How to help children with transition between two parents or between two homes.

All children are struggling with transition. (Adults would struggle too if they should do it. It's not age-related, it's situation-related.)

Some children learn to accept their new lifestyle more easily, and some will have a harder time for various reasons. The common misconception is that children have a hard time with the transition because the other home has “fewer rules” or “only fun and games, no rules” or “more money and better toys”. The truth is: How the other house is operating or what they experience in the other parent's home has no input here and has absolutely zero effect in this matter. We would love to believe that, but it's simply not true.

Every transition is a reminder for a child that their family is cut in half and they have now separated parents. It's a reminder of their "wound" or as books are saying: "reminder of their loss". 

How to help your child?

1- Accept that this is a natural thing to feel.  It's not a sign of "something is wrong with my child" (well... Something is wrong: her parents can not live together) 

2- Please, do not plan exciting things for the arrival time. We would like to “Wow” our child when they arrive. Sometimes, already during the handover process, we overwhelm our children with information about how much fun stuff we planned for them for the time with us. A child, who is trying to manage their emotions about leaving the other parent and trying to put on a brave face for their parent, can not process the information load and is prone to lash out (“I don't care, leave me alone, I don't want to do it, it's lame, it's boring”)

Sometimes parents might feel like they can distract children from being sad by doing loads of exciting things immediately. The reality is that it will only postpone the reaction. For a day or two it seemed like our child was fine with the transition and when the fun was over and we were using rules our child was showing a bad attitude towards us. The illusion happens because after the initial distraction (fun activities) child has now finally the opportunity to process their sadness that was pushed to the background. Their sad feelings were only hidden (distracted) and not dealt with and now they are back. 

To avoid hiding the feelings, to avoid being hit with bad behaviour at any point during your parenting time and not to make healing time longer, a parent should allow their child to have time to process their feeling straight away. For the handover day, give a lot of downtime: TV, cuddling on the couch, walking in the Zoo/park/lakeside or somewhere your child would feel relaxed and not overstimulated (you might say: let them be lazy).

3 - Avoid planning handovers for the middle of the day. For children, the easiest are earlier morning ones. Evenings can be good for children who do not have a tendency to cry when its the bedtime. Midday handover is hardest as then children have "cut in half" feeling more acute. Unfortunately, midday handovers tend to be the parents' choice as the parent feels they have more time to prepare for the handover and "they feel less rushed". 

4- If possible avoid handovers from parent to parent. Instead, arrange a transition from/to school or via grandparents or from a friend's house. Then your child does not have to live through the "leaving one parent behind" feeling with every transition.

5- It's very tempting and feels very convenient to stop for a chat and pass information to the other parent during the handover. However, for children, it would be easier if parents could avoid chatting/having discussions about whatever topic during the handover. Loads of aspects are against it anyway: Verbal agreements are easy to forget and misunderstand and tend to be confusing as parents are distracted by background noises and surroundings. From a child's point of view- it's emotionally difficult and confusing. Seeing their parents getting along and being friendly makes children feel that it's "unfair". Children do wonder alongside those lines: "If they can be friends, why can they not give me a family? Why do they have to make me suffer if they do not hate each other?" It does not give children a good feeling seeing their parents getting along. It's more like an insult to injury. Confusing and mixed messages at the very least. When many children learn to accept that “unfairness'' your child might be the one who can not cope with this cognitive dissonance. They are not able to verbalise this to you, instead they get moody or tearful or will act out, be rude and (in very bizarre way) look for revenge:"You are making my heart hurt because you are making me think how nice could be having parents together, now I will be horrible to you and hurt your feelings back."