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Your Kids Don’t Need a Perfect Parent: Letting Go of Parenting Guilt After Divorce · Bent Not Broken: Starting Over After Divorce | Post Divorce Life

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Bent Not Broken.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Starting over after divorce, I'm Coach Deborah if you listen to my recent conversation with parenting coach Elizabeth Stidd, there was one statement she made that really stayed with me.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection is neither required nor desired.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow! How many of us, especially after divorce, need to hear that?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're a mom or dad trying to parent after divorce, chances are you've wondered, am I doing enough?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are my kids okay?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did the divorce hurt them more than I realize?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And am I making the right decisions?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the hardest one?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Did I fail my children?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to talk about that guilt and why being a good parent after divorce has very little to do with being a perfect one.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: When a marriage ends and you have children, you're not just rebuilding your own life.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to figure out what your family looks like now.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're suddenly a single parent.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your children are going back and forth between two homes.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your ex parents completely differently than you do.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're trying to maintain the activities your kids had before the divorce while also trying to deal with less money, less time, and a whole lot more stress.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you may be putting enormous pressure on yourself to make sure your children don't feel the impact of the divorce.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want you to consider.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: What if your job isn't to make everything perfect for them?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: What if your job is simply to create a place where they know they are safe, loved, heard, and accepted?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's something Elizabeth and I talked about in our conversation.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Children can actually learn that mom's house works one way and dad's house works another way.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: What becomes difficult for them isn't necessarily having different rules.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's the conflict surrounding those differences.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth explained that children are capable of adjusting to different expectations as long as parents provide clarity, consistency, and calm without criticizing the other parent.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that means you don't have to control what happens in the other house.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can concentrate on the home you're creating.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was another part of the conversation that I think is so important for divorced parents.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: When a child becomes angry, defiant, emotional, or starts acting out after divorce, it's easy to look only at the behavior.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But Elizabeth encouraged us to look underneath it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of immediately thinking, why are you behaving like this?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we ask, what's happening inside of you right now?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Think about what we're asking some of our kids to do.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Pack a bag, leave mom, go to dad's, get comfortable, pack again, leave dad, go back to mom's.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they're doing that every single week.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Even with both homes are safe and loving, that transition can still be stressful for a child.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes that meltdown isn't disrespect.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the anger isn't really anger.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the child who's pushing you away may actually need you to come a little closer.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean there aren't boundaries, it doesn't mean there are consequences, and it certainly doesn't mean we excuse inappropriate behavior.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: It means we remember something Elizabeth said that I love.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: We try to keep our children in every activity because we don't want them to lose anything else.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: We avoid boundaries because they've already been through so much.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we exhaust ourselves trying to prove that everything is okay.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But your children don't need you exhausted.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: They need you.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: They need your attention, your consistency, your boundaries, your hugs, your laughter, your tradition, your presence.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your family doesn't look the way you once imagined it would.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean it's no longer a family.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite parts of my conversation with Elizabeth was her idea of intentionally creating a new sense of family after the divorce.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: She talked about rituals, simple things that tell your children this is who we are.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be elaborate.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Friday night is pizza night.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Sunday morning is pancakes.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you take a walk together after dinner.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe everyone shares one thing they're grateful for before going to bed.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you light a candle at dinner.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have a funny phrase everyone says before leaving the house.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: These little rituals can create something children desperately need after divorce.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Belonging.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth described how simple family rituals and traditions can provide children with safety, stability, and grounding after the structure of their family changes.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lesson there for us adults too.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: When your old life falls apart, you don't have to recreate it exactly as it was.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: You get to decide what comes next.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I also love that Elizabeth shared about her daughter.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Years after the divorce, her daughter didn't look at her family simply as something that had been broken.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: She saw people and experiences that had become part of her life because her family changed.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: She had created her own story around what happened.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And isn't that what resilience really is?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Resilience doesn't mean something difficult never happened.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It means that difficult thing doesn't get to write the ending.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's true for our kids.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also true for us.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my challenge for you this week.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you're parenting after divorce, ask yourself three questions.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: What am I doing because it's truly important to my family?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: What am I doing because I feel guilty?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what is one simple ritual I can create that tells my children this is our family and you belong here?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make it complicated.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your children don't need an elaborate life.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: They need connection, they need consistency, and most of all, they need you, not the perfect version of you, not the version who never gets frustrated, not the version who always knows exactly what to say.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just you, present, learning, and growing.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And showing them through your own life that when something breaks, it doesn't mean the story is over.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it simply means it's time to write the next chapter.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode spoke to you, I hope you'll share it with another mom or dad who may be carrying some of that parenting guilt after divorce.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't listened to my full conversation with Elizabeth Stitt, go back and listen to that episode.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about parenting after divorce, creating stability between two homes, emotional regulation, family routines, letting go of perfection, and helping children become resilient after divorce.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, you can be bent by what you've been through without being broken by it.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Coach Deborah, and I'll see you next time on Bent Not Broken.