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 Walking children through divorce Kids' Turn helps parents respond to the needs of sons and daughters during a family split
Divorce, of course, wasn't supposed to be part of this idyllic connubial picture. "I felt like our lives would be parallel lines traveling that way forever," Orr said. "But gradually, those parallel lines grew apart and we veered off. You never expect it." Even the closest of couples sometimes can let the bond unravel, like Velcro rubbed raw through time and neglect. A few months ago, Orr and Karchmar separated and filed for divorce after seven years of marriage. She stayed in San Francisco; he went to Oakland. Though a bay away now, the couple remain forever tethered by a parental bond that they say can never, and should never, be broken -- child rearing. Painful as their separation has been, Karchmar and Orr have not lost sight of the emotional toll weighing on their children. To try to ease the domestic transition, Karchmar signed up the family for Kids' Turn, a Bay Area workshop for parents and children that helps youngsters affected by divorce cope with the tremendous upheaval in their lives. Ben had been acting out and regressing. At first, he balked at going to the program. But Orr and Karchmar wanted to make sure they dealt with the divorce in a "common language," so as not to confuse or upset their children. After attending the six 90-minute sessions -- the three were placed in separate groups; Dylan was too young attend -- the family reports it is better able to cope with the drastic change in their dynamic. It has helped Ben cope, too, Karchmar says. "Ben really cried and said he didn't want to go that first day," Karchmar said. "But he came running out an hour and a half later saying, 'Mom, when can we go back?' Ben's not one to express his feelings, but the program gave him a chance to be with other kids in the same position and not feel alone." THE EMOTIONAL PERILS For 15 years, the nonprofit Kids' Turn has focused on the often-overlooked casualties of divorce. Numerous studies have shown that children of divorce experience high levels of depression, anxiety, aggression, lower academic achievement and trouble forming personal relationships. What Kids' Turn sets out to do, says executive director Claire N. Barnes, is address the emotional hazards of divorce in children before problems manifest themselves. "Sometimes," Barnes says, "divorce becomes a topic that none of the adults in the family want to talk about, so the kids are mimicking what the adults are doing and internalizing it. When families are separating, it's a time when the wife and husband can be very self-absorbed in their own emotions. So it's common not to be in tune with what's going on with their kids' feelings." Ina Gyemant, retired San Francisco Superior Court judge, saw it often in her family court proceedings in the mid-1980s. Acrimonious parents would square off on thorny custody and quality-of-life issues, while the children often seemed left to fend for themselves. So, in 1988, Gyemant and other Bay Area family-law experts developed Kids' Turn to give children a voice and to remind parents to listen. What began as a program strictly in San Francisco has spread to four other Bay Area counties and elsewhere in California. Recently, Kids' Turn celebrated its 15th anniversary with a dinner at the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton. "Good Parenting Through Divorce" ($15.50, Marlowe & Company), a book based on the Kids' Turn workshop, also has been published. "After three or four months assigned to family court, I knew something had to be done," Gyemant said. "Even when there wasn't a custody dispute, I thought to myself, 'This has to be horrible for the kids.' Parents get to talk to their lawyers, the mediators, their families and friends. But who can the kids talk to? Here I am, a judge, ordering their homes sold, making them change schools in many cases, saying goodbye to their friends, basically turning their lives upside down. I feared for these kids' emotional well-being. "This program is great because, for the first time, the children are in control." COURT APPROVAL When Gyemant first started Kids' Turn, it was strictly an option program for forward-thinking divorcing families. Now, says Barnes, some of the 5,000 participants a year have been court-ordered to undergo the therapy. As an offshoot, Gyemant also helped found the Rally Project, which provides safe spots for pick-up and drop-off of children with parents in high conflict. With divorce becoming more prevalent -- an estimated 1 million children a year experience the affects of parental separation -- Kids' Turn has had little trouble filling slots. Most of its 20 six-week workshops have waiting lists, and Barnes said the organization has expanded by starting supplemental programs such as Next Step, for step-parents, and Spanish-language programs in San Francisco's Mission District. "After no-fault divorce became big here," Barnes said, "we've been seeing more and more people in our workshops." Issues that children of divorcing parents face haven't changed much over the years, Barnes said. Kids still have fears of abandonment, blame themselves for the split, have a hard time accepting that their parents will not reunite, feel they do not have a voice in family matters and have many loyalty issues when their parents clash. "It's not the divorce itself that impacts children so negatively," Barnes said. "It's the conflict between the parents. Kids are easily victimized by adult behavior. And, as the kids get older, you see distinguishing factors between boys and girls in how they handle divorce. As teens, boys are more prone to acting out and girls internalize it. With girls, sometimes the reality of the situation doesn't manifest itself until years later when they're developing relationships of their own." The curriculum of Kids' Turn, developed by Dr. Alicia Lieberman and Dr. Patricia Van Horne of UCSF, differs depending on the age group of the children. Younger children -- ages 4 to 10 -- are given the opportunity to express their feelings through drawing and play-acting, while older kids and teens go through a more pedagogical program. Parents are taught how to act and what to say around their children, as well as how to detect subtle behavioral changes that might presage bigger problems. "Younger kids are still forming attachments to parents and then, that's interrupted by divorce," Barnes said. "So there's a lot of reassuring that needs to be done. It's different with older kids. One of the most difficult family configurations is between a mother and an oppositional teenage son. One of the things we're learning is that the continued role of the father, even if he has no custody, is vital. The dads can also help their young daughters in developing how she'll deal with men when she gets older." One of the biggest problems is parents who fight in front of their kids, and parents who openly criticize the divorced spouse in front of the children. "We make parents realize that, by criticizing the other parent to the child, the child is also being criticized," Barnes said. "That's because, biologically, they come from the other parent as well. They share half the genes." Rebecca Lynn, an East Bay mother of children ages 8 and 10, went through the program two years ago (her ex-husband declined to attend the workshop) and said she'd learned to stifle her anger at her former husband for her kids' sake. "It's very difficult to do," she said. "But you need to constantly remind yourself about rules you need to be following. You learn the right way to word things to help put your kids ahead of your emotions. My ex-husband still has that problem. I wish he'd gone through the program." Karchmar and Orr may be apart, but they say Kids' Turn helped them work as one to make the transition as smooth as possible for Ben and Dylan. Karchmar herself was a child of divorce and said she wants to avoid some of the mistakes her parents made. "When I stayed with my father, I never had a space of my own at his house," she said. "No drawers, closet space. No clothes staying there. Tim and I are making sure that we won't let that happen to our kids. We'll make sure we have 'transitional objects' for the kids that go back and forth between us." Orr said he is willing to do whatever it takes to relieve any stress his divorce may have on his children. "Parenting is not a game," he said. "It's serious business. Parenting skills aren't inherent. You have to learn things. Kids are like sponges. They garner information at such an incredible rate, but they don't have the emotional tools to handle crises like divorce. It's up to us, the parents. Even if we can't control the aspects of the divorce, we can control the emotional aspects and let them know it's not their fault." Kid's Turn advice for divorced parents What to do when your child turns inward: |
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