Divorce, Autism, and kids.....
A personal note.....
I often wonder why people in divorce cant separate their differences to put the kids first.....for example: my autistic son's birthday was recently and it wasnt my day for visitation so I tried to reach my ex 3 different times to wish my son a Happy Birthday and once I spoke to her and my son was out at the pool. I think thats great that on his birthday he was having fun but what kind of person doesnt let my son call me on his birthday after repeated attempts? Can you be this angry? Cant you just let the kids be kids without the hassles of divorce, anger, bitterness. People can be so self centered and selfish that the desire to put the kids first often takes a backseat to people's low self esteem and desire for revenge. Its quite sad. Parents let their issues take center stage and the kids are often the price...........the price of divorce...
**********************************************
The broken American male, and how to fix him
The craven gubernatorial race in my home state of New Jersey, with its nasty allegations of marital infidelity on the part of both candidates, the public pain of Jon Corzine's ex-wife who lashed out at him as having abandoned his family, and the spectacle of men being prepared to humiliate each other – and themselves – in the quest for power, has reinforced for me the contemporary brokenness of the American male, and how it is undermining the American family, which is rotting from the head down.
The American male is broken, and in his own brokenness, he is compromising his marriage and crippling his children. Immersed in a culture which is obsessed with success through competition, he is trained to forever feel like a failure. Rather than peering inside himself to discover his own unique gifts, he stares in front to see who has surpassed him, and behind, to see who is gaining on him.
The modern American male has little self-esteem and is a muddle of broken dreams. He lives in a society resembling not a circle, in which all are treated more or less as equals, but a pyramid, in which only a tiny few are perched at the top and the overwhelming majority are made to feel that they are at various stations of the bottom.
He is painfully aware that the recognition and respect of his peers will not come from assisting his kids with homework, or remaining faithful to his wife. All around him, the culture glorifies men who have built businesses even as they have abandoned wives, like Jack Welch and Donald Trump. Treating his co-workers with dignity will never bring him into the Forbes 400. Reading his children a bedtime story will not get him an invitation to the White House.
He is painfully aware that only money brings prestige and power brings respect. Since he has limited amounts of each, his tragedy is to look upon himself as the inferior of men who may be far less moral. His children do not make him feel heroic, and his wife struggles, but fails, to massage his macerated ego. For if he is a big zero, then, to his mind, the woman dumb enough to marry him is a zero squared.
In his distress, he turns to various forms of escape, designed to make him feel better about himself and numb his pain. Becoming a sports fanatic allows him to live vicariously through his favorite team and feel heroic. Through workaholism he convinces himself that one more hour at the office will bring him the success for which he is desperate. The attentions of another woman makes him feel like a winner. Alcohol numbs his heart even as it poisons his soul. And pornographic addiction, which is becoming an epidemic among American men, allows him to experience a similar numbness, the non-feeling of emotionlessness, which is the real reason so many men masturbate, for the bliss that follows sexual climax. He wishes not to feel because when he does feel, all he feels is pain.
He comes home a shell of a man, a defeated creature whose modest surroundings reinforces his permanent feeling of failure. Because he doesn't love himself, he cannot love his wife. His marriage is coldly functional, bereft of warmth and intimacy. Since he doesn't believe in himself, he treats the comfort his wife offers him as patronizing. Later he will complain that his wife does not lift him up when he is down, even as he has pushed her away on countless occasions. He wants sex with his wife – not because he loves sex, but because it relieves him of tension and helps him fall asleep. And in his lifelessness, he further alienates the wife who feels used and discarded.
Bereft of inspiration, he fails to inspire his children. He does not parent them so much as admonish them. So they are reduced to searching for substitute heroes, and like him, they become TV addicts. The company of friends soon becomes far more fulfilling than their father's company, further isolating parent from child.
The great tragedy of this daily scenario is the fact that all along this man was a hero, only he never saw it. He got up every day to feed his children. He struggles with temptation, yet came home to his wife. But that never made him feel good about himself, because he bought the lie that a man is only important if he is rich or famous.
Such are the consequences of the current epidemic of soul-lessness in America, an epidemic so widespread that the greatest heroes of all – our brave soldiers who risk their lives for our freedom – have some of the highest rates of depression and spousal abuse. It is said that this is so because of the horrors of war, and no doubt this contributes. But the real reason is that no one treats them like heroes. They come home to their small houses and piles of bills and they feel like failures, too.
The brokenness of the American male is what is most responsible for the unhappiness of women, the delinquency of children, and the high rate of divorce. The family doesn't have a functional head. The ancients regarded the man as the sun and the woman as the moon. He shone his light which she reflected, and together they illuminated their children's night. Daddy came home and lifted everyone's mood. But it is not happening any more.
Unless we can create a culture that makes men feel like they are not merely achievement machines, measured solely by how much money they make, we risk a generation of broken men married to lonely women raising insecure children. The self-esteem of each successive American generation seems to be diminishing, such that each becomes more dependent on external accoutrements to make them feel valuable.
Capitalism and competition must be complimented by the religious message that, whatever a man's assets, his real greatness is acquired through moral choices rather than friends in high places. We must drill it into the hearts and minds of today's men that what makes them special is being a child of God rather than the governor of a state.
by Rabbie Shmuley Boteach
Does Divorce Make People Happy?
Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages
Call it the "divorce assumption." Most people assume that a person stuck in a bad marriage has two choices: stay married and miserable or get a divorce and become happier.1 But now come the findings from the first scholarly study ever to test that assumption, and these findings challenge conventional wisdom. Conducted by a team of leading family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite, the study found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married.
Even more dramatically, the researchers also found that two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later. In addition, the most unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.2
The research team used data collected by the National Survey of Family and Households, a nationally representative survey that extensively measures personal and marital happiness. Out of 5,232 married adults interviewed in the late Eighties, 645 reported being unhappily married. Five years later, these same adults were interviewed again. Some had divorced or separated and some had stayed married.
The study found that on average unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed married when rated on any of 12 separate measures of psychological well-being. Divorce did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or increase a sense of mastery. This was true even after controlling for race, age, gender, and income. Even unhappy spouses who had divorced and remarried were no happier on average than those who stayed married. "Staying married is not just for the childrens' sake. Some divorce is necessary, but results like these suggest the benefits of divorce have been oversold," says Linda J. Waite.
Why doesn't divorce typically make adults happier? The authors of the study suggest that while eliminating some stresses and sources of potential harm, divorce may create others as well. The decision to divorce sets in motion a large number of processes and events over which an individual has little control that are likely to deeply affect his or her emotional well-being. These include the response of one's spouse to divorce; the reactions of children; potential disappointments and aggravation in custody, child support, and visitation orders; new financial or health stresses for one or both parents; and new relationships or marriages.
The team of family experts that conducted the study included Linda J. Waite, Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago and coauthor of The Case for Marriage; Don Browning, Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago Divinity School; William J. Doherty, Professor of Family Social Science and Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at the University of Minnesota; Maggie Gallagher, affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values and coauthor of The Case for Marriage; Ye Luo, a research associate at the Sloan Center on Parents, Children and Work at the University of Chicago; and Scott Stanley, Co-Director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.
How Can We Help Our Autistic Child Cope With Our Divorce?
I'm looking for information on how to help my son deal with my divorce. I've been lucky enough to finally find a counselor who understands autism, however I'm looking for day to day strategies, how to answer the tough questions, what are the most common concerns of kids on the spectrum during divorce, how to ease the emotional inconsistencies, the schedule changes, changing roles, and self-esteem.
A. From Cindy Ariel:
Divorce is a very difficult transition for everyone in the family. Children often bear the brunt of the upheaval that usually accompanies this difficult stage of family change. Feelings of anger, disappointment, fear, shame, grief, relief all permeate the family members. Children feel it and are often caught in the middle feeling responsible for events and feelings between their parents and themselves. It’s important to acknowledge what you are feeling and recognize that these emotions are running high for everyone. The main goal in this regard is to minimize the intensity and negative affects of any emotional ups and downs on your child.
The way to answer the tough questions is carefully, sensitively, and one at a time. This is often best done with help and guidance from a professional who knows both your child and the situation though there are some generalities that can be made.
If your child asks, he is ready for an answer. The answer should be geared to the level of your child and as honest and objective as possible under the difficult circumstances. While facts are important to children, they do not need to know every detail of why parents have decided it is best not to live together anymore. It is important not to split your child’s loyalties in two by disrespecting or speaking negatively about the other parent. They do need to be informed about schedule changes and have a clear idea of when they will see their other parent again. Emotional inconsistencies are eased individually; keep in mind the things your child needs to feel warm and safe and comfortable and loved.
It may feel as though the family is being literally torn apart, and in many ways it certainly is. But over time, everyone will grow and feelings and roles will slowly change. There will be less fear and emotional upheaval as time goes on. Self-esteem will continue, in part, to be tied in with both mom and dad so your child needs to feel as good as possible about each parent and his relationship with them.
From Bob Naseef:
Finding a mental health professional with a background in autism is certainly a blessing. The questions you raise are really better answered by a professional who knows you and knows your child. How a parent who is divorced handles these issues really begins at your child’s developmental level in terms of language and cognitive understanding. What’s missing from your list is how to take care of your own needs and the grief that inevitably accompanies any major loss and certainly divorce is such a loss. Many readers of this column may be worried about their own marriages while others are in your position.
As Josh Greenfeld wrote in A Child Called Noah (1970), “There is a strain on any marriage whenever a baby is sick. And we always have a sick baby.” The kind of chronic stress that raising a child with special needs entails can affect relationships at their weakest points. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2000), 47% of first marriages fail and 57% of all marriages end in divorce. Although the findings are inconsistent, there is general consensus among experts that while the divorce rates are comparable, there appears to be more reported marital distress among families of children with special needs (Seligman and Darling, Ordinary Families, Special Children, 1997).
The needs of the children with autism are complex and elusive. Getting wrapped up in the stresses and strains of everyday life, relationships inevitably suffer from lack of attention. When a disability or chronic illness is discovered, powerful emotions surface and may put relationships on trial. In the wake of such devastating pain, some couples are drawn closer together, but for others in a relationship that is fragile or unstable disability can be “the last straw.” Some families break up while others thrive despite their hardships. People can emerge from crisis revitalized and enriched. Some people feel relieved when a marriage full of unrelenting problems finally ends.
For a child to thrive, she needs energetic, committed parents. So taking care of your needs is important for your family as it is now constituted. Hopefully you have support for yourself in terms of friendship and compassion. Debriefing from a divorce can take time. Often I see people who are divorced but not emotionally separated from what they have been through. Help with child care, so that you can get some time for yourself is also wonderful when you can find it. If not, just finding and taking some short enjoyable time for yourself can be wonderfully refreshing.
Robert Naseef, Ph.D., and Cindy Ariel, Ph.D., are the co-editors of "Voices from the Spectrum: Parents, Grandparents, Siblings, People with Autism, and Professionals Share Their Wisdom" (2006). On the web at www.alternativechoices.com
I often wonder why people in divorce cant separate their differences to put the kids first.....for example: my autistic son's birthday was recently and it wasnt my day for visitation so I tried to reach my ex 3 different times to wish my son a Happy Birthday and once I spoke to her and my son was out at the pool. I think thats great that on his birthday he was having fun but what kind of person doesnt let my son call me on his birthday after repeated attempts? Can you be this angry? Cant you just let the kids be kids without the hassles of divorce, anger, bitterness. People can be so self centered and selfish that the desire to put the kids first often takes a backseat to people's low self esteem and desire for revenge. Its quite sad. Parents let their issues take center stage and the kids are often the price...........the price of divorce...
**********************************************
The broken American male, and how to fix him
The craven gubernatorial race in my home state of New Jersey, with its nasty allegations of marital infidelity on the part of both candidates, the public pain of Jon Corzine's ex-wife who lashed out at him as having abandoned his family, and the spectacle of men being prepared to humiliate each other – and themselves – in the quest for power, has reinforced for me the contemporary brokenness of the American male, and how it is undermining the American family, which is rotting from the head down.
The American male is broken, and in his own brokenness, he is compromising his marriage and crippling his children. Immersed in a culture which is obsessed with success through competition, he is trained to forever feel like a failure. Rather than peering inside himself to discover his own unique gifts, he stares in front to see who has surpassed him, and behind, to see who is gaining on him.
The modern American male has little self-esteem and is a muddle of broken dreams. He lives in a society resembling not a circle, in which all are treated more or less as equals, but a pyramid, in which only a tiny few are perched at the top and the overwhelming majority are made to feel that they are at various stations of the bottom.
He is painfully aware that the recognition and respect of his peers will not come from assisting his kids with homework, or remaining faithful to his wife. All around him, the culture glorifies men who have built businesses even as they have abandoned wives, like Jack Welch and Donald Trump. Treating his co-workers with dignity will never bring him into the Forbes 400. Reading his children a bedtime story will not get him an invitation to the White House.
He is painfully aware that only money brings prestige and power brings respect. Since he has limited amounts of each, his tragedy is to look upon himself as the inferior of men who may be far less moral. His children do not make him feel heroic, and his wife struggles, but fails, to massage his macerated ego. For if he is a big zero, then, to his mind, the woman dumb enough to marry him is a zero squared.
In his distress, he turns to various forms of escape, designed to make him feel better about himself and numb his pain. Becoming a sports fanatic allows him to live vicariously through his favorite team and feel heroic. Through workaholism he convinces himself that one more hour at the office will bring him the success for which he is desperate. The attentions of another woman makes him feel like a winner. Alcohol numbs his heart even as it poisons his soul. And pornographic addiction, which is becoming an epidemic among American men, allows him to experience a similar numbness, the non-feeling of emotionlessness, which is the real reason so many men masturbate, for the bliss that follows sexual climax. He wishes not to feel because when he does feel, all he feels is pain.
He comes home a shell of a man, a defeated creature whose modest surroundings reinforces his permanent feeling of failure. Because he doesn't love himself, he cannot love his wife. His marriage is coldly functional, bereft of warmth and intimacy. Since he doesn't believe in himself, he treats the comfort his wife offers him as patronizing. Later he will complain that his wife does not lift him up when he is down, even as he has pushed her away on countless occasions. He wants sex with his wife – not because he loves sex, but because it relieves him of tension and helps him fall asleep. And in his lifelessness, he further alienates the wife who feels used and discarded.
Bereft of inspiration, he fails to inspire his children. He does not parent them so much as admonish them. So they are reduced to searching for substitute heroes, and like him, they become TV addicts. The company of friends soon becomes far more fulfilling than their father's company, further isolating parent from child.
The great tragedy of this daily scenario is the fact that all along this man was a hero, only he never saw it. He got up every day to feed his children. He struggles with temptation, yet came home to his wife. But that never made him feel good about himself, because he bought the lie that a man is only important if he is rich or famous.
Such are the consequences of the current epidemic of soul-lessness in America, an epidemic so widespread that the greatest heroes of all – our brave soldiers who risk their lives for our freedom – have some of the highest rates of depression and spousal abuse. It is said that this is so because of the horrors of war, and no doubt this contributes. But the real reason is that no one treats them like heroes. They come home to their small houses and piles of bills and they feel like failures, too.
The brokenness of the American male is what is most responsible for the unhappiness of women, the delinquency of children, and the high rate of divorce. The family doesn't have a functional head. The ancients regarded the man as the sun and the woman as the moon. He shone his light which she reflected, and together they illuminated their children's night. Daddy came home and lifted everyone's mood. But it is not happening any more.
Unless we can create a culture that makes men feel like they are not merely achievement machines, measured solely by how much money they make, we risk a generation of broken men married to lonely women raising insecure children. The self-esteem of each successive American generation seems to be diminishing, such that each becomes more dependent on external accoutrements to make them feel valuable.
Capitalism and competition must be complimented by the religious message that, whatever a man's assets, his real greatness is acquired through moral choices rather than friends in high places. We must drill it into the hearts and minds of today's men that what makes them special is being a child of God rather than the governor of a state.
by Rabbie Shmuley Boteach
Does Divorce Make People Happy?
Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages
Call it the "divorce assumption." Most people assume that a person stuck in a bad marriage has two choices: stay married and miserable or get a divorce and become happier.1 But now come the findings from the first scholarly study ever to test that assumption, and these findings challenge conventional wisdom. Conducted by a team of leading family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite, the study found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married.
Even more dramatically, the researchers also found that two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later. In addition, the most unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.2
The research team used data collected by the National Survey of Family and Households, a nationally representative survey that extensively measures personal and marital happiness. Out of 5,232 married adults interviewed in the late Eighties, 645 reported being unhappily married. Five years later, these same adults were interviewed again. Some had divorced or separated and some had stayed married.
The study found that on average unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed married when rated on any of 12 separate measures of psychological well-being. Divorce did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or increase a sense of mastery. This was true even after controlling for race, age, gender, and income. Even unhappy spouses who had divorced and remarried were no happier on average than those who stayed married. "Staying married is not just for the childrens' sake. Some divorce is necessary, but results like these suggest the benefits of divorce have been oversold," says Linda J. Waite.
Why doesn't divorce typically make adults happier? The authors of the study suggest that while eliminating some stresses and sources of potential harm, divorce may create others as well. The decision to divorce sets in motion a large number of processes and events over which an individual has little control that are likely to deeply affect his or her emotional well-being. These include the response of one's spouse to divorce; the reactions of children; potential disappointments and aggravation in custody, child support, and visitation orders; new financial or health stresses for one or both parents; and new relationships or marriages.
The team of family experts that conducted the study included Linda J. Waite, Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago and coauthor of The Case for Marriage; Don Browning, Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago Divinity School; William J. Doherty, Professor of Family Social Science and Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at the University of Minnesota; Maggie Gallagher, affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values and coauthor of The Case for Marriage; Ye Luo, a research associate at the Sloan Center on Parents, Children and Work at the University of Chicago; and Scott Stanley, Co-Director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.
How Can We Help Our Autistic Child Cope With Our Divorce?
I'm looking for information on how to help my son deal with my divorce. I've been lucky enough to finally find a counselor who understands autism, however I'm looking for day to day strategies, how to answer the tough questions, what are the most common concerns of kids on the spectrum during divorce, how to ease the emotional inconsistencies, the schedule changes, changing roles, and self-esteem.
A. From Cindy Ariel:
Divorce is a very difficult transition for everyone in the family. Children often bear the brunt of the upheaval that usually accompanies this difficult stage of family change. Feelings of anger, disappointment, fear, shame, grief, relief all permeate the family members. Children feel it and are often caught in the middle feeling responsible for events and feelings between their parents and themselves. It’s important to acknowledge what you are feeling and recognize that these emotions are running high for everyone. The main goal in this regard is to minimize the intensity and negative affects of any emotional ups and downs on your child.
The way to answer the tough questions is carefully, sensitively, and one at a time. This is often best done with help and guidance from a professional who knows both your child and the situation though there are some generalities that can be made.
If your child asks, he is ready for an answer. The answer should be geared to the level of your child and as honest and objective as possible under the difficult circumstances. While facts are important to children, they do not need to know every detail of why parents have decided it is best not to live together anymore. It is important not to split your child’s loyalties in two by disrespecting or speaking negatively about the other parent. They do need to be informed about schedule changes and have a clear idea of when they will see their other parent again. Emotional inconsistencies are eased individually; keep in mind the things your child needs to feel warm and safe and comfortable and loved.
It may feel as though the family is being literally torn apart, and in many ways it certainly is. But over time, everyone will grow and feelings and roles will slowly change. There will be less fear and emotional upheaval as time goes on. Self-esteem will continue, in part, to be tied in with both mom and dad so your child needs to feel as good as possible about each parent and his relationship with them.
From Bob Naseef:
Finding a mental health professional with a background in autism is certainly a blessing. The questions you raise are really better answered by a professional who knows you and knows your child. How a parent who is divorced handles these issues really begins at your child’s developmental level in terms of language and cognitive understanding. What’s missing from your list is how to take care of your own needs and the grief that inevitably accompanies any major loss and certainly divorce is such a loss. Many readers of this column may be worried about their own marriages while others are in your position.
As Josh Greenfeld wrote in A Child Called Noah (1970), “There is a strain on any marriage whenever a baby is sick. And we always have a sick baby.” The kind of chronic stress that raising a child with special needs entails can affect relationships at their weakest points. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2000), 47% of first marriages fail and 57% of all marriages end in divorce. Although the findings are inconsistent, there is general consensus among experts that while the divorce rates are comparable, there appears to be more reported marital distress among families of children with special needs (Seligman and Darling, Ordinary Families, Special Children, 1997).
The needs of the children with autism are complex and elusive. Getting wrapped up in the stresses and strains of everyday life, relationships inevitably suffer from lack of attention. When a disability or chronic illness is discovered, powerful emotions surface and may put relationships on trial. In the wake of such devastating pain, some couples are drawn closer together, but for others in a relationship that is fragile or unstable disability can be “the last straw.” Some families break up while others thrive despite their hardships. People can emerge from crisis revitalized and enriched. Some people feel relieved when a marriage full of unrelenting problems finally ends.
For a child to thrive, she needs energetic, committed parents. So taking care of your needs is important for your family as it is now constituted. Hopefully you have support for yourself in terms of friendship and compassion. Debriefing from a divorce can take time. Often I see people who are divorced but not emotionally separated from what they have been through. Help with child care, so that you can get some time for yourself is also wonderful when you can find it. If not, just finding and taking some short enjoyable time for yourself can be wonderfully refreshing.
Robert Naseef, Ph.D., and Cindy Ariel, Ph.D., are the co-editors of "Voices from the Spectrum: Parents, Grandparents, Siblings, People with Autism, and Professionals Share Their Wisdom" (2006). On the web at www.alternativechoices.com
posted by Jeff Casmer at 7:46 PM
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