As a parent, your job is it to make sure those thoughts and feelings aren’t even mediated to a kid. For example, do not fight in front of your child and of course, talk to him about the real reason why divorce is happening.

POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR CHILD
When someone is blaming himself for something, he is always telling himself that he is the problem and that he is the reason why all the bad stuff is happening. As you can guess, that’s not good at all.
Especially not for children.
Children start to feel worthless, which can lead to an inferiority complex.
By the way, this is also the reason, why I fell into depression.
Nevertheless, many children can react differently to feeling inferiority. Some might be more aggressive and some might be more introverted. In both cases, they are seeking for attention and recognition.
WHY CHILDREN BLAME THEMSELVES FOR DIVORCE
As I said before, young children can not really comprehend what is going on in a difficult situation like divorce, especially not when its just starting out. At the moment you tell them you are going to separate, they realize that there’s going to be a big change in their life because mommy and daddy stopped loving each other.
When you do not give your child sufficient information about your current status in divorce, they are gonna think up stuff that is not true and they’ll start blaming themselves.
But of course, be careful with the information you give to your child. Stuff like finances and ownership disputes do not belong in a child’s ear and are totally irrelevant.
HOW TO PREVENT YOUR CHILD FROM BLAMING HIMSELF
Many children are going to ask questions and the best way to go about this is by just telling them the truth and the answer to every question they have. If there was cheating or other things that one person in the relationship did to break it involved, do not blame them in front of your child like: “Mommy did that…” “Daddy did that…”. That will only make it worse!
“Mommy and Daddy stopped trusting each other.”
“We do not get along as well as we used to.”
HOW HOW TO STOP YOUR CHILD FROM BLAMING HIMSELF
If your child told you once or twice that it is all his fault, you have made some mistakes when you first talked with him about divorce.
Unfortunately, this is a problem, but one that can be solved!
At this point, you can easily change your child’s point of view with consistent support by talking to them about what they think they did to cause the divorce and then replying to that in an understanding way.
For example, try things like:
- “I understand your point but this is something mom and dad have decided after a long time of trying to make things work better.”
- “It was an adult decision and there is nothing you can do about it”
WHAT TO DO IF YOUR CHILD HAS AN INFERIORITY COMPLEX
You need to know, that feeling worthless can have a huge impact on peoples lives. Especially in a hard time like this.
Some kids might lose social competence because of the hard time they’re going through, which pressures the feeling of inferiority additionally.
WHY YOU SHOULD TALK TO A THERAPIST
What really helped me in this situation were taking some extra lessons. I really sat down and took the time to ask and learn everything I’ve missed in class step-by-step.
Talk to your child about this and decide together if this is a move that could help you.
If you enjoyed that post, feel free to share it. are there still questions left? You can contact me here!
If you liked this post
Then you’ll like these too:
THE CHEAT SHEET FOR RAISING A HEALTHY CHILD OF DIVORCE