The Power of Language and Thinking

For this post I'm going to give a tip on how to reduce the conflict around access. This is often a bone of contention for separated and divorced parents, and the arguments and court visits can go on for years, often until the children take a hand and make their own decisions.

I find that if both parents can change their thinking and their language around access it can lessen the conflict, and get everybody to see the problem from a new perspective.

Try to stop thinking about either parent as 'having the children' for a set period of time. This phrase suggests that the children are some kind of property that you get to enjoy the use of every now and again.We don't get to own our children; we have the care of them until they get to be mature adults.

Whatever the relationship is now between former partners, you will remain the parents of your children until you die. So, instead of 'having' the children, each parent is doing the job of parenting whenever the children are with them. Perhaps then, there should be a 'parenting agreement' instead of an 'access agreement'. This involves dropping the term 'access' from your vocabulary when thinking about the time children spend with either parent. Instead, substitute the term 'parenting time'. So each parent gets an opportunity to supply the 'parenting' the children need.

This thinking shifts the focus from the rights of the parents which can be fought over in perpetuity, to the needs of the children for two functioning parents. There is universal agreement about this, so instead of starting off with conflict over who will 'have the children, you start off with the question of how the parenting of the children is going to be put in place.

Another phrase that is problematic is 'handing over' the children. One parent 'hands over' the children to the other. What does that phrase put you in mind of? I think of goods, property or maybe even prisoners. How do you think children feel when they hear they are being 'handed over', especially if it happens in a petrol station or on the side of the road? 'Delivering' can be just as bad and has the same connotations.

So how could the process of the children moving from one parent to the other be better described? Maybe 'driving them to be with the other parent' or 'making sure they have parenting time with Mam or Dad'. When parent drive children to school, they use the term 'the school run'; why not have a 'parenting run'?

Be inventive, think of a phrase that suits you own situation which doesn't involve thinking of the children as property to be fought over but as little people who need to be cared for. Maybe you can even come up with something humurous which will be good for everyone.  

I have mentioned parenting agreements; there are several types, and we will be coming back to that topic in the next post.