LESSON 2

The Dynamics of Pre-Divorce and

Their Effects on the Child

Presented by

THE NATURAL SYSTEMS INSTITUTE

Under Construction

THE DYNAMICS OF PRE-DIVORCE AND THEIR EFFECTS ON THE CHILDREN.

Divorce , courts, law, family structure, family history, structure of fragmented, reconstituted, blended families all have powerful effects on the development of the child’s character and personality.

One family structure, the ‘Red’ family, is diagrammed below. Mr. and Mrs. Red divorce and each remarry people who have also been married before. Mr. Red remarries the ex Mrs. Blue and Mrs. Red remarries the ex Mr. Green. The Newly (newly remarried) Reds and the Newly Greens are diagrammed. Their children now have step or half siblings. The custody and visitation arrangements are described. Each child now has multiple parent types and sibling types that move in and out of each other’s lives in highly complex patterns. The relations between these fragmented and then blended families require complex and confusing new relationships, roles and rules. The personalities of the children, once influenced by one intact family, are now influenced by a new, highly complex structure of multiple families that requires a complex pattern of movement between and adaptation to these reconstituted families within the new complex structure. Each such complex structure of fragmented and blended families develops a unique Gestalt or nature of the whole structure. The Gestalt of the whole structure necessarily generates dynamic relationships with tendencies and pressures that begins to change the direction of the shaping of each child’s personality. In other words, the features of the structure itself, independent of the individual personalities and parenting styles of those within the structure, begins to shape each child’s personality.

In The Original Family, The Child Had To Deal With The Differences In Parenting Styles Of Each Parent

As the family begins to fall apart and buried resentments surface and old perpetual conflicts become exacerbated, several things happen. Each parent tries to get the children to side with them and, if they had not previously done so, suddenly redraw the picture of the other parent as evil and dangerous.

Figure 1. CONFLICTING PARENTING STYLES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON THEIR CHILDREN

Conditional Love, high expectations, rules and demands, and somewhat formal, distant and cold, but intensely interested in having his children develop properly and behave properly and be high achievers.

Unconditional Love, warm, empathic, understanding, guiding but emphasizing the children learn to use their own judgment and deal with the consequences of bad choices, but learning to correct rather than blame.

EFFECTS ON CHILD: Performance anxiety, approval seeking, pressure and stress, self consciousness

EFFECTS ON CHILD: Good judgment, responsibility, spontaneity, warmth, confidence, focus on process of tasks rather rewards,

EFFECTS OF COMBINED STYLES ON FIRST CHILD: Intrinsically motivated, ambivalent about conformity, resentful of imposed goals from father and external evaluations, driven to attain, ambivalent toward closeness, confident, takes calculated risks, extroverted, sensitive but controlling

Mr. Red Mrs. Red

Little Red One

EFFECTS OF COMBINED STYLES ON SECOND CHILD: Similar to first child, but closer to Mom, more openly resistant to imposed goals and evaluations, less confident, less risk taking, less extroverted, but closer with few friends, more intrinsically motivated, more likely to resist control.

Little Red Two

THE ORIGINAL RED FAMILY