Life Lessons Children Can Learn From Divorce

Many couples on the verge of divorce ultimately choose not to follow through with the separation. This is because they want to stay together for their kids. Conventional wisdom is that every two-parent household is better for the development and support of children than even the best single-parent household. It’s with this in mind that we see all too many couples nominally remain in unsuccessful marriages.

Is such an unhappy status quo really the best thing you can do for your family, though? If your marriage is in a state where you can no longer model positive and healthy relationships for your children, the old axiom of “staying together for the kids” does your children more harm than good. Your kids risk learning some maladaptive lessons from your marriage. We’ve all heard about the studies that show children of divorce are more likely to divorce themselves. However, it’s much more difficult for social scientists to quantify how many unhappy marriages of quiet desperation beget more of the same.

Don’t think of staying in a marriage that you should end as something you need to teach. Think instead about what positive lessons your kids can take from you and your spouse making a transition to successful co-parenting. There are still constructive life lessons children can learn from divorce that can make the most of a situation that didn’t go as planned.

Learning Not To Settle

The concept of “settling” weaves its way through relationships at every level. In a hostile world that can be hard to navigate alone, people often feel that they’re deferring their dreams, desires, or overall happiness to secure and maintain a relationship with another person. But these compromises often come at a price—seething resentments, festering discontent, or a lack of love in general. The peril of pursuing relationships for relationships’ sake is an important lesson to learn, even at an early age. While all successful relationships and marriages require a healthy give-and-take, there’s no room for concessions when it comes to devotion to the other person.

Marriage Is Serious

Many couples dive into marriages they’re not ready for. Sometimes, family pressures force people to marry when they perhaps shouldn’t. Other couples impulsively decide on their own to get married on the spur of the moment. The notorious drive-through wedding chapels of Las Vegas are a testament to this. Others simply feel that it’s what society expects and a routine that everyone must go through. At first glance, it can seem that divorce trivializes marriage because it seems like nothing more than a breakup with more paperwork. However, acknowledging the end of a marriage that perhaps never began on solid footing underscores the importance of a marriage that does. You can teach your children that both partners should properly prepare for a union and enter it only for the right reasons.

We’re Stronger Than We Think

We can’t always prepare for adversity. On the lists of the most stressful life events that people can experience, divorce ranks highly; most people only place the death of a loved one above it. Life after divorce can indeed be difficult, stressful, and sometimes seemingly impossible to cope with healthily. Nevertheless, with the proper support systems and their own resilience, formerly married people can come out of divorces with great strength and emotional growth. By not only surviving divorce but thriving afterward, you’ll demonstrate to your children that they, too, are more resilient than they think. They’ll learn that they can overcome all manners of adversity that they’ll face in life. As the French say, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. In other words, the only thing that remains the same in life is change. Change is inevitable, and when you and your children can deftly handle big life shifts, such as divorce, handling smaller events along the way will become considerably less challenging.