PFor many parents, summer represents a break from routine. Dates to be agreed, work shifts to manage, holidays to plan. For them separated familieshowever, can turn into a delicate one test bed of co-parenting. They often hide behind the organization of the summer weeks intense emotions: the fear of wasting precious time with your children, there fear of being left asidethe desire to recover what the separation has inevitably changed. Who will take care of the children in August? How to divide the holidays? Is it fair for them to spend more time with one parent than the other? And above all: how can we protect children from the risk of becoming, despite themselves, the terrain on which tensions and still open questions are played out? We asked the Doctor Martina Cussinopsychotherapist, PhD in clinical psychology, EMDR facilitator and supervisor and collaborator of CRSP (Centre for Research and Studies in Psychotraumatology).
When summer puts balance to the test
In separated families, summer amplifies what remains more contained during the year. School, timetables and daily activities offer, in fact, a relatively stable structure. During the holidays this structure disappears and everything must be redefined: not only the organization of time, but, at times, also new family presences to integrate.
Frequently the discussion on summer calendar it becomes fertile ground for one’s fears and fragility. The excuse to express much deeper issues that generate suffering, anger or competition. Complex emotional dynamics can hide behind a request to change a week or extend a holiday: the resentment towards ex-partner, the difficulty in accepting a new family organization, the desire to feel special and important for one’s children, the fear of losing space in their life, the fear of comparison.
Emotional accounting that doesn’t help children
Sometimes a sort of develops affective accounting: who had more days, who organized the best holiday, who was more present. A dynamic that is understandable on an emotional level with regards to the experiences of the adults involved, but which is not oriented to the needs of the protagonists: the children.
When the tensions between adults increase, children feel the effects even if no one talks about it openly: a invisible weight is carried on their shoulders.
The risk of making children feel responsible
Sometimes they feel invested with responsibility to maintain family balanceas if their job was to protect adults from difficult emotions. Some try to please both parents, others avoid sharing how much fun they had on a vacation for fear of hurting the other. Children should not be placed in situations where their needs and experiences have an impact on their parents’ emotional experiences. Instead, they need to feel free to love both parents without feeling guilty, without having to compensate for the sadness of one or the disappointment of the other.
«Who do you want to be with this summer?». «Do you prefer to go to the seaside with me or to the mountains with dad?»questions of this type place children in an uncomfortable position and become an attribution of responsibility towards them, asking them to choose between two equally important figures. They are the ones who have the right to feel contained by choices made by emotionally mature and resolved adults.
What co-parenting really is
The separated families who manage to experience the summer with greater serenity are not necessarily those without conflicts. They are often the ones who manage to keep one shared perspective on the well-being of children. Those in which children are not exploited according to the needs of adults.
There co-parenting It doesn’t require you to be friends or always get along. Rather, it requires the ability to recognize that, despite the end of the couple’s relationship, the parental project continues. Therefore decisions should be guided primarily by their well-being and not by the emotional wounds of adults. Children can be listened to, but they should not feel responsible for choosing between mom and dad or deciding the family organization.
Collaborate to give safety to your children
When children perceive that their parents collaborate, even just on an organizational level, they feel more secure. Being able to talk calmly about the summer calendar and its division offers children greater predictability and safetyreducing stress.
So they can invest energy in summer experiences, friendships, discoveries and fun, without being constantly worried about what happens between adults.
Allowing children to peacefully experience the time spent with each parent strengthens theirs sense of security, belonging and freedom. They learn that in their emotional world there is space to contain both relationships, which will always be welcomed.
A challenge that can become an opportunity
In this sense, holidays can represent not only a challenge, but also an opportunity to build new ways of collaboration And mutual trust.