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Toddler Transfer
Easing Visitation for
Children After Divorce By Teri Brown
Children After Divorce
Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of a divorce involving young children is visitation. Leaving a child is never easy, but the tangled emotions of a divorce only compound the problem. Nothing is worse than handing off a screaming toddler to a person you may feel bitterness toward.
Nancy Davis, mother of one from Tigard, Ore., remembers how difficult it was when she and her husband first separated. Their daughter would sob, clinging to her almost every time she would be dropped off. Conversely, their daughter also cried when Dad dropped her off.
"It got better once I figured out ways to smooth the transition," Davis says. "I would have her do something she was excited to show her father, such as an art project or baking some cookies or going shopping for something new. It totally changed her attitude for getting dropped off at her dad's."
"Toddlers always pick up on parental tension," Sember says. "When parents aren't cooperative the child may act out. It's likely the child will have trouble transitioning from one home to the other."
Sember suggests that families undergoing this type of stress should see a family therapist. Family therapy is productive for divorced families, too, and can help the parents find a way to work with each other and help the child cope with the negative emotions.
"Toddlers simply don't understand the complexity of the parents' relationship and don't have the tools to sort through it," Sember says. "They interpret it in the way that makes sense to them, and which is often detrimental. Some people think that babies and toddlers don't understand what is happening when their parents divorce, or when their divorced parents fight. In fact, babies and toddlers are very attuned to their parents' emotions and know something is wrong. Because these children are often pre-verbal, they don't understand that their parents are not angry with them. They interpret the negative emotions personally and it can be very damaging."
