At coparently we like to share ideas and advice that helps parents navigate their way through divorce or separation and help with their new roles as co-parents. We discovered this insightful TEDx talk from Professor Tamara D. Afifi looking at the impact of divorce on children. We wanted to take the opportunity to share this valuable advice.
Tamara gives some great insight into how children are affected by divorce and give ideas and advice on ways parents can help their children adjust positively to the separation and post divorce family life. During the talk, she shares personal stories from children and teens impacted by divorce. What emerges as key to successful shared parenting, is the importance of keeping conflict away from the children and making sure children are not being used as a messenger for parent communications. There is also advice on managing your relationship with your child and maintaining important parent/child boundaries so that your kids can worry about the stuff they are supposed to be worrying about, rather than fretting about their parents' divorce.
About Tamar Afifi:
Tamara Afifi is a Professor in the Department of Communication at UCSB. Most of her research focuses on how family members cope communicatively with various challenges they face. When examining her research program, two primary themes emerge: (1) information regulation (privacy, secrets, disclosure, avoidance) in parent-child and dating relationships, and (2) communication processes related to uncertainty, loss, stress and coping in families, with particular emphasis on post-divorce families. Professor Afifi was the recipient of the Young Scholar Award from the International Communication Association in 2006 and the Brommel Award from the National Communication Association in 2011 for a distinguished career of research in family communication. She has also won several other research awards, including the Franklin Knower Article Award in 2004 and the Distinguished Article Award in 2008 from the National Communication Association. Finally, she has received numerous teaching awards, including a Distinguished Teaching Award from the faculty senate at UCSB in 2009.
