At any family event, it’s not unusual for Joanne Williton to bring her two sons, their father, his girlfriend, a stepdaughter, along with her boyfriend and their baby.
It’s a full house, and many may think it’s an unusual combination, but it works for this Torbay, NL family.
“It definitely took some time to get here,” says Williton, who notes they had some rough patches when her relationship with her ex-partner first ended.
“We tried our best to do things together for the kids, but it wasn’t always the most comfortable of situations. We pushed through and eventually just reached a place of friendship and positive co-parenting.”
Jennifer Lambert, from St. John’s, N.L. is 100 per cent solo parenting her three sons, although their father is in the picture. As a woman raising three boys who will grow into men, she says it's very important they have a male role model.
“When things arise and I want their father’s opinion or advice, I make sure to include him in the process. But at the end of the day, they are with me full-time and I will always do what I feel is best,” says Lambert.
“I want my children to see even though their parents are not together, they can get along and work together to make sure their children are happy, healthy, and loved no matter the circumstance. It's not always rainbows, sometimes we weather storms, but I try to be the bigger person knowing it'll benefit my sons.”
It’s all about doing what is best for the children, says Courtney Strong, from Port Williams, N.S. COVID-19 caused a lot of families, like the Strongs, to re-think and adapt their co-parenting situations to keep their kids at the forefront.
When it was mandated that Nova Scotians had to stay in their family bubbles and not leave their neighbourhoods, Strong and her ex-husband, who had separated the previous December, decided it would be safer for the family to all live together under the same roof instead of having the kids going back and forth.
“I feel like it went well and what was needed to be done at the time,” says Strong. “There were challenges of course, but we made it work for the kids.”
Strong knows that exes living together during a pandemic is not for everyone. A pandemic in itself is hard mentally, not to mention add in living with an ex-partner, which makes it even harder. In many circumstances, this would make things worse and not be what’s best for the family as a whole, says Strong.
Lots of work, effort
As Williton and Lambert say, amicable, co-parenting situations do not happen automatically, and may not work for everyone.
“There are definitely some scenarios where it’s not possible just because some people are impossible to deal with in all aspects of life,” says Williton.
It’s something that will always need to be worked on, adds Lambert.
“You can either live in that negative aspect and constantly think about the wrong, or you can try to rebuild the right,” says Lambert.
It all comes down to patience, perseverance, communication, and setting a good example, Lambert adds.
Lambert believed that although her ex was disappointed and hurt, he needed these boys as much as they needed him. She made a point to reach out with updates so he could know what was going on and feel included. Over time, she says, the situation improved. Now they have daily phone conversations and can go on outings together.
At the heart of it, Lambert says, she needed her children to see their mother happy and at her best.
Williton says it’s important to try to stay positive and not speak negatively about the other parent. Communicate, be on the same page, and really look at how your actions are impacting your child.
“Many nurturing elements need to happen for children to thrive in times of family crisis."
Impact on kids
As an elementary school substitute teacher, Williton has seen first-hand how physically and mentally some children are affected throughout their day when their parents are battling for custody, when the children know the parents don’t like each other and speak badly about the other parent in front of the child, and when there is a lack of communication between households.
Lisa and Laurie Pinhorn, holistic family interventionists in St. John’s, N.L., and co-owners of Empowered Parents - an organization dedicated to cultivating calm, connected, and compassionate environments for children and families - agree.
The most crucial divorce truth is this: divorce casts a long shadow over the lives of children and families. It’s a life event that is significant because it shifts the foundation of children's lives, says Pinhorn.
“Making child-focused decisions is complex, and we believe many things about childhood that are not always true,” says Pinhorn. “For example, we hear this phrase all the time - 'children are resilient, and they always bounce back.' Our collective culture has come to believe in this mythology so strongly that it is the foundation of how adults make choices for children - and it is an unstable foundation to work from when a family's mental health is on the line.”
Parents, schools, and even our family justice systems want to believe that things will all work out in the end that we don't pause and look at what the science is telling us, says Pinhorn.
“Many nurturing elements need to happen for children to thrive in times of family crisis,” she adds.
"...In the case of divorce, we should have a plan in place to compassionately help children adjust to their new lives."
How to help
Phrases like 'Everyone gets divorced, and kids are fine' need to be shifted in our culture to be less dismissive of children's emotional needs, Pinhorn says. Divorce and the recovery from it are complex processes that require us to pause and assess if the decisions we make are genuinely child-centred.
“In our work,” says Pinhorn, “we have observed that most choices are more adult-driven than child-focused, and that is where most family conflict can stem.”
Children demonstrate how they're feeling about situations and stressors through their behaviours, explains Pinhorn. It can take years for families to settle into a new normal, and adults often misunderstand the length of time it takes for children.
“We live in a world where things happen fast, we are all moving too fast, and we're not very practiced in delayed gratification,” says Pinhorn, noting that transitions that are child-focused are slow, never forced, and supported with deep attunement and connections.
When children are struggling, it’s the role of the adult to attend to the struggle.
“And in the case of divorce, we should have a plan in place to compassionately help children adjust to their new lives,” says Pinhorn.
When offering advice to other parents going through a separation or divorce, Lambert says whether you choose to be a single parent or choose to co-parent, both are going to be tough. But if you make every bit of effort and have a lot of patience and understanding, it will get easier.
“The children are the ones who need the support and guidance the most,” says Lambert. “Be your child's advocate. Be your child's peace and most importantly, be your child's everything.”
