Everyone in your sending and receiving homes will have special needs during your residence-change process.
Everyone's emotional security and
harmony will grow if you co-parents (a) are aware of these special needs and
(b) help
each other fill them as
What needs?
Kids' Common Transition Needs
A need is the instinctive urge to reduce a mental, emotional, physical, and/or spiritual
discomfort.
Like stretched rubber bands, we ceaselessly try to release our tensions and
return to balance ("harmony.") A
want is a need with
little tension. All our behavior and emotions are caused by dynamic
mixes of conscious and unconscious needs. Some needs are local and
situational, and some are primal and instinctual, like hunger, thirst, and
rest.
When a child in your family changes full-time homes, all residents in both
homes gain new needs (discomforts). Most
minor kids need help in (a) identifying and understanding their
needs, and (b) learning to
describe them in ways that make sense to themselves and their caregivers. Do
you remember what that learning process was like?
Pause and recall what it was like when you left your childhood home. Then browse this collection of typical home-changing needs to see which probably
fit each of your kids - not just the girl or boy who is moving...
1) Learn what the
(shoulds, oughts, and
musts) are in the new residence, and what happens when they get
broken. Learn "How much freedom do I have here?" Other
key rules have to do with feeling and expressing strong
emotions, like anger, fear, guilt, shame, and sadness.
2) Learn "Who's
in charge of each home
now - who makes the major decisions?"
3) Learn "What are my
roles here: what
do others expect of me, as a boy/girl, step/child, house
resident, student, neighbor, church member, relative, and person?"
4) Learn "How much
power do I have
here: who can I get to act if I assert my needs and wants?"
5) Learn "Who can I
trust here - who
can I tell and show my feelings, needs, and opinions to safely, without
being ridiculed, ignored, or rejected?" This need affects how safe the child feels to grieve
significant losses.
6) Learn am I physically and emotionally
safe
here?
A major underlying question kids have in most divorced and re/marriage
homes is "Will these (caregivers) stay together and not break up, like all
my prior homes and families have?"
7) Learn "Who can I
play with / enjoy
being with in this home and neighborhood?
8) Learn my territory
"What
area/s of this home do I have access to, and which spaces are mine
alone (rooms, closets, shelves, drawers, etc.)? Will I have enough privacy?"
9) Learn what's the
routine here - who does what
when, in what order? One possibility is "the routine in this home is no
routine."
10) Learn are there any
or taboos
here? If so, what happens to people who disclose or break them?
11) Learn "What are the
in this
home? How do other people's rankings mesh with mine? When
we disagree, who wins?"
12) Learn are all the people I care about OK enough,
now that I've moved? For instance "Is my little sister / depressed
father / friend next door / pet OK enough without me being there?"
"Will my grandmother stop being angry at my father for making me move?" There are many variations on this one! A related need is to learn "How does each person in my new house feel
about (a) me, about (b) me living here now, and about (c) how
I came to live here?" Am I among friends, critics, or ghosts?
13) Learn "If I don't like it here,
can I
go back
(to my other) home?" In some stepfamilies, this can turn into a re/marital
hot potato - as in "George, after all this uproar, if your little princess doesn't like living
with her mother don't expect me to welcome her back into this home..."
14) Learn "What will
visitations (with my
other parent/s, siblings, and/or special relatives) be like now?" and "Can I talk with the people in my other home
on the phone when and as long as I wish?"
15) Kids who blame
themselves for forcing their residence change need to reduce excessive
and rebuild
their self-respect (if they had
that to begin with)...
16) Kids who were forced
to move against their wishes need to feel and express their hurt, anger, and resentments safely (see 1
and 5 above). They also need
to clarify "Why do I have to move?" These
are key parts of healthy
Kids who change schools and towns have lots of concurrent needs to fill,
like...
17) I need to learn "Will I like
the kids and
teachers? Will they like me? Will it be fun or
really bad? Will there be too much homework? How will I get
to and home from school? Do I have the right
clothes? Can I get into the activity I really liked at my other
school? and... What's this neighborhood town like: what's here and
not here?
An common overarching need is to...
18) Learn "Is there someone in my new home who wants
to learn my needs and to patiently and lovingly help me
fill them?" That's code for "Does someone here care about me? Am I important to someone?"
19)
Add your own transition needs...
20)
Note that most of these needs are for spoken and experiential information.
How likely is it that your child/ren can articulate each of these needs
to themselves and their co-parents? If they can
articulate some, do they accept how normal and healthy these
questions and needs are, or do they feel weird and dumb?
How is each child in your two or more homes doing
with their unique set of these transition needs? They probably can't tell you
they need genuine (vs. dutiful) respect, empathy, compassion,
affirmation, guidance, patience, time, honesty,
encouragement, information, companionship, and consistency.
Together these spell "l-o-v-e." Are each of your kids feeling
loved enough recently? How do you
know? Do you know anyone else who needs these things now?
Note that each of your co-parents will probably have similar
adjustment needs. Your challenge is
to fill your adults' and kids'
and maintain
four daily
as you do. Because most people have trouble identifying their mix of abstract primary needs like those above, we think and speak shorthand code like "So
has Marian settled down yet (from changing homes)?", and
"How's Tommie doing in his new situation?"
Those phrases and the word adapt stand for "How are you
each doing at (a) satisfying your complex mix of needs that
the child's home-change is causing, and at (b) re-stabilizing your lives to your satisfaction, while
(c) fulfilling your
many other responsibilities and obligations as you (d) grow and develop
as unique, worthy persons?" Whew!
Many of these relocation-needs are unconscious, unless an aware adult focuses on them.
Without reading an article like this, it's rare for average kids and
adults to be aware of all these transition needs at once. That means
typical co-parents seldom have a coherent plan to
fill everyone's needs well - specially if there are teamwork
between them. Is this true in and between your
child's two homes?
The point: when a minor child changes homes to live with their other co-parent/s,
everyone in each home has significant adjustment needs. Kids and
psychologically-
adults usually need help identifying and talking about
their needs. Intentionally identifying and filling everyone's main needs
(having a thoughtful
change-management plan) helps restore clarity and emotional security in child/ren's linked homes as your transition
progresses. That promotes
stepfamily bonding and harmony over time.
We've been exploring well-planned residence
changes for minor (step)kids. What about unplanned home-changes?
Managing Conflictual or Unplanned Residence Changes
A childless new stepmom told others in a
co-parenting class of meeting her two visiting stepsons at the train station the
prior weekend. She described saying "Gee, it looks like you guys brought
everything you own for this summer's visit." The other co-parents' mouths dropped
open when she described the wide-eyed younger boy saying "Visiting?
Didn't Mom tell you that Chuck and I are moving in with you and Dad for good?" She and their dad lived in a one-bedroom urban apartment.
This is one of two worst-case stepchild-move scenarios. The other occurs when
a court forces a minor child to move because the receiving bioparent
"proved" that the former mate is
or
Both situations cause shock, hurt, rage, resentment, fear,
distrust, and sadness to people in both homes. My experience is that forced residence changes can take
years to adjust to if co-parents are wounded and can't communicate
and grieve effectively. That seems to be the current U.S. norm.
The average case is that
there is "moderate" advance planning, and significant conflict in and
between both homes before and after the child moves. Co-parental
+
and
conflicts +
relationship
often hinder effective move-planning.
That increases everyone's adjustment needs and stresses, as the web of
dwelling-changes
unfolds.
Whatever level of stress you're experiencing (or expect), what can your
co-parents do to make the best of a conflictual child-residence change? You
have key options to pick from. The most powerful one is...
1)
Each of you co-parents
who's managing your
and your residence change: your
or other
well-meaning
This is essential, for
false selves aren't able to manage your many
changes very well (a) while guarding your integrities, (b) strengthening your
relationships, and (c) keeping your personal and re/marital
Your kids need
you co-parents to be guided by your true Selves! Then...
2) Clarify and re-affirm your main long-term
Your co-parents can adapt to any major life change if you're clear and focused
together on what's most important in your lives long term. I suggest that when
viable compromises don't appear, putting your
first, your
re/marriage/s second, and all else third will serve everyone best in
the long run.
3)
Sort
out your welter of
and mutual
conflicts into groups of discrete tasks, and prioritize them -
perhaps on paper. Focusing as teammates on resolving high-priority
projects one at a time will eventually bring you and your kids
stability again. If one or more of you co-parents is psychologically
you'll probably have trouble staying focused.
Option 4) Keep in mind that resolving role and relationship "problems" and
"conflicts" is really about identifying, respecting, and
filling
each adult's and child's
Help each other keep
(a)
in mind, and (b) a
("=/=") attitude, as you sort out your needs and conflicts and
brainstorm compromises.
5) Work
toward effective adult strategies to spot and resolve
and
conflicts and
associated
Even well-planned
child-residence shifts will cause clusters of these stressors for weeks
or months as you all adjust. Teaching involved kids what these three normal dynamics
are can help you all manage any significant home and
stepfamily changes...
6)
Refresh
yourselves on the communication
basics and
in safeguard
Model and teach the
skills to your kids as you all sort out your needs and the losses you
need to mourn. Early into your move-adjustment period, perhaps the most valuable of
these skills is
Unless they're
medicating or numbing out, each of
your adults and kids probably needs to vent and be compassionately, respectfully heard
- vs. "fixed."
7) Help
each other discern and stay aware of the long term benefits
of your many family-system changes, as well as the short term
inconveniences, anxieties, confusions, and losses. Also help each other
avoid black-white thinking, which reduces complex
conflicts to just two options. Bipolar thinking is strong evidence of a
myopic, protective dominance.
Option 8) Post
the
in a prominent
place in both your homes. Let it's wisdom guide and inspire you to
calmly change what you can, and accept
(mourn) what you can't...
9) Help
each other to ask for personal, family, and
community support as you all gradually
adjust to your inter-related life changes. Use co-parent
to clarify the many possible
sources for help for your adults and kids...
10) From time to
time, coach each other to do an
attitude check: are you each looking at these changes with glass-half-empty attitudes, or
glass-half-full? Note that the ancient Chinese symbol for
"crisis" combines two characters which mean danger and opportunity.
11) As you
co-parents navigate your stepfamily ship through these stormy seas of change, stay aware of the
sets of concurrent
needs that each of your dependent kids is struggling to fill. Give
them (and you adults) extra compassion and patience during these
change-times, for you all may feel overwhelmed at times. A final option...
12) Stay aware of your evolving change process,
pace yourselves as you adjust, and intentionally help each other stay
as it unfolds
While the specific uncertainties and (step)family "problems" that
bloom from your kid/s' changing homes will be unique,
these 12
options are universal. They also apply to your managing similar household changes like kids going on extended
visitations and living away at college, or a boarder or relative moving in or
out.
Recap
This article focuses on a change that occurs in many divorced-family and stepfamily homes: one or more minor
kids changing their primary residence. Such changes range from well-planned, paced, and harmonious,
to sudden and/or forced by stressful circumstances
like court orders, natural disasters, or custodial-parent disability.
All primary-residence and
custody changes cause webs of 20 or more concurrent
emotional, financial, and legal shifts in and between both homes. These shifts cause
losses and transitional needs (discomforts) in residents of both homes. These amplify or add to existing personal-growth and
family-adjustment needs.
If your three or more co-parents are all (a) clearly aware of
these changes and adjustment-needs in advance, and (b) can
and
effectively, you can help
each other plan to manage them well over time, and help your kids to grieve
and adjust. Such planned residential changes can increase
stepfamily loyalty, teamwork, and bonding!
The average case is that child-residence changes are moderately planned, at
best. The kids' and adults' unfilled primary needs often leave
distrusts, disrespects, hurts, resentments, and hostilities that
take years to heal. If those emotional stews existed before the move - which
is common in post-divorce stepfamilies - they often get worse when a child
changes homes.
This article offers a structure to understand,
plan for, and manage complex
(step)family residence changes. As with all (step)family
and
problems,
the key to doing these well is whether
each of the co-parents involved in this residential shift is being
consistently
their
true Self.
Does that describe you and your
co-parenting partners now? If you're not sure - invest time and effort in
co-parent
Pause and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you
needed? If so, what do you need to do next? If not - what do you
need?
+ + +
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