Pending a divorce, many Oregon parents share similar concerns including how to help their children cope and how to reach an amicable custody agreement. Another prevalent anxiety is often centered around the ability to maintain strong parent-child relationships despite significant changes to the familial structure.
According to the Huffington Post, there are some proactive steps that divorcing parents can take to maintain worthwhile relationships with their children and create even stronger bonds. These include the following:
- Thoughtfulness: If a parent notices a deteriorating relationship with their child, he or she should take a thoughtful approach to finding out why. Perhaps there are things that can be doing to put the child’s needs first or to better understand the changes in the child’s attitude or behavior.
- Involvement: Parents can successfully show they care about their children by being involved in the details of their lives. Even after a divorce, parents can be proactive about creating a calendar and being aware of their children’s schedule, extra-curricular commitments and current interests.
- Quality time: While parents may be tempted to measure their involvement in terms of hours spent with their children, it is more productive for them to focus on quality time. Parents should focus their energy on creating memories and spending time doing wholesome, quality activities with their children.
- Creativity: Children thrive off of creativity and exposure to new experiences. Parents can encourage excitement and enthusiasm for spending time together by being creative and thinking of fun activities that promote learning.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the year 2014, the divorce rate in the United States was approximately 3.2 percent in a population of 1,000 people.