The One Thing to Do To Nurture a Connection With Dad After Divorce
In heterosexual post-divorce parent relationships, helping mothers connect their kids to their dads is one of the most important components of my divorce coaching practice. Why?
Because in the anger, betrayal, and chaos that accompanies the end of a marriage, moms can start to get a little too happy that the kids don’t like going to dad’s house.
It feels like a victory. See? Even the kids don’t like you. Your girlfriend being there? They don't feel comfortable with her. The takeout you’re always serving? They don’t like it. They don’t want dad; they want mom.
It’s kind of a weird and childish impulse that comes out of us. On the one hand we are trying to be amicable and create good experiences for our children at both addresses. On the other hand, we love to see him struggle. This response is based in fear and feeds on fear. And where fear leads, love gets hidden.
This Father’s Day, we need to do a reset to bring our very best selves to the effort to lead with love and nurture a connection between our children and their dads.
What would it look like to face our fears head on (what if the kids love him more, what if I’m not enough, what if the girlfriend is cooler than me, what if…) and start to lead with love instead? Leading with love means we give our kids credit that they can love both of us well. Leading with love means we make space for our kids to love his girlfriend too. Leading with love takes on the mantle of leading the whole family to a better, more loving place.
How do we do that? You can get started with only one simple step:
FOCUS ON WHAT WORKS
Your co-parent may be miserable at any number of things, but he is winning at something.
Do the work to uncover what that is. Do the work to first claim it quietly to yourself. Do the work next to say it out loud to your kids. Finally, do the work to acknowledge it to your co-parent.
Your ability to speak with truth about your co-parent’s strengths is one of the most critical skills you need to build to strengthen your post-divorce family. It supports absolutely everyone in your two-address family system. It helps you redirect your energy to see the assets you are working with. It shows your children that family is unending, even though marriages may end. And most of all, it demonstrates to your co-parent that you are moving on from the divorce and moving forward with the decades ahead of strengths based co-parenting.
It is important that you help your kids focus on what works too.
Dad is not mom.
Dad will not do everything like mom.
He won’t cook like mom, talk like mom, or act like mom. He won't see the things mom sees.
When all we see is what dad can’t (or won’t) be, our kids learn to evaluate him from that perspective as well.
Putting the spotlight on what your kids gain from their relationship with dad is vital to their enjoying a long-term relationship with him.
Saying these things out loud relaxes our children and lets them know we really do affirm that they can and should love both mom and dad.
Practice with these sample statements: Dad really is great at ____. I love it when I hear dad has ____. When you were little, your dad always ____ and I loved it.
The truest, most beautiful, most loving part of your mothering heart wants your child to have a great relationship with dad. Don’t be the reason that doesn’t happen. Instead, be the one who has the biggest smile, knowing that you were the one who created the conditions for that relationship to thrive.
