Parenting in the Midst of Marital Difficulties (Part 1)

Perhaps one of the most difficult things to do as parents is to parent in a unified way as mother and father.  This becomes even more difficult when those parents are in the midst of severe marital difficulties, or are separated or divorced.  How do you parent in a healthy way with another person when your feelings about that person are far from positive? 

Over the next few days we are going to talk about some strategies to do just that.

1.  Remember! It's not about you.

This is the one rule that is the overarching rule to all the others.  When things are going well at home, and in a marriage we have a much easier time with this.    But, when things are going badly in a marriage, it becomes harder.  We want to win arguments.  We want to protect ourselves from pain.  We want to be the "better" parent.  We want to BE right more than we want to DO what's right.  To parent well in the midst of marital difficulties we need to flip that around.  Because, the only thing that matters as a parent is doing what is best for our children's well-being.  This is even more true when we are in the midst of marital problems, because the likelihood is our kids sense that there is trouble, and they are already feeling on edge.

OK, that sounds great.  But, how?  Check back in with us throughout the week for some more specific steps we are going to talk about to put this into practice.