Empowerment

Having children and "co-parenting" with someone who has personality issues or mental health problems makes the term co-parenting an oxymoron. There is no team and it's not about the children . . . at least not to the other parent. It is all about them. Realizing this and the fact that I could not fix or do anything in regards to my ex use to cause me loads of anxiety and fear. Through the months I've worked to find my own plan of ways to empower my children when in their father's presence, some tips have come courtesy of my amazing therapist and others go dead set against what everything you read says to do. It works for us and I have seen a dramatic change in my almost 9 and 7 year old girls. So here is a list of ways that we work at empowering each other in regards to visitation (it's a list in progress):

• Teach my children how to use their words. As my therapist reminded me, when you identify an emotion, fear or issue it heals you. So when my children come home from visitation clearly irritable, angry, sad or hurting we have learned how to "use our words" (thankfully this is something I started at speaking age with my children long before any of this and it has been a great tool even outside of a custody situation). They are able to identify when they are scared, angry, sad, frustrated, confused, etc due to actions or issues that arose during their time with their dad or from coming home and missing him. The bonus is this validates their feelings as being acceptable.
• Every time after visitation once they get home we take 30 minutes of cuddle time and talk through their time with dad. This takes some practice and you have to be very careful NOT to turn into an investigator hoping to gain information about their father to use against him. You also cannot put your opinion or reaction into the conversation even if something comes out that you don't approve of. I usually put my son to bed and then go lay down with the girls' in their beds, taking turns with each just hugging and snuggling them while asking them how good of a time they had. I am careful never to use leading questions or statements and just let THEM talk and share. They  have come home crying the last few times and within a few minutes they calm down and we talk about the good, the bad and the ugly parts of their trips. I make mental notes, ask how it makes them feel, how they can use their words in regards to it and what they would like to do differently next time or what they loved about this time. If something was extremely inappropriate, we work through a course of action (like my ex leaving them unsupervised by a pool, they know they are to sit far away from the pool and wait patiently until their dad returns. If their brother is with them, they are to pick up brother and go into the house or walk him as far away from the pool as possible and not leave his side). I always write down everything afterwards, BUT these are not used just to get ammo on my ex. This is about my girls' and letting them have a safe place to unwind and vent if need be about what they didnt like. Even in a nonconflict divorce this isn't a bad tool, as going between 2 homes is unsettling to any child. Having a safe place to come home to and talk through their emotions only helps a child feel that this is ok, normal and safe to feel the emotions they are feeling and to learn how to work through them and find some empowerment in enjoying parts and knowing what to do next time for the parts they didn't enjoy.
• My children know my phone number and my mother's phone number by heart. Their dad may never let them call me should a true emergency hit, but they have been taught that if it gets that bad then they speak to every adult in the house (the ex lives with 2 others) and state that they would like to use the phone please. If they are denied then if they go out in public, then they ask a police man or a librarian or a register at the store. Should they be questioned they have been taught to say that they need to speak to their mother and they don't have a phone to do so and it is an emergency. It may seem over the top, but should something ever happen and the children are denied the ability to call, asking all adults brings in more people who are responsible. Either your child is going to be listened to, or the person they are with is going to get some serious questions as to why they aren't allowed to talk to their mother. Yes, he can make a story on the fly . . . but should it ever come to court all these people can be brought in and are under oath to explain why a child's needs were ignored in an unsafe situation. This teaches the children that while their father may not take accountability for their safety, other adults are suppose to and some will.
• Send the children with a journal. It is tucked away into their backpack, their father hasn't found it yet as he assumes it is for school work. They have a pencil and crayons and have been told that if there is something that upsets them or scares them or makes them miss me, they can draw a picture or write me a letter. Their dad is easily distracted by their 2 year old brother or various phone calls and computer stuff, so they have time to do so as they wish. This gives them the ability to express their emotions right then and there, and then go on with their time with their father and then show it to me when they get home. I have let them know that once they have drawn or written down their feelings that once they close the book it's done until we can go over it later and to not let that moment ruin the rest of their time there. Once you finish a book, it's best not to waste the rest of your time daydreaming about the book, instead you want to get back to living real life. This is a concept the kids have latched on to and helps them feel it, express it and move on. Once home they get validated and encouraged and given the emotional response that was lacking with their father. Kids need validation and my ex is incapable of it. So if they go to him for validation and he brushes it off or justifies it as he always does, they are able to store it away and have time later to be acknowledged. 
• I do not sugar coat what happened between their father and I, nor do I speak badly of him. This is a fine line. One that most books and professionals will say you shouldn't engage in at all. I'm not a professional but I am a mother and I know my children better than anyone else in their life. My children know body parts by the proper terminology, they know how babies are made in an age appropriate manner and they know how to express their emotions in actual terms since they were 2. This is how I raise my children and I won't let my ex having BPD or a high conflict divorce change this as it works best for my children. They  know the truth of the matter that their dad left and made poor decisions that put us at risk emotionally and physically. When my 6 year old came to me and asked if daddy left because of a girlfriend that he'd seen on daddy's phone when he wasn't looking, I answered with the honest truth. I find that when i am honest with my children, the 20 questions stops in its track. Again, validation. They also come to me and open up more and more, as they realize I'm not going to push their concerns to the side with adult mumbo jumbo talk. All my kids want is for me to love them and to have both parents love them and to be validated and heard. They dont get this from the other party most likely, he never was capable of it when we lived together and I often times had to help him with this area of parenting. And so it is my job to make sure they aren't treated as if they are mindless beings who are clueless. My children pick up on A LOT. At times i'm amazed by their emotional maturity, but i think it is because i dont treat them as if they have no rights in this divorce. We also use this as a great opportunity to discuss healthy decisions and how our decisions directly effect all those in our lives. Along with that comes the ability to learn how to make healthier decisions. It has been used as a platform in our home about lying, which use to be a big problem. Once my girls' realized that daddy was lying to all of us constantly, we were able to use that as a lesson in our own lives and the lying has dramatically decreased. This was a huge tool in empowering them.
• Truthfulness. This may seem like an obvious one, but as parents we want to protect our kids from things that hurt them. The truth is one of them. I used to not answer or play the 'well what do you think' question to spare them. Now i've stopped, decided on age appropriate answers and been truthful. This goes from them questioning me about the abuse (frank discussions about how it is never acceptable for a spouse to hit their spouse or children and you really dont love someone if you treat them that way to). This goes hand in hand with not sugar coating things. If my children see truthfulness modeled with me, it empowers them to be truthful with their father. IE - "I do NOT want to go there daddy, we are not allowed to" or "We should not be using those words daddy, they are bad words". I've witnessed this first hand with them, as they have called out their father for swearing at me.
• Accountability! Because they ask hard questions and get truthful answers this means that I have to be accountable too. I do not sugar coat it, but when the children bring up the times they witnessed domestic violence, I speak up and discuss how it was my job to leave, not engage and not put up with it. I was accountable and I have to teach them accountability because their father takes none and shows them none, very confusing for them to go from that to my home. We are religious and so I use religion as an example. We are accountable to God for our sins, we are accountable to mom for breaking rules and we are accountable to each other to be honest and good. If someone is not, then we have to acknowledge the role we played in it if we do at all. This has greatly increased my oldest's sense of self esteem. She realized that she was not speaking up when her father would say or do something that would bother her. Is this the role of any 8 year old??? NO! But when dealing with an unhealthy parent, you learn to teach your children alternatives and sadly sometimes they are grown up lessons. And it has greatly helped her to speak up more often to him without fear of retribution. Does she still get scared, absolutely but the more she does it the more her father has realized she is getting backed up by myself, my family, our church, our friends and a therapist. As she learns to stand up for herself, he has slowly backed down with his bullying methods towards her because he is learning he cannot get his narcissistic supply filled from her in that manner any longer (he's focusing on the 6 year old now). My 6 year old is struggling with this and has not grasped it yet, so we are slowly working with her on it by simple lessons at home.
• Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. This one I struggle with as after 11 years it's a hard one to relearn. I had to learn that I had to re-establish healthy boundaries in EVERY aspect in my life. In turn, i've slowly been able to teach my children healthy boundaries in their lives. This includes kids at school, each other, me and their father.When someone does something that is unhealthy, we are slowly learning to walk away.  For example, when my ex asks my almost 9 year old to watch her 2 year old while he goes and talks someone on the phone, she is learning to politely say that she would prefer daddy to do it because he is the daddy and she's just the daughter. Does it always work and is she always listened to? No, but we also are learning that when we set up healthy boundaries and they are ignored that is an unhealthy relationship. We can't always walk away from it like a parent, a sibling or a teacher. But we can choose not to engage and we can do something else or do as we are asked and remember that we were not being respected and notate for later if that is a healthy relationship to keep. I know that this will take years of work, as they do love their father and desperately want him in their lives, but giving them the choice to ask for that boundary to be respected has shown them that they do have rights in all of this. The more adept they get at this the more I realize they are establishing their new boundary with their father (telling him they don't feel like talking on the phone every night, explaining that they would rather hang out with their auntie on the weekend instead of have extra visitation with him on a holiday, etc). 
• More responsibilities. Sadly, I hate this aspect of divorce in any type of situation. When you become a single mom it seems that more responsibilities are saddled onto the children's backs, something I fought to avoid going so far as to start hiring a cleaning lady to clean the house on my limited budget. But as I would hear the accounts from the children of the responsibilities their father laid on them at his home, i realized I was doing none of us a favor. I had to figure out a way to empower the children to feel that they could handle whatever he threw their way and so that I knew they were going to be ok. So I started adding new responsibilities to their lists. For example in the morning instead of locking my 2 year old into my bedroom/bathroom to watch TV while i shower, the girls watch him out in the living room while they watch tv (don't worry my house is completely safety proofed and there's a latch on my door he can't reach). This has actually also benefited them in the fact that my son loves hanging with his sisters and they often time are playing together and have grown more attached as they learn to play at his level. They also do chores like dishes, putting away laundry, other household tasks that gives them a sense of pride and authority. They are not paid or given an allowance, they know that as a family we work together as a team. This also has been an interesting impact on the time they spend with their dad because they have been relaying similar messages to him (completely unintentional on my behalf) that a team works together and him sitting in front of his computer while they watch tv is not a team. I also know that no matter what he throws at them, they are empowered by having experiencing in helping care for their brother. My oldest is able to make him a meal, get his changed (except the diaper, unless it's a pull up), brush his teeth and get him to play for about 30 minutes. I've helped oversee these activities and they are NOT daily things they do, but from time to time i will ask for help and she now jumps to do as asked feeling pride in the ability to do it. I hope that this also benefits her in the fact that when she is told to do things at her father's (he never asks) that are outside of the scope a normal 8 year old should be doing (ie parenting her siblings) it is not that out of the norm so she doesn't feel as neglected but instead feels as if she is helping the team. When she comes home and tells me the ways she helped her father, i make sure and praise her and always reward her behavior for helping with her siblings as her father does not and we also talk through how it makes her feel. We are moving from feeling used to realizing that she is helping her family, while still acknowledging it is NOT healthy for her to be doing all the time. 
• Lastly, I have started the girls' in individual sports. They are forced to be a team as is at home and so I decided to find something that they could shine at where the outside influence of myself, their father and the divorce would not effect their success. Cross country and gymnastics has been an amazing asset to their self confidence and self worth. I focus on the fact that they complete each meet/lesson and follow through and that that is the point of it, not to win or be the best (the point their father tries to make). And so as they finish each one i have watched them grow and mature and become more and more empowered. One of my daughter's is not the athlete that me and her father are, but she's no longer focusing on that and is finding her strengths and we are focusing on that. They are also learning to do something for the love of the activity, not the reciprocation of praise or attention. This is a simple grown up lesson, we reap what we sow. 

Something that I wont put on my bullet list as it is completely personal and my own thing. I decided to do something for others despite how rough the transition has been for us. I was a surrogate in 2009 and knew I wanted to do another, was actually trying right as I learned about the truths of my ex and had to walk away from the match. Surrogacy is near and dear to my heart as infertility pays no attention to age, race, background or amount of love you have waiting for a child. After I received the signed judgement on our custody (i retained sole legal and physical custody) I realized how blessed I was and that I must pay it forward. What better avenue than to help a family become parents. I contacted the parent's I'd been working with before and we ended up matching and I am now 14 weeks pregnant. I recently told my children, though I had wanted to wait as I wanted to hold off as long as possible for little tongues to wag to my ex. But in all reality, it's none of his business and he previously signed that it would not effect our custody, child support or alimony stipulation. And so, I am paying it forward. This is something I am doing in hopes of showing my children that no matter how bad, hard, scary or frustrating a situation can be we always have things that we can control in it. I can control my body, my desire to help others and to give no matter how hard life is. I want my children to one day look back and realize that we can help others even in our own times of need. For me it is surrogacy, for others it's something as simple as volunteering, adopting a family at christmas or visiting the local shelter that houses dozens of women and children who have escaped similar situations as our own. It has also given my children something to look forward to as they adore surrogacy (they were old enough to remember last time and how fun it was to be around a new baby mommy birthed that we don't have to keep and raise lol) and they have started to feel empowered because THEY are also helping mommy grow the baby and it is a team effort. I want my children to walk away from this able to make healthy relationship decisions, stand firm against their father's unhealthy ways and to remember to always give back and give to others because no matter how hard things may be, there are always others who have it worse!