to their parents than creating peace. Children feel responsible for ther fighting, especially when it revolves around childcare and time sharing. learn the language, make friends, eat the food, learn the laws of that country as regards custody and child-care. Find professionals who can help you. Don´t try and bribe your way in, or give the impression that you don´t want your child to be a part of the culture. Your most important mission should be to ensure that your child is taken care of and is happy. Children internalize rejection of their other culture as a rejection of them. After all, they identify with it! Be careful of the signals you give out. | Return Home | For Parents | The Kids Link-history | THE LINK Newsletter | A Therapist´s Tale | Great Links | Advice for parents & kids | A Custody Battle: Blogged | |
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