My Happy Kids

Those of you who have known me for a while know that I've always thought my 2 girls were thriving in spite of the craziness and chaos. And if you page on my divorce,  you know that they seemed to sail right through the separation without missing a beat. And I know some people never really believed this was possible, given how much my ASW was distressing me.

Well, as part of the custody agreement, among the other selfish terms I forced upon my poor, victim ASW was that our children have ongoing access to counseling. We started them with a PhD child psychologist about 2 months after we separated - about 4 visits with mom and 4 with me, at which point  the therapist finished treating them. She found them to be adjusting very nicely, to have no adjustment problems that need attention, and overall to be very emotionally healthy kids. No surprise, because everyone that is around them judges them this way.

So the really important thing here is that my kids are doing ggggggrrrrrRRREEEEAAAATTTTT!!! (as Tony would say).

But there are a couple corollaries here:

1 - my wife has, indeed, been a situationally competent parent. She had NO idea how to do this from her childhood, but she was determined to do it right, followed my lead a lot, and never gave less than 100% to do her best for them. She has succeeded so far, folks. Of course she is NEC, not BP, and I think this helps. In other words, she is high functioning - quite high at her best.

2 - Kids don't have to be devastated by divorce. If you are staying in a hurting relationship solely for your children's sake, take heed here. There is more than one way to raise healthy kids. It doesn't have to be nuclear. For more on this, you can see my page on my divorce:

But the 2 key points: keep both parents intimately involved. For me that meant 50/50 shared living - a week with mom, a week with me. They really want us both, and they don't mind the ping pong. Trust me. And the second point was to stay in control. We carried on as married until ASW was ready to move and the custody was settled. Then we told the girls we were divorcing, and they were in their second home with mom within 2 weeks. No waiting, no wondering.

3 - Mom having significant custody was the right answer. Not a rule. Just an example where mom's contribution as parent is very important to the kids. She nearly killed herself and her selfish, perverted, narcissicistic, codeine addicted, quack psychiatrist, lying, cheating, thieving husband (but I digress), but aside from when she was nearly dead, she has been there as mom.

Anyway, good news from my neighborhood. Don't try this at home kids. Trained stunt driver.

© 2004-6 Richard, 21CP and Dalkeith Press