Emotions Through Behavior

Communicating with Iggy:
This is recommended for your younger children, but should try it with Iggy.  Pretend to be someone else.  The example in the book is when driving a child to school pretend to be a bus driver and ask him about his weekend.  "It is often less threatening for a younger child to disclose his feelings to a stranger.

The journey from full dependence to independence is not really a straightforward trek up a long flight of stairs.  Instead, it's a series of crisscrossing paths, shortcuts, and detours in the multilevel maze, all leading to the center, to the person we each will become.  Over the course of childhood, we explore those paths, and we often return to familiar territory before venturing beyond.  All the while, we are accomplishing the same tasks, moving toward the same center.

Iggy will feel sadness.  The problem is not that the child feels sadness, but how he expresses it.  What distinguishes a healthy sadness from a devastating depression?  Iggy will have to work harder to achieve a healthy sense of self-esteem and trust.

Without question, a key to a child's healthy development is being understood, loved and accepted for who he is.

It is important that Iggy grows up feeling confident in his ability to give love to and inspire love from others, especially from me and Brooke.

Talk to me: use creative strategies to make a real connection: "Tell me something funny that happened to you today?"  Don't just ask how was your day, make it nuanced.

Learn how to simply listen rather than giving in to the parental impulse to always guide and advise; training yourself to view your child - rather than yourself - as a source of answer.

Before you talk with your child on any important matter regarding your divorce, remember to plan ahead and structure your comments to:

• communicate the point you're trying to make in clear language;
• empathize: let your child know you understand how he feels;
• acknowledge and describe how each change will affect your child;
• anticipate and answer questions you're reasonably sure your child will have;
• invite his further questions and answer them clearly.

To do:

Purchase two blank books.  Together at the end of the day, you and your child write in the books the best and worst parts of the day.  Keeping a daily journal of feelings is a good way to open up discussion.

Keep it short: 3 things - the best moment since the last journal entry; the most difficult or saddest moment and finally how each felt about one of those moments in detail.  Share the journal.  This helps Iggy to learn to focus on the positive feelings she is experiencing.  

Letters

Write a loving letter to your child and mail it.  When communication is difficult, writing a letter can be a useful way to talk to each other.