Divorce: Helping Children Through the Crisis of the Separation & Co-Parenting

Answers:
A. Visitation can be replaced by saying the child lives with his or her other parent or his or her other family.  Custody can be replaced by co-parenting, shared parenting and shared responsibility.
B. The grief of good-bye, reorganizing their lives and sharing sorrow with peace
C. Discerning what is right and wrong, acting on what you have discerned and saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right and wrong
D.  Infants: avoid rigid movements, and stay with schedules, rituals and routines; toddlers: be tolerant of regression but not aggression; five- to nine-year-olds: talk to the child about what he or she can expect; and adolescents: encourage expression of feelings and provide affection and optimism.
E. Explaining the violence to the children, maintaining connection after the abuser has left, getting back to normal relationship with the abuser, and life without the abuser.
F. Telling together, headlining, the "now" and why?
G. A child’s experience upon returning home might be based on what he or she has gone through during the visitation with the other parent.

Answers
A.  Are the characters believable? Are they described well enough that the reader can understand their thoughts, feelings, and actions? Does the plot communicate the therapeutic point the counselor is trying to make? Does the story contain obstacles that prohibit the characters from achieving their desired goals? What feelings are elicited by the characters or story line? Are these feelings ones to which the child can relate?
B.  Three behavior changes are: 1. increased use of rational problem solving when attempting to resolve conflictual issues, 2. fewer incidents of verbal aggression at home, and 3. fewer incidents of acting-out behaviors at school.
C.  Not knowing why events occur may lead to negative appraisals and may make it more difficult to achieve secondary control through positive reinterpretations of the situation.
D.  Central to the therapeutic use of story is the establishment of rapport and a trusting relationship, which allows the client to be receptive to the healing message of the metaphor.
E. A central goal is to help children appreciate that they do not have to choose sides.
F. Parents may: 1. take the rejection personally, and may respond with hurt and anger and counter-reject their children; 2. hope that patience will pay off and that the children will come to their senses and spontaneously recover positive feelings.
G.  Some mothers complained that there was no communication between them and the Children's Counselor. It is highly likely that this was due to the fact that the children were offered individual confidential counseling; this erected a barrier between the mother and the Children's Counselor, which was not helpful for these mothers.
H. Impulsivity and inconsistent discipline predict depression and conduct problems
I.  Four domains: (a) the family's beliefs and expectations, (b) the family's emotional connectedness, (c) the family's organizational style, and (d) the quality of family learning opportunities.
J.  Parental alienation syndrome comes into play when a parent channels unwanted, confusing, and unpleasant feelings triggered by the former spouse's remarriage into unwarranted denigration of the former spouse and his or her new partner.