The Counseling Center offers adult and child counseling Westchester NY services. We specialize in marriage counseling, separation and divorce, family counseling, career counseling, and child therapy.
The divorce rate in the United States remains high. The latest studies suggest it’s stuck between 40% and 50%. As children, many of us have either experienced divorce ourselves or know someone close to us who has. Some have manage to understand what happened to their parents. This allowed them to lead stable lives without the divorce hindering their development. Others, for one reason or another, have carried the weight of their parents’ divorce on their shoulders deep into adulthood. What is the difference between these two groups of children? It largely comes down to the parenting.
The divorce rate is not likely to fall any time soon. But that doesn’t mean that a generation of children are doomed to a life of shaky relationships. Marriage is difficult. And predicting whether one truly wants to spend the rest of his or her life with someone else is near impossible. But whatever differences you may have with your partner need not be at the expense of your child’s wellbeing. Here’s how and why the two of your can and should set your differences aside in the presence of your child.
Make An Agreement
An important factor that either you or your partner must make absolutely clear from the beginning is that this marriage reaches beyond each of your own personal lives. You must not forget that whatever conflict you reveal to your child will reflect in his or her emotional health. People disagree all the time, and that is fine. The important thing to keep in mind is that whatever address these disagreements with hostility in front of the kid. As soon as you feel those emotions boiling up, just remember the agreement, and move the argument elsewhere.
Don’t Forget About Your Own Physical And Mental Health
Divorce is a hard pill to swallow. It’s like accepting defeat for one of the biggest decisions of your life. This can be taxing on anyone, no matter how tough skinned you may be. Managing a divorce in the midst of raising children and holding a job is emotionally exhausting, and it shows in your everyday demeanor. It can disrupt your personal relationships with friends, family, and most importantly, your child. But you can combat that exhaustion with psychotherapy Westchester NY services, and other forms of self help and self improvement.
Don’t Forget About Your Child’s Mental Health
Remember that your child is battling with an assortment of conflicting and rapidly developing hormones. Most likely, your child’s body is changing in confusing ways, and the array of emotions he or she experiences throughout the course of the day is downright overwhelming. The baggage that comes with the tension and conflict in the house in the midst of this developmental stage will not disappear with time. A children’s mental health professional can help your child better understand the situation, and more importantly, the kinds of emotions that the situation is evoking.
Above all, it’s important to remember that your child deserves your love, that you deserve to love yourself, and that this divorce will soon be behind you. To learn more about our adult and/or child counseling Westchester NY services, give the Counseling Center a call today at (914) 793-3388.
