Children of Divorce ? Legal and Emotional Issues

Divorce can be a very tough time for the children. Children tend to experience feelings of rejection, pain, confusion, and abandonment during the divorce process. Adults tend to think more about the sorting out the legal issues at the time of the divorce and, therefore, may not be able to give that much importance to their child?s emotional needs. While legal issues concerning children are important, your child?s emotional needs should be taken care of as well.

Research indicates that children, who do not cope well with their parent?s divorce, tend to face more emotional and psychological problems in their adult lives. From a short-term perspective, children who do not get adequate emotional support during the time of the divorce, tend to have problems relating to their peers, display aggressive behaviour, and perform poorly at school. We will firstly discuss the legal issues that deserve your attention such as child custody, visitation rights, and child support. Subsequently, we will focus on how you can help your child cope with the divorce emotionally.

You will need to decide on the living arrangement of your children when you file the divorce petition in the court. This agreement should include other details such as who will look after the children during school holidays, who will take care of the children?s education and health needs, and the living arrangement of the children with the parent who does not have the physical custody. The court might not interfere with the living arrangement if both the parents strongly agree to it.

The court will give a residence order stating where the child should live. There are times when this order can be made out in favour of more than one person. In such cases, the court will specifically state how much time the child would need to spend with each person. The court may also give a contact order. A contact order will state the number of telephone calls, holidays, visits, or weekends that are allowed to the non-custodial parent. There are times when parents tend to disagree on certain issues about the child?s upbringing. In such cases, you can obtain a specific issue order from the court. The courts will generally analyse what is best for the child before issuing any orders.

Child support is also an important issue that deserves attention. It is important to note that courts or lawyers will not be of much help as far as child maintenance is concerned. Only the Child Support Agency (CSA) can help you deal with the child maintenance issues. The CSA can take the non-paying spouse to court if he or she is unwilling to contribute towards child support. The CSA can ask the court to make an Attachment of Earnings Order in order to deal with non-paying spouse. This order will ensure that a specific amount of money is deducted from the non-paying spouse?s earnings each week.

The CSA will require the non-physical-custodial parent to pay 15% of his or her net income towards childcare to the parent who lives with the child. You will need to pay 20% of your net income if you have two children and 25% if you have three children. Maintenance and visitation are often closely interconnected. It is important that you and your spouse reach an agreement about the visitation rights mutually. If you are not able to do so, you should consult a divorce mediator who can help you reach an agreement.

The absent parent will pay less in maintenance if he or she spends more time with his or her children. If the children spend more than 52 nights a year with the other parent, certain reductions are made in the child support payments. Now that we have analysed the legal aspect that concerns your children, let us look at how you can help your child emotionally. The following guidelines will help you in reaching out to your child and helping him or her deal with the divorce process.

Guidelines for Helping Your Children Deal with Divorce

? Make sure that you spend enough time with your child. This may appear to be tough because you will already be spending most of your time sorting out your legal issues along with the emotional ones. However, spending time with your children at this time is most crucial. This will allow them to talk to you in a more open manner and enable them to ask you any questions that might be bothering them. ? You would need to tell your child that the divorce does not mean losing the other parent. Children usually tend to feel this way about divorce. Make sure that you maintain civil conduct with your ex-spouse in front of your children and encourage your children to do so as well. Ensure that your children get to spend time with both the parents during and after the divorce process. This will help the children feel more secure and stable about their future. ? There are times when children tend to display unusual behavioural patterns and tend to become very quiet. This may be an indication of some psychological imbalance. In such cases, family counselling can be very beneficial because children may feel more comfortable talking about their issues in front of both the parents. In addition, the counsellor will able to suggest certain measures that you can adopt to ease your child?s pain.

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you would like more information on how to get a quickie Divorce see http://www.quickie-divorce.com