Playing The ‘Blame Game’: How It Undermines Your Co-Parenting

As a separated parent, playing the ‘blame game’ may seem fairly satisfying in the short term but, over time, it will surreptitiously undermine your own parenting whilst negating and eroding the another parent in the process.

Sadly, this is a typical behaviour observed in separation or divorcing parents as the need to blame is very much a part of the initial stages of grief and fury experienced after splitting up. It can feel good to blame the other parent, absolving ourselves of guilt. And there are only so many painful emotions one can cope with when breaking up feels so dramatic and awful.

But by continually playing the ‘blame game’ we maintain our fixed position and remain ‘stuck’ in avoiding vital and necessary change. “It’s all his/her fault” we keep telling ourselves and feel justified in adopting this ‘easier’ stance where no shift or compromise (or healthy self-analysis!) can take place.

But if we’re unable to be truly honest about assessing our own roles, examining our own behaviour and looking within ourselves, how can we determine how to change and learn from past incidents? We risk the situation becoming even more ‘inflamed’ and chaotic to a point that will disable us, like a type of paralysis. Deeply entrenched and stuck in a ‘blaming rut’, no progress or forward motion can ever truly be made.

Parents who continually blame each other are actually negating their own individual parenting prowess, robbing themselves of their parental strengths, skills and qualities. By spending so much energy focusing on one another’s mistakes, an impasse is quickly reached. At this point your children will probably feel hopelessly lost, confused and overlooked.

The end result is two diminished parents creating a severe emotional deficit for their children at a time when children need to observe their parents being stronger than ever. Both parents need to conserve their individual energy to focus on bringing up their children – an even more difficult task than usual!

Taking stock of oneself and learning to regulate our actions and reactions is far more rewarding and the results are far more tangible – one can see the progress from within. Persistent negative profiling of the other parent; viewing them with an ever-critical eye; plotting their demise and obsessing over what they are doing with ‘your child’ ultimately only detracts from you as a parent.

Time and effort wasted obsessing and generating negative energy and blame simply results in loss of time spent enjoying your child. And it’s only in building on the foundations of their childhood that we can continue creating lovely moments and memories for them. Ask yourself: what do you want your children to remember about this time in their lives?

It takes time for everyone to recover from a separation experience (particularly if you find yourself entrenched in court legalities and adversarial process) so if you continue to find yourself on this negative trajectory, it’s certainly time to explore alternative options and to seek specialist support.

Try to have more fun with your children. Stop looking at those court papers or taking note of all the times the other parent slips up. Stop focusing your attentions on building a case to present in court about “what an awful parent they are”.

Take the time to enjoy yourself and your children and to take a healthy, mindful control. You can then reap the rewards of your decisive actions to move forward in seeking a fruitful co-parenting future.

To discover much more about successful co-parenting send an email to: enquiries@thecoparentingclinic.co.uk 

Why Separating Parents Should Avoid Family Court Proceedings

With so many family judges now advising lawyers and their clients to “stop clogging up the system with unnecessary court applications” and about 90% of applications being centred on issues which could be resolved by other dispute resolution interventions, it may not be too long before we see penalties and sanctions being imposed for wasting court time. … Read more

Suffering from Anxiety, Stress or Depression beyond your Separation?

Modern living and the experience of separation sometimes feels incredibly stressful and we can all give ourselves a hard time and worry excessively. In order for the modern form of humans to survive 200,000 years we have needed to be ‘ready for action’ depending on what we were faced with.  Our amygdala, the internal ‘alarm system’ that alerts us to present and imminent dangers, is still very reactive today as we are descendants of people who had very finely tuned and responsive alarm systems.

Modern living may be less predatory but we still have to deal with a huge number of ‘triggers’ and pressures, particularly when going through the emotional process of separation or divorce. We may see our former partner as the ‘enemy’ due to the relationship breakdown, the conflicts of the past or present and possibly our experience of adversarial court proceedings. We may have categorised our “ex” as a threat.

As a society we are known to react strongly to the slightest criticism or hint of disapproval. We need only observe social media interaction and contentious family court proceedings to witness how quickly the conflict escalates and the drama gets ‘played out’. The amygdala can be fired up in a nano-second when receiving an email or text from our ex (or their lawyer). Yet we needn’t react in quite the same manner as we would have when under ferocious attack and in fear for our lives millions of years ago. Based on fear responses in prehistoric times, which can be brilliant when in actual grave danger, our responses can now be over stimulated at the slightest touch of a button. We need to be far more selective and learn how to buffer these ‘triggers’ as it can be very debilitating when we are frequently on such high alert and is likely to cause us to respond to communications in rash and impulsive ways.

When separated, it’s common for many to experience intense feelings of anxiety or anger. Anxiety is the most frightening ailment and can eat away at our self-esteem, making us incredibly incapacitated. When stressed or scared, we view the world as a place filled with dangerous triggers and pitfalls. We are then not in control. We can have a tendency to chastise ourselves as being powerless, weak and vulnerable and to then react by over-compensating and fighting back with our entire arsenal of defensive ‘weaponry’. This can be exhausting and damaging to both our mental and physical health and wellbeing.

Separated parents can activate each other’s ‘flight or fight brain’ and this can manifest itself in relentless conflict which may extend into adversarial legal proceedings and the family courts. By ‘looping’ into each other’s anxious brain, they replicate a reactive ‘figure of eight’, repeatedly activating one another’s flight or flight mechanism to an hyper-alarmed state and thus creating a vicious circle.

What is needed is for one or both parents to assuage and comfort their own reactive reptilian ‘stress-brain’ long enough to enable their pre-frontal cortex (the higher, sophisticated, rational and forward thinking brain) to begin working. Our brain is in fact trained to be alert to negatives as these could pose a threat to us. So we all need to find a helpful equilibrium and to re-address this ‘imbalance’ by training our brains to create more ‘cheerleaders’ in our own minds. We all have a natural tendency to put ourselves down and to be highly self-critical. This can easily put us into negative stances with others and we then quickly find ourselves caught up in a negative spiral.

So why not re-train our brains to have a much healthy band of cheerleaders? Learn to soften our self-recriminations and that of others. Talk to and treat ourselves in a far gentler, kinder manner. This really helps to avoid negative profiling of both ourselves and the other parent. Use different perspectives i.e. when dealing with a ‘problem’ try to think of the issue instead as a worthy ‘challenge’ to be faced. Take notice of when we put ourselves down in situations and don’t give ourselves a hard time, Instead, stay observant and keep an open mind as to why it happened.

If suffering from anxiety, depression and insomnia, seeking professional support will alleviate the trauma and stress and enable us to feel stronger and believe in ourselves again. Suffering in silence only exacerbates the tendency of our default ‘alarm’ system to continue to tripwire. This increases cortisol levels – a steroid hormone released in response to stress – causing long-term harm such as increased insomnia, depression, feeling frazzled and depleting our immune system when ‘stacking’ up.

So take action now and engage in an ‘emotional MOT’! Give yourself a soothing brain massage by seeking professional help. Or try yoga, meditation, physical exercise and mindfulness. This will keep you on track by creating happy hormones, endorphins, and help you to sleep better. Please don’t suffer in silence as there are many excellent counselling and coaching services available, whether in-person or online.

Bespoke parental support for every stage of your separation or divorce is available at Kids Come First® www.kidscomefirstuk.co.uk
The Co-Parenting Clinic® is an innovative legal advice service helping separated parents reach agreements on their child arrangements without the need for adversarial family court proceedings. Email enquiries@thecoparentingclinic.co.uk 

What is Co-Parenting Advice and Support ?

A question we are regularly asked at The Co-Parenting Clinic ® is what is co-parenting advice and support?

The Co-Parenting Clinic provides you with expert legal advice from your own independent specialist barrister from Children in the Middle® https://childreninthemiddle.co.uk/

Your barrister will guide you on how the care arrangements for your children can work and the different options available to you.

You will also attend a bespoke co-parenting support & training workshop with Kids Come First® https://kidscomefirstuk.co.uk/

This workshop will guide you on how to communicate positively with your co-parent, how to support your children through family transitions and how to make decisions in your children’s best interests.

The purpose of this combined co-parenting advice and support is to provide you with confidence to co-parent effectively, avoiding unnecessary conflict with your co-parent.

Should your co-parent also engage with The Co-Parenting Clinic, and you both wish to do so, your own independent barristers can negotiate the arrangements for the care of your children. You can also then go on to arrange a joint co-parenting workshop with Kids Come First.

 

At the conclusion, both parents will have agreed arrangements  for the care of their children and an understanding of how to co-parent together.

 

We believe this provides you and your family with the best chance of you as parents working together beyond your separation.

For further information and costs, please see our website www.thecoparentingclinic.co.uk https://thecoparentingclinic.co.uk/  or contact us at enquiries@thecoparentingclinic.co.uk

 

What is Co-Parenting?

If you have recently separated or are thinking about separation from your partner or spouse, your greatest fear may be how the arrangements for the care of your children will work.   One of the phrases you may have heard is ‘co-parenting’.   So what is co-parenting ?   Co-parenting is where two or more … Read more