Please Don't Say You're Sorry by Nicole Sodoma

Author:Nicole Sodoma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Forefront Books
Published: 2022-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

9 Your Children Can Hear You (and See You)

NO, CONDOMS aren’t balloons. The eggplant emoji doesn’t mean you are going to be forced to eat eggplant parmesan. Daddy isn’t going to kidnap you just because he drives a different way home. Mom getting a new car doesn’t mean she got a new job. Kids will make assumptions. They hear (and see) everything and repeat it often, even if what they repeat is far from accurate. In more serious times, they may echo what they have heard or have been told, and what they say can become the foundation of a client’s case. Other times, they may also create their own stories seemingly out of nowhere.

In one of my cases, a teenage girl was mad at her dad because, well, she was a teenager. It didn’t help that her mom regularly convinced her that her dad wasn’t a good guy. The weight of her woes, and the seesaw she felt she was on because of the separation, led her to lock herself in her room whenever she was at her dad’s home. One night, she reported that he beat her. After going through months of litigation to rebuild his credibility and convince the Court that he would never lay a hand on his daughter, the judge ordered equal parenting time with both parents. His daughter finally admitted she’d made the story up because she was upset that he had taken away her phone and didn’t allow her to go to a party. Even after this father fought for time with his child so he could repair their relationship, she refused to reunite with him.

Parents are often focused on telling their truth in these high-conflict situations. As a parent, it’s easy to think that we know our children well, but we don’t always consider such factors as emotional development and the consequences of our own choices on our children. When kids repeat what they have heard, rarely does a parent respond with, “It’s my fault.” There can be a failure to acknowledge how our children are receiving what they are hearing. It can also be common for parents to fear what their kids may report, even falsely. When it happens, parents definitely don’t see it coming, and it can change their lives forever.

Parents also parent differently, regardless of whether they are together or separated. But during separation, kids are regularly forced to discern fact from fiction and what is silly from what is serious. They may struggle with loyalty and either parent may ask so much of them (without even knowing it), that the child may form perceptions (or misperceptions) and make up stories.

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