MeetRosalind Sedacca, CCT Rosalind Sedacca is an author, an award-winning professional speaker, and Certified Corporate Trainer specializing in both communication and relationship issues. She has facilitated workshops and seminars throughout North America on creating 'conscious' relationships for both singles and couples. Based on her own personal experience, she wrote How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children - with Love! This internationally acclaimed ebook provides an innovative new approach to breaking the divorce news to your children and setting the stage for positive parenting ahead. At Rosalind's Child-Centered Divorce Network parents will find resources and tools to help them create successful outcomes for the entire family in the months, years and decades to come.
"Rosalind's book is unique in that it offers parents an innovative approach to having that difficult and usually dreaded initial conversation with their children and making it as positive and supportive as possible. A parent contemplating a divorce would be well served by reading this valuable book."
Raoul Felder,Celebrity Divorce Attorney
"Rosalind's brilliant book's non-judgmental, compassionate and no-nonsense approach will resonate with all divorcing parents – even those with the most challenging relationships. It is a critical piece of the divorce puzzle, and a must read!"
Cynthia Tiano, Esq."I highly recommend this as more than a book, but a tool to assist children to more successfully navigate the disorientation and maze that comes as part of divorce."
C. Paul Wanio, Ph.D., LMFT, LMHC"This hands-on interactive storybook is a must for all parents going through a divorce. It is a step-by-step guide for appropriately including children in the process. No parent should leave their home without it!"
Sally Goldberg, PhDCenter for Successful Children
"Rosalind Sedacca has invaluable information to share with divorcing parents. There is no other book a couple needs to help them with the most difficult conversation a parent can have with a child, that their parents are getting divorced. You are VERY lucky to have found my partner in the peaceful divorce movement."
Belinda Rachman, Esq"Rosalind Sedacca has just improved the lives of countless children. I have practiced divorce law for 44 years and will attest to the importance of how children are introduced to their parents' divorce. How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? gives us something simple and sound to rely upon. There is absolutely no downside to Rosalind's storybook concept. It's all good and it beats anything else that I've come across. In fact, it's great and it is definitely something that the world has needed. The book is a winner and it is also a lifesaver."
J. Richard Kulerski, Esq"Rosalind Sedacca has made a monumental contribution to self-help resources in an area that affects the lives of millions of men, women and children. After 32 years of counseling people in various stages of uncoupling, I can testify to the urgent need of a "how to" guide for people contemplating divorce. This book offers them a "life preserver." I have already referred my patients to this material and have received great feedback. I cannot recommend this book highly enough."
Beverly Gibel, LCSW, ACSW, BCD"Rosalind Sedacca's 'How Do I Tell the Kids about the DIVORCE?' is a much needed breakthrough in the emotional minefield that parents traverse when they prepare their children for an impending divorce. The template, storybook strategy sends sensitive, kind, loving and safe messages which every child needs as they prepare for the scary unknown. I recommend her book for everyone who has children and is contemplating divorce."
Jack Singer, Ph.D.Licensed Clinical & Forensic Psychologist, LCSW, ACSW, BCD
Archive for June, 2012
Warning: Children Are Psychologically Damaged When Parents Fight!
By Rosalind Sedacca, CCT
For years I’ve been pointing out to parents that fighting around the children does more damage to them than their divorce. When parents handle divorce amicably and put their children’s psychological needs foremost when making all decisions, serious emotional harm to the kids is avoided.
Now a study published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence confirms this perspective. While the focus on this study is on fighting over financial issues, the consequences are basically the same: damage to the children’s well-being.
The study shows that children exposed to constant parental bickering are more likely to be depressed. They are also more prone to expressing other “problem behaviors,” including substance abuse, aggression and poor school grades.
Not surprisingly the study revealed that among parents who were dealing with “money-related chronic stress,” relationships with their children were highly tense and lacking in intimacy. Is the tension related to divorce much different? Can the outcome for children exposed to this tension be any better?
When interviewed about the results of this study, California divorce attorney Joann Babiak had the following suggestions. You’ll notice they are the same advice we consistently offer to parents in the Child-Centered Divorce community because the psychological harm from parental battles is basically the same.
Never battle where kids can see or hear you. Little ears can pick up phone conversations as well as conflict behind closed bedroom doors. “People don’t think about the impact of their words on the little ones who are hearing it,” Babiak said. “I saw one child who just kept eating and internalizing his parents’ conflict. The physician eventually told the mother that this was negligence and that she was creating this stress inside the kid.”
Never play one parent off the other to win your child’s favors. “I’ve seen a lot of instances where the child wanted something and the parent would say, No, you can’t have that because your mother’s not paying child support,” said Babiak. “Does that impact the relationship between both parents regardless of who’s paying? You’d better believe it does.” Bashing or demeaning your child’s other parent hurts and angers children in serious ways. Keep personal resentments personal and don’t use your kids as sounding boards. They’ll resent you for it and pay the price in stress, anxiety, depression and/or aggression.
Never let your children feel unimportant to you. Babiak said she sees countless parents ignoring their children during custodial visits or handing them off to other caregivers so they can work. “The child isn’t sharing time with the parent; they’re just sitting around in the house. If you’re consistently not seeing the parent and enjoying that time because the parent is out in the workforce, that will only increase the conflict.”
Married or divorced, the results of parental conflict or inattention are the same: children wounded on a deep emotional level that can scar them for life. Stress is ever-prevalent in our culture, especially during tough economic times. But our children only get one childhood. Don’t they deserve the very best you can provide for them – your love, your attention and the security of your presence? We don’t need any further studies to acknowledge what we all know … parents are the most powerful role models for our children. Be the person you want them to see and model themselves after. You’ll never regret it – nor will they!
*** *** ***
Rosalind Sedacca, CCT, is the author of the internationally acclaimed, How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children — with Love! For free articles on child-centered divorce, coaching services, her free ezine and free ebook – Post-Divorce Parenting: Success Strategies for Doing It Right! go to: http://www.childcentereddivorce.com.
© Rosalind Sedacca All rights reserved.
