How To Deal With Guilt For Your Child Experiencing Major Life Changes

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Dana Obleman: Hi! I’m Dana. Welcome to this week’s video chat. Today, our question comes from Rebecca. She is wondering, “What are some great tips for responding to guilt as a parent around things like divorce or a new baby?”

Again, I really love this question because what I see happen so often around any kind of life change, you’ve gone back to work, you got a divorce, you have a new baby is that we tend to let boundaries shift and slide. That is mistake number one.

You really need to hang on to your boundaries. I get it. I totally understand that you have some sensitivity to the fact that there’s a big change that is going on in your child’s life. It’s important to talk about that change and be supportive. The minute you start letting rules shift, slide and break, you make your child much more insecure than they already are.

Now, rules that were once rules are no longer rules. Dad isn’t here. I don’t know what end is up and what’s going on and I’m going to act out more and more aggressively and so on. Just snowballs into a really bad situation. The same happens around new babies. We’re guilty our toddlers experiencing this change. We give in to demands. Pretty soon, we’ve got a three year old who is running in the whole house. It happens just like that. You think, “Gosh, what happened? How did I lose control?” It can happen so fast.

Here’s my advice. Alleviate your guilt in some other way. Not rule based. Not boundary based. Maybe you plan for 30 minutes of one on one time with your child. If it’s a new baby, its mommy and toddler date day. We’d go out for 30 minutes and spend time together just the two of us. Similar with situations of divorce, make sure that you’re giving lots of attention, one on one time, stories, trips out, making dinner together, whatever it is that you can carve out a little bit of time that you can reassure your child in other ways.

Reassurance, one on one time with a child is the best way to reassure them that everything is fine. Again, getting your partner involved as much as you can to help out with some of this is also important. If it’s a new baby, carve out some time for daddy to spend with the older child as well so that the child is continually reassured that the love and support that he’s always had from his parents will continue even with this new baby in the picture.
Hang on tight to your rules. Don’t let boundaries slide. Find other ways. That is going to save you all kinds of push back and bad behavior. It’s just going to solve a lot of problems for you in the long run. Thanks so much. Sleep well.

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Transcription by CastingWords