Watch this video on how divorce impacts children.

Did you realise how much conflict affects children?

It is important to start this course with that thought in mind.

The skills you will learn in this course will help you to reduce parental conflict, allowing you to be better co-parents for your children.

We start this particular course module with ways you can actually calm your own upset emotions. As you heard in the video, emotional stress does impact your health, just as it impacts your child’s health.

You'll know what I'm talking about if you're going through a separation or divorce, or even going through a job change, a move or other life changes. You might feel confused or worried or angry or sad. Yet upset feelings are just feelings, and they can be managed.

Emotions are normal, and we all have a lot of them. The goal isn't to eliminate feelings; the goal is to understand what we are feeling and to make decisions about what to do, based on our feelings and on our thinking.

We need to think specifically about which feelings to act on and which feelings to set aside. We need to know which feelings to show and which feelings to try to shield people around us from seeing, such as our children.

Feelings are information which can help us if we think before we act. If we just act on the feelings, we can often make things much worse. If we just act on our thinking, we often don't do as well either. Instead, we should take our feelings into account and consider including them in what we do.

Life Application: How do you express your feelings?

How to complete this task:

Life Application Icon sm-1.jpg Answer these questions in your journal.

Questions

Think of one time that you shielded your feelings from the people around you, such as your children. What was the result?
Think of one time that you acted on feelings and the outcome it had. Did it help solve the problem or did it make the situation worse?