Saturday, May 12, 2007
@10:02 PM
when i was younger, i used to hear all kinds of stories that led to divorces and the aftermath of it. however, being young and carefree, i did not think much of it cos i thought that it only happened to unlucky people. divorces were also pretty rare to me cos i didnt have any friend whom i know had parents who were separated ...
as i grew older, i began to make new friends and quite a few of them came from such situations. some of which are still in the midst of separation though..-_-...
then i realized that divorces dont exactly happen to "unlucky" people, moreover it is getting rather common these days.
although these children with separated parents seemed like any other normal kid on the outside, full of smiles and laughters, but deep down inside, they are struggling to recover from the emotional hurt not caused by themselves, but by their self-centered parents.
at the early stages of separation, the child will tend to have mood swings (eg,cry really easily or get irritated very fast.)
they will also keep to themselves cos they feel that since they cant exactly talk to their parents, who are the closest to them, theres no way they can share their problems to other people such as, counsellors.
bottling up all the problems will lead to coping an overpowering amount of stress,i mean how can a child possibly cope with that?! Even an adult cant manage with that much amount of stress.
that explains why it is so common for kids to suffer from depression these days.
however if the child receives proper counselling from professionals, the emotional outcome will not be so terrible.
still, the hurt will remain. just like a scar in the heart which can NEVER fade away.
heres a story of someone i know and how her parents helped her cope with such stress,
when lin* found out about her parent's divorce, she was devastated. she felt as if the world was gonna be over in no time.
she would cry to herself whenever she was alone, and would have frequent nightmares when she slept.
she felt that it was all her fault for her parents' divorce.
she became withdrawn.
fortunately, her parents realized something was amiss,after much thought, they sat her down and explained the situation briefly.
lin cried buckets at first but was glad that her parents told her the truth, so she need not have to feel so bad about herself.
months passed, and lin was better but still not as good. well thats becos, her parents simply have no time for her. they were so busy in earning more money that theyve forgotten all about spending more time with lin. so instead of spending more time, they spent more money..giving her everything she wanted that money could buy.
lin then turned from a sweet and kind girl, to a arrogant and materialistic person who thinks shes superior than others only becos she got whatever she wants and they dont.
although she had all the materials stuff she wanted , she lacked something very important, which was the REAL love from parents, through quality time spent, not money.
in my point of view, i feel that what her parents had done was right to a certain extent. they discussed the whole situation with her in the hope of not making her feel so bad. they also did a right thing in observing lin's behaviour, cos as you all know, not ALL parents give a damn about how their child feels.
however, the grave mistake her parents made was to not spend enough time with her so as to get rid of the "communication barrier" and reach out to her needs.
all they did was simply showering her with material needs, and this indirectly taught her the wrong values. such "actions" taught her that money can buy happiness(can, but not for long), and that in this world, nothing is more important than money. "family", "love" and "care" were simply chucked away by her. this resulted her to be materialistic, thinking that money is everything.
sometimes, i feel that parents, divorced or not divorced, busy or not busy, should still spend TIME with their children..
again, i stress that MONEY and material goods are NOT what the child longs for.to them, its only a secondary option.
whats MOST IMPORTANT is the LOVE and CARE from parents.....
when youths screwed themselves up(eg, getting into trouble with the law.), it is not exactly because they were being silly, foolish or simply stupid on purpose.
it is because such youths dont exactly have proper family upbringing as most of such youths came from broken families, whatever situation it may be.
you all may think that schools teach such values as well, i agree.
but the values taught at schools are just reinforcements on the values taught from home.....by parents.
cos i know that no matter what, children will listen to their parents. (unless their parents are screw ups themselves, then its a diff issue.)
i mean, would you rather listen to your parents whom you trust MOST or, a stranger apart from the fact that he/ she is your teacher.
think about it. =)
*names are changed to protect persons identity.
