What to do with your teenagers: 13-18 through your divorce; from a Greensboro Divorce Lawyer

Years Just when adolescents are developing into adulthood and planning their eventual exit from the family, they are upstaged by their parents’ divorce. They need support from their parents when their parents are least emotionally available. Parent-adolescent relationships are normally tenuous, and a divorce makes them more so.

At this age, children may accelerate their independence from the family or delay it because of the divorce. While they are working on developing their further individuality, the divorce interferes. Some children in this age group take on the responsibilities of the absent parent and side with the parent who is present. If the parent who is present takes the child’s side in this situation, the absent parent is alienated, and the child is damaged by the alienation.

In reaction to divorce, adolescents begin to feel insecure about their own relationships. Contact a Greensboro Divorce Lawyer for more on the topic. They often fear that they may never be able to have a happy marriage.

What Parents Need to Know About Teenagers

The important things for divorcing parents to remember are as follows:

• The parents must put away their resentments and disrespect for each other for the sake of the adolescent. If the parents have difficulty in doing this, a therapist specializing in marriage closure therapy may be very helpful.
• Parents often assume that adolescents can handle divorce, yet this is a very vulnerable time for children. They may retreat to their own rooms to hide their depression. They may turn up their music to drown out their crying. They need their parents’ care but will not ask for it; instead, they confide in their friends about what is happening. Some adolescents withdraw and become so depressed they need professional help. A few attempt suicide; some are successful.
• When the adolescent sides with one parent against the other, the parents need to join forces to assist the adolescent in adjusting to the divorce and in confronting the loss of the way things (family, home, parents, and his or her own importance) used to be.
• The adolescent’s room is not absolutely off-limits to either parent. Each parent should ask to visit the child in their room when the child is at home, overlook the disarray, and sit down with the child and talk heart-to-heart. It is even more important that each parent listen without interrupting, judging, or advising.
• The parents need to open the communication between the adolescent and themselves and not expect the adolescent to initiate communication.

If you or a loved one is considering a Greensboro Divorce Lawyer, contact Garrett, Walker, Aycoth, & Olson