Monday, October 26, 2009

Growing Up Divorced

By Cathy Chestler, Co-Owner All About The Children

Being a child of divorce makes you grow up in ways different from your friends. From the age of 7, I knew the meaning of words like, “visitation”, “court”, and “custody”. Going to play with my friends on weekends consisted of calling my father first to see what day and time he would be coming to get us for visitation. Holidays consisted of going with mom for a few days then going with dad the other few days.

Growing up as a child of divorce I would watch my parents fight about finances, visitation, and issues I didn’t understand. As much as they tried to hide their hatred for one another, it was simple to see. Couple that with each parent remarrying, each step parent bringing in children from their previous marriages, my mother having another child, and it became a soap opera of sorts.

From the age of 7, I knew I wanted to help children like myself. I wanted to work with children of divorce and let them know life goes on, it’s o.k., and it is not your fault. I always imagined my office having a couch and a fish tank, and that everything was going to be great.

I myself divorced when my children were 7 and 9. At first, it was amicable and I knew I could deal with just about anything since I was a child of divorce myself. One thing a child of divorce never experiences, that I quickly learned, was there is this court system that governs all decisions.

For the past 7 years I have spent thousands of dollars in lawyer fees, hours upon hours in a courtroom, and many sleepless nights wondering how one single person called a Judge, can make decisions that greatly impact the lives of people they barely know. There had to be an alternative to this mass chaos and I was going to either find it or create it.

Although I don’t have an office or a fish tank in which I meet with children of divorce, I have the world wide web. I created a communication site that helps facilitate communication between divorced people who have children. Instead of trying to help one child at a time, I decided to put my energy into starting at the top, where education and a finely tuned divorce communication tool could reach out and help many at once.

I have created what I think is the most incredible divorce communication tool ever. I created it out of my experiences of a child of divorce as well as my own divorce. I used my Masters degree in Counseling and really fine-tuned tool that I believe will help not only the children of divorce but their parents as well. All About The Children was created out of compassion for children and the first hand experiences I have had in my life. My business partner is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been counseling families and children for the past 23 years and is currently working on her P.hD in Psychology. Together we have created a divorce communication website that will take the children out of the middle while allowing the parents/guardians to communicate in an effective manner.