January 19, 2012

Divorced Parenting of Empathic Children

Due to divorce and joint custody arrangements, many children live in two environments. One may be orderly and calm. The other may be haphazard and chaotic. What is done with children in one home can carry over to the other. If one parent understands the empathic child’s sensitivity and the other doesn’t, it can create a huge discordant problem for the empathic child.
In working with parents who are separated or working out a divorce plan for their families, one parent might feed the child sugar and junk food and then send them to the other parent where it takes quite literally a week to help the child change their behavior and get back on course again.  It is imperative that parents teach their children how to take care of their own energy.  For example, there was one child high on the autism spectrum, who went to his father’s where he was teased for his sensitivity. He would go to bed in tears.  He wet the bed and the problem continued to escalate. The mom was a very savvy and smart woman, so rather than keeping him in the victim mode she quickly taught him resilience.  She taught him how to strip the bed before he could be teased.  She taught him how to wash his own sheets and make his bed again before they would jump on him for doing something wrong.  She basically taught him how to take care of himself and he did a very good job.  Definitely being in a home environment where there are emotional connections requires some very specific management. 
Join us tomorrow on this blog for another segment of Dr. Caron Goode’s discussion on how to support empathic children. To get the full transcript and listen to Caron’s entire presentation as well as the teaching of Suzy Miller, you may purchase the mp3s here:
Dr. Caron Goode is the author of ten books, including her latest: Kids who See Ghosts~ Guide Them Through Their Fear. Dr. Goode graduated with a doctoral degree from George Washington University in 1983 and is a licensed psychotherapist.  Formerly a pediatric speech language pathologist, Suzy Miller is the visionary founder of Blue Star Brilliance LLC and author of AWESOMISM: A New Way to Understand the Diagnosis of Autism.


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PURCHASE paperback book, Whose Stuff Is This? Finding Freedom from the Thoughts, Feelings, and Energy of Those Around You at http://tinyurl.com/EmpathAmazon. The e-book version is now available for Kindle, iPhone, iPad, and other digital reading devices.
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