Children ..... Fragile minds, False memories.....

Growing up is hard. Growing up never really understanding your childhood during a divorce or a separation is harder. Children tend to blame themselves, where blame should clearly never have been put on their shoulders but of the shoulders of the people who raised them. Now this blame doesn't have to keep going on into the child’s adult life as the child who has grown into an adult has the option of finding out what really is the truth. An adult child can think for themselves and decide if what they were told is either truthful or untrue by listening to both sides in an objective way, if at all possible. This can only happen if the adult child choses to put some closure to memories that they find painful. In a perfect world children would never have to grow up with the emotional baggage that belonged to their parents, but our world isn't perfect, is it?

All the same though I am taking about a child, who has not become an adult but is just a child. A innocent child who bombarded by their parents comments and half truths. Children see things differently. The things adults tell children can be, and usually are forever etched in a child's mind. Truth and fiction becomes interwined, it becomes confusing and said enough times it becomes believable truth to a child. Tell a child a lie over and over and that child will come to believe it to be true, false memories can take the place of true memories. As I once read in a book by Orson Scott Card in which he wrote “Surround a child with lies, and he clings to them like a teddy bear, like his mother’s hand.” This statement has merrit even if it came from a fictious story.

Deception is the worse a parent can do to a child in the end. To grow up never sure of what is true or what has just been said so many times that belief is inevitable. A child mind is fragile and should never be played with by revengeful adults.

Divorce seems to be the biggest cause of false memories for children. He said, she said, is an adult game that affects the children involved. It is even worse if one parent ends up being absent in the game so the child only hears from one adult. A child who is told by one parent that the other parent is a “bad person” over and over begins to believe these comments as true. Some parents don’t even realize what they are doing to their child in the end until it is too late. Some parents never realize it was ever too late in the first place. Parents going through life may have anger against one person or another in their lives that they voice openly to their children. Children are our best listeners. Most parents are not out to hurt their child but the child is always hurt when they are told something by one parent about the other. Years of how one or another parent feels about certain issues or feelings are etched in a child’s mind till the child comes to believe what they hear must be the truth, which in turn wiggles and snares itself into the child’s mind so the child has a strong belief of something not completely truthful, just truthful in the mind of the adult who may be hurt or angry at the time it was being said.

We all do it, even in innocently speaking to our child gives the child a belief that no one else could give that child. After all it is coming from the most trusted source in their lives, their parent(s). Is it right to give a child one side? Is it right to allow our emotions to mould our thoughts when speaking to our children? Even children should be allowed to make up their own minds in the end.

Let’s explore this a bit more. Two people who stop loving or decide they cannot live together anymore call it quits. They have children; those children who love both parents are suddenly thrown in the middle of adult chaos. Both parents are mad at each other; let’s face it when a relationship ends a lot (not always the general rule though) of the time those people are hurt, confused, ashamed that their relationship didn’t work out, they are hurt that they loved their partner but they feel their partner didn’t love them, either enough or at all. Feelings are raw and emotions are high. One parent tells their child(ren) “Daddy didn’t love us so he left us” Is this true did the daddy leave the child(ren) or did he leave the mother? “Daddy has a new family who he loves better that is why he never calls or visits” Is this true again did he go off have another family just to replace the one he had? Is that really the reason he doesn’t call or visit? Now daddy says to the kids “Mommy didn’t love daddy she loves someone one else” Is this true, did mommy really just stop loving daddy? “Daddy is not allowed to call or visit you.” Did mommy really make it so daddy couldn’t see his kid(s)? Parents telling their child(ren) even worse things then the examples above, because they don't want the other person to be invoilved in the child(ren) life. The comments vary but the facts remain that each parent makes comments to set doubt and confusion into their child(ren) minds. Whether it is intentional or not, the seeds have already been planted by one or both parents. What is a child to do? Who is a child to believe? It makes it worse if only one parent is in the picture and makes comments discrediting the other, for whatever reason is not in the picture, who cannot defend themselves. The child(ren) now have no way of knowing what the other side of the story is. They will begin to believe what they hear the most of.

Defending yourself, now that should never have to happen if both parents would put their emotions aside and think of the child(ren). I have watched too many people confuse their children with angry and hurt emotions that they are feeling over a break up. Friends, who are on the verge of breaking up, divorcing, or separating, tend to say things about their partners that should never be said around their children. Parents who have told me that they feel that their child(ren) should know the truth from them and not from the other parent. What gives these people, who are logical and caring people, who would never intentionally say bad things in better times of their lives, the right to suddenly tell their child(ren) the truth as they see it now. Mommy and daddy were the greatest people for the last x number of years are now what, uncaring brutes, thoughtless, unworthy, losers?? How does one go from being a great person, to all those bad comments that two people will say about each other to their child(ren) during a divorce or separation.

A child’s mind is sensitive and they may not show it but deep inside they are taking it all in, quietly. They are beginning to believe things that are being said time and time again. They are confused who they love and who loves them back. They are in turmoil and no one notices until they start to lash out, then parents act confused why their child would lash out against them. They will blame anyone else but never stop and think “was it something I said”? Yes, it was something you said. You’re the adult act like it. If your relationship or marriage is something you cannot work on then by all means end it. Just don’t end it for your child(ren). If you need someone to talk to find another adult, but always make sure your child(ren) are never within ear shot when you bash the other person. Never make snide or rude comments about the other person to your child(ren). You’re the adult, what you feel today about a person you never end up feeling the same way 20 years from now, but your child(ren) will. They will always have those comments etched in their heads. It will affect them even if they don’t understand why they feel that way. The relationship with your partner has ended for two of you; it did not end for the children. They will always have the parents they have before you divorced, even if one or both parents find love with another person. Don’t punish them as if they were the ones who could not keep your relationship going or they were the cause of your emotional anger and hurt.

Someone calls you fat or ugly as a child, you remember that in the back of your head, you diet as an adult, you try to change your looks the best you can, and you do whatever it takes to change those feelings you have now because someone made a comment when you were a kid. Those feelings were etched into your head years ago but they still have their effects working on your mind as an adult. You never forgot how you felt back then.

Kids who come from divorced parents will always remember too, it is up to you to make sure they don’t get caught up in your emotional baggage of hurt feelings. Time heals most wounds but comments last a life time.

Be just that, the one person your child(ren) can trust never to give them false comments even when you’re hurting inside so much you want to explode. Remember that raw hurt you feel today will not be raw in years to come. Those feelings will fade and disappear, your comments now; never will.






"...I won't let it happen. I won't... I won't let this world exist without me!"