COFACE member organisation Women for Women (W4W) runs a service which supports separating parents and offers them a helping hand.
Every year, thirty thousand children in the Czech Republic face the divorce or separation of their parents. Parents often forget during mutual disputes that the breakup of the family affects not only them but especially their children. The Family Service is a project of COFACE member organisation Women for Women (W4W) which supports separating parents and offers them a helping hand. It aims to help parents who are separating not to fight over their children, to find common ground on how they will continue to care for their children and to mitigate the emotional impact on their children as much as possible.
Children suffer the most from conflict between parents. As part of the Family Service project and based on the recommendations of experts, W4W collected 8 key tips to help children cope with such difficult situations in the best way possible:
- Don’t forget that even after a divorce or separation, you are both full parents to your child or children.
- Do not manipulate the child/children against the other parent.
- Do not force the child to choose between you and the other parent.
- Allow the child to have contact with the other parent.
- Keep in mind that transferring custody of a child to one parent does not alter the other parent’s ongoing parental responsibility.
- Divorce or separation does not change the fact that you make decisions together about the child.
- Children experience many changes during family separation – give them space and time to cope.
- Children may not share your enthusiasm for your new partner. They should have the opportunity to process everything.
Read more here (in Czech).
