Mama SRL

Grownups have this rage of breaking up with frustrations which are passed on to the little ones. So how do you handle a gentle divorce? Divorce situations can take place between a notary, lawyer or psychologist and sometimes between all of them to restore a balance. I consider that separations are also part of our life and I chose to write about this subject because I met a rather impressive story in the park. The mother was removed from her own daughter’s life under the influence of the father’s speech. And the situation itself seemed annoying to me. In front of everyone, the daughter told her mother exactly what the father had to blame his ex-wife for. At first I wanted to get involved in the situation outraged by the emotions, but I decided to take care of my own child and let things be. It was impressive because it was a show that involved all of us due to the open stage acting. The „actors” revolved around us and we were somehow invited to take part in the scene. Every weekend I had this interaction. When the girl had the visit from her mother, all three saw each other in the park at the children’s playground and the show began. She came to see her, but the little girl tried to show affection only to her father, pushing her mother away. I don’t know what happened there, but I definitely tried to put myself in her mother’s shoes. First of all, I believe that if I have to go through this, the child will stay with me and there are no obstacles in our way. I checked once again the information and the Romanian legislation strongly supports the mother’s rights. So in case of divorce there are very few situations in which the child is taken from the mother. This is the child’s primary guardian. Of course I don’t know what was the situation of that family and why that mother had left her home without her little girl. I was also impressed that the little girl told her father that she loved him on this open stage of the whole park. This is where I was a little scared. I noticed a little-aware and declaratively-exaggerated condition of the little girl. It seemed to me that he wanted stability from his father, who had to take his mother’s place in their broken family. Over the summer, the father rebuilt his life and appeared with a lady during the visits. The girl softened her speech and became a little more preoccupied with things for her age. The lesson of this story is primarily that for the child and need time to resolve such ruptures. If the two failed to resolve the amicable divorce at the notary, the father fights with the mother through the use of lawyers, and the child needs a psychologist. I think the key element was missing from their story: the psychologist.

From a legal point of view, a separation between two adults takes place at a notary or can take place in court where more complicated situations encounter. The division of assets takes place through an amicable agreement or with the help of a judge, who will decide what is left to each. As we usually talk about low- and middle-income people, court situations are starting to become rarer. The maintenance pension will be paid by the parent who does not have custody of the child or children and the law divides the income of that parent to how many children he has. Of course, here we also have the discussion of establishing incomes that can be periodic or stable, but in general we need maturity and involvement in the decision to support the growth of children.

But the most important aspect of divorce is the health of the children. They are emotionally affected depending on the age at which the separation of the parents takes place. The notary or the lawyer solves the legal problems of the separation, but the psychologist needs to re-establish some connections and to explain the rupture as being only between the parents and to reassure the child’s balance. I talked to psychologist Catalina Chifu and she helped me a lot with some answers regarding what happens in the minds of the little ones in such situations. So below you will find some aspects that you knew or that you may discover now.

What impact does the divorce have on children?
Today, divorce has become one of the most widespread experiences of living, processing and content, both for parents and children. It can be a trauma for the child throughout his training and becoming a responsible adult. Until the age of maturity, the child is dependent on the safety framework that the parents or other adults who take care of him provide, but also on the trusting relationships that they develop. Following the divorce of their parents, many children may face emotional and social difficulties, difficulties in relating and adapting to the new environment. The family environment becomes new, unknown, insecure, uncertain, and they are forced to adapt to the new context of life, to the new dynamics of his support and safety relationships.

What happens to the relationship built between parent and child?
Through the experience of divorce lived until the age of 6-8 years, the feeling of abandonment, guilt, sadness, anxiety and insecurity can be triggered in the child. At the age of 8-12, anger and hostility can be aroused.

For people who are going through a divorce situation, a basic need is emotional support. For the child, divorce involves the destructuring of an entire universe as he lived and understood it until that moment. The child depends entirely on the parents’ choices and on the way they manage the transition from the known family context to a totally new one, both for them and for the children. The people involved are in the first phase adrift until the mechanisms of adaptation to the new emotional situation are activated and in fact until the restructuring of the family. Emotional support is needed to regain stability and a sense of security in a new context.
A greater fear of the child than breaking the relationship of the parents is to lose them. The child lives in fear of losing his relationship with his parents following their divorce, as the relationship had developed until then; his fear that there would be no continuity in the relationship.
Frequently asked questions and concerns of children in the situation of divorce: if I will not see them again, if they forget me, if they will no longer love me, did I or of course contribute to their quarrel and separation, because of me this happened, etc.

The child depends entirely on how the parents will continue to manage these significant relationships. It is recommended to assure the child that divorce will not change his love, security and stability in these relationships and that he will find the best way to continue and manage them in a new context.

What are the ages of the attachment?

• Attachment is a fundamental need for love and security in meaningful relationships for as long as possible.
• By the age of 5, naturally, the child develops strong emotional ties, first with the mother, then with the father and with the parental substitutes, with those who offer him safety, protection and comfort.
• Stages of attachment (Psychoanalyst John Bowlby)
  – Pre-attachment (up to 6 weeks) – the child is instinctively motivated by the need to survive.
  – Action attachment (6 weeks – 6-8 months) – the child distinguishes sounds and images and thus the presence of people around him; he predominantly expresses his need and preference for his mother.
  – The delimited attachment (6-8 months – 2 years) – is the obvious preference for the mother; separation anxiety occurs; Towards 2, the predominant age towards the mother decreases in intensity, which is required more when she needs to be calm and feel safe.
  – Forming mutual relationships – the child realizes that the people around him are distinct individuals with their own goals; towards 3 years the child-mother relationship passes to a new level, that of partnership, of collaboration.
  Attachment develops gradually and becomes selective. In the first stage he is instinctively activated for survival, the child enjoys the attention and care of those around him. After the first months, he distinguishes between these people and especially prefers his mother (or father / grandparents / nanny, as the case may be, depending on the person present with a certain constant next to him). After the age of 2, he prefers those who played and spent more time with him, and not only those who fed and cared for him.

Types of attachment. Depending on the responses received to his needs and depending on the emotional and physical availability of the parent, the child may develop different types of attachment: secure attachment, avoidant insecure attachment, ambivalent insecure attachment, disorganized attachment. This develops a stable emotional base (a safe framework) in meaningful relationships or an insecure and dysfunctional framework (avoidant, anxious, ambivalent – love and hate).
– Secure attachment – develops when basic needs are met and by the constant presence of the mother in a mature and contained way, which gives stability and security. . He feels safe both in the relationship and out of the relationship.
– Avoidant insecure attachment develops within repeated rejection and unavailability. Avoid closeness, intimacy, do not trust the availability of another person. It has tendencies to isolate, withdraw and avoid close relationships. The environment seems insecure and unreliable.

– The ambivalent insecure attachment – comes from the relational inconstancy of the parents, sometimes available, sometimes absent, sometimes intrusive, sometimes indifferent. Relationships are developed with anxiety, addiction, clinging – despair for fear of abandonment, or rejection to avoid the pain of abandonment.
– Disorganized attachment – dysfunctional, chaotic, abusive, traumatic relationships. The conflict aroused in the child comes from his natural tendency to seek safety and protection in close relationships and the real threat of water that he experiences in response to these relationships.
The type of attachment is based on the child’s relationship with the mother or the primary care and support person.
The way in which the child learns to love within these relationships later becomes a direction of the relational style and of the way of involvement, presence and love in his significant relationships from the adult stage. In the subsequent relationships, the familiar relational scenario will be projected, either the framework of safety, love, comfort, protection and stability, or the one of insecurity, abusive, dysfunctional, anxious, dependent.

What are the different roles of parents?
The mother and father have different roles in the child’s development. The roles are complementary and supportive in the child’s development and adaptation to life and the environment. The mother offers the child a feminine vision of life, and the father completes it with a masculine vision.

How is the attachment to the mother or father divided?
The mother has the role of protector, caregiver and to ensure in a satisfactory and continuous way the physical and emotional security of the child. Its role is to offer attention, love, affection, answers adapted to the child’s needs, a stable and secure environment. If the mother does not adapt in the first weeks to the needs of the child, he will adapt to the needs of the mother, and his development will no longer be a natural one according to his own needs, but taking into account those of the mother. His mother influences his reactions to what can happen outside him and contributes significantly to the feeling of being and being unique, different from others.

The role of the father is to prepare the child for the confrontation with the external world, with life. The father prepares the child to become autonomous and to be able to detach himself from the symbiotic relationship with the mother. It contributes significantly to the development of the child’s resilience (the ability to cope with life’s challenges), self-confidence and the child’s competence (who I am and what I can do), as well as the integration of the image of authority. And during adolescence it can facilitate the easy transition from childhood to adulthood.

And because all these discussions started from the conflictual problems solved in the 21st century, I wrote some time ago about the visit to the Medieval Citadel Rasnov where there was a divorce room in which couples were locked up for 30 days before going on their separate ways. And in the end it seems that no one got divorced. Which proves that sometimes there are some tensions, frustrations or unresolved problems that with a lot of insistence and meditation you can solve and rediscover why you chose to „make a home” with your partner. I don’t know what it’s like to go through a divorce when there’s a child in the family, but the situation must certainly be handled with great delicacy. I am not a supporter of the solution of staying together for the sake of the child because there is somewhere in the world the happiness of the balance restored after the divorce. It doesn’t make sense to lament in a relationship that no longer makes us feel good. It is important to find the right way to reduce the devastating effects on the child. In the future, I am sure that things in society will evolve towards an acceptance of single-parent families as part of normalcy and separations will probably be a little easier to manage. In nature the lioness does not go to a notary, lawyer or psychologist to ask for help. And we return to the jungle despite the appearances of more educated and stylish world.

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