Divorce is difficult for everyone involved, and can have a considerable effect on children. In this article, we’re going to provide five tips to ensure your child’s education doesn’t suffer during your divorce.
As parents, we often don’t consider the impact a divorce can have on our children in addition to our own suffering. What we don’t realise is children witness a lot of what happens at home, even where you try to keep it on the down low.
Having assistance from a local family law solicitor will help to make the divorce process easier, providing you with more time to focus on your children. This can ensure they are being supported through this tough time and, in particular, make sure their education is not being affected.
Around one in three marriages end in divorce, and many of these marriages will have children that are still in education, working towards their future. Children grieve from divorce, just like their parents will be suffering too. With children, it’s essential to ensure their education is not obstructed.
To help you do this, we’ve come up with five tips to ensure your child’s education doesn’t suffer during your divorce. Read on to find out more…
Work Out a Living Arrangement They’re Happy With
One part of divorce which children often suffer from the most is feeling uncertain about the future. This will include questions surrounding where they are going to live, when they are going to spend time with each parent, and more. The concern is that they might be at school trying to focus on schoolwork, but instead worrying about what is going to happen.
Making sure your children are aware of what the future arrangements will be as soon as possible will take the impact of the divorce away. If they have a plan in place, their mind won’t be fully focused on worrying about that. The sooner this is cleared up, the quicker they can go back to concentrating on what is important; their education.
Speak to The School About the Situation
One of the best things you can do for your children while you are going through a divorce is talking to their school and making them aware of the situation. Not only may this mean that teachers have a better understanding of why the child might be acting out, it also means that they can provide additional support where it’s needed. This might include 1-2-1 work, talking to a school counsellor, or something else.
Hire a personal tutor
If you are concerned about your children and their schoolwork during the divorce, find them a personal tutor who can provide 1-2-1 teaching. The problem with UK public schools is that the average class size is more than 30 students, with only one teacher and an occasional teacher support. This means students can sometimes get neglected.
Where they are suffering from their parent’s divorce, their schoolwork may be impacted more than ever, missing lessons, not focusing during important lessons, and more. A personal tutor can help combat this.
Do homework with them
One way to discover whether your child is suffering with their education through your divorce is sitting with them and doing homework. You will soon come to learn whether their education has been impacted or not.
If they are struggling, take the time to understand exactly what it is they are struggling with. You can either sit with them and attempt to help them understand it, or go to their school and make them aware of what they need additional help with. This way, a teacher will be able to take the time to ensure that they understand it and won’t struggle again in the future.
This also provides the school with the knowledge that the child is struggling and may need checking up on more often to ensure they are coping okay with the work. Some of the signs that children are struggling with school include:
• They spend a long time doing homework
• They are reluctant to talk about school
• Bad attitude
• They’re unmotivated
• They’re getting in trouble
• Teachers are concerned
Education Quizzes can provide further insight into the signs that a child is struggling at school and what you, as a parent, can do to support them.
Ask them how they are coping
One of the best things you can do for a child is talk to them about their feelings, reassuring them that everything is going to be okay. The more you open up about feelings and let them know that they can always come to you, the less likely they are to take their thoughts and feelings to school and focus on those instead of their education.
If you let them bottle everything up, there is no doubt that their education is going to be affected by it.
Don’t let your divorce impact your child’s future
Obviously, you are going to be suffering from your divorce, but don’t neglect to see that your children are going to be impacted by it too. While it’s important to take care of yourself and push yourself through it by doing new things or focusing on self-care, you need to provide the same support to your children.
Most importantly, you must make sure that their education is not affected, because we all know that education is crucial and will impact their future.
What do you do as a parent to ensure your child’s education is not impacted by your divorce?