3 Tips For How To Remember To Keep Your Mouth Shut During Divorce

3 Tips For How To Remember To Keep Your Mouth Shut During Divorce By Shel Miller, Ph.D.

1. Train yourself to speak from Respect by braking: The process moves fast and you may find yourself accelerating like a Formula 1 race car. If so, remember such cars have fabulous brakes. Parents will crash their kids and their car without emotional brakes. We all have talking boundaries and listening boundaries. In order not to intrude on your child’s listening boundary, you need to contain your frustration within your talking boundary. There is more than enough guilt, shame and loss feelings to go around during the crisis of divorce. Your children do not need to be there to help your carry your shame. That would be a formula for breakdown. There are many factors creating stress for children. I can think of none worse and more painful than chronic unresolved tension between parents. Commit yourself to breaking bad habits now so you will brake when necessary. Hold yourself accountable by calling a buddy and telling him about this new concept and the necessary change you are planning. Tell your buddy that you will also disclose any failures as you get practice.

2. Commit to Abiding by your Values: If you want your children to believe that you will each still be there for them, then that means providing an empathic environment. Remember that a major goal of successful parenting is to create optimism in children. Is this one of your values. If so, tell yourself to live by the value of providing an optimistic ambience. If you have been in the habit of making decisions based on emotions (lizard brain stem) only, now is a good time to promise yourself to start checking in on your own principles (prefrontal cortex).

3. Stamp into your mind’s eye an image of what NOT to do: Close your eyes and imprint into your visual mind the following picture: The “I wish we never had children” branded on the shoulder of a boy in an advertisement in the Netherlands. Is this the kind of banter you want your children to hear during mindlessly harsh parental argument? This boy’s image from Bashbat Advertising is followed by this text: “I wish we never had children. What you say during divorce lasts forever.” Know you are building or undermining your new family’s future with every statement you make now. Create lasting positive memories in your child’s mind’s eye.

Shel J. Miller, Ph.D. is an Executive, Family and Divorce Coach. He is President of Executive Perspective. Contact him at (617) 731-9174 or ShelMiller@rcn.com. www.ShelMiller.com

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