KIDS' TALK ABOUT DIVORCE

We often receive favorable responses from parents who have attended Kids' Turn workshops, but it is not so often we hear directly from the kids themselves about the program. Do they like it? Do they feel it has helped them? The answer appears to be a definite "Yes."

Sarah is 13 and attended the workshop with her father. Her mother has custody of her four siblings and they did not attend, and Sarah has not been on the best of terms with her mother, due to the circumstances of the divorce. Sarah said in the beginning she had doubts about attending.

"I didn't think I could associate with others, I didn't want to go, and I had a bad attitude. But the leaders were great. They told me `think of us as a group of friends.' It's good to go where I can relate to others who also lost a mother. I could talk to the counselors at school and my friends but they hadn't been through the same thing. The kids at Kids' Turn had been there, and I found I could help them and they could help me, too." Sarah says it wasn't always easy for the leaders to deal with the group of pre-teens, and sometimes things didn't go as they had planned, but she says "the most helpful was the conversations" and the leaders "relating to the situation."

As for relations with her mother, Sarah says, "Now that I have gone through the workshops, I'm a lot calmer with my Mom. I used to be so angry at her and had it all bottled up. At Kids' Turn I could tell them how I feel and that's how I got it out. I used to yell and stuff, and now I don't have that anger anymore." Sarah's father simply says, "it has helped her tremendously."

Brandon also went through a Kids' Turn workshop, when he was 10. His parents divorced when he was 7 and he said he had no friends who were in a similar situation. He, too, had reservations about attending.

"I didn't want to go at first, but after a day or two I really liked it. It was really fun and you get to express your feelings." Brandon says he was surprised at some of the different stories other kids had to tell about their parents' divorce or separation, but he says "it got me talking about it to my parents and understanding what it was about." Brandon's advice for other kids is "even if they don't want to go through it at first, they'll like it and it gets to be fun."

Former Kids' Turn Program Director Rosemarie Bolen isn't surprised about the reactions kids have to the program. " It is not unusual for parents to report that their children are more communicative with them and less tense and angry as a result of their participation in the Kids' Turn workshop. While we can't solve all the divorce-related difficulties the children experience, we certainly are able to give them a voice, sometimes for the first time, and their reactions are overwhelmingly positive."

Even if kids feel they have a comfortable home life, there may still be troubles, and Kids' Turn can help. Sarah sums it up this way: "As much as my Dad is there for me, sometimes he can't relate. He lost a wife but I lost a mother. It was good to go where I could relate to others who also lost the same thing."