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    The Switching Hour 34098: Kids of Divorce Say Good-bye Again
    The Switching Hour 34098: Kids of Divorce Say Good-bye Again
    The Switching Hour 34098: Kids of Divorce Say Good-bye Again
    Ebook124 pages2 hours

    The Switching Hour 34098: Kids of Divorce Say Good-bye Again

    By Evon O. Flesberg

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    The Switching Hour is that time both hoped for and dreaded, when children go from one world to another as they shuttle between divorced parents.



    Written from the child's point of view, this book will help parents simplify family life as children transition between parents. Filled with facts and practical advice, The Switching Hour stresses that, even with the best intentions and parenting skills, children and parents must come to terms with living divided lives.

    "Besides parents experiencing a divorce, The Switching Hour should be read by every teacher, child care worker, minister and children's worker. Perhaps every lawmaker, judge, lawyer, social worker, and welfare staff should also be required to read it."
    --Linda Ranson Jacobs, DC4K (DivorceCare for Kids) Executive Director

    "Profound, passionate, courageous, deeply insightful . . . Dr. Flesberg has heeded Elijah’s call 'to turn the hearts of parents to their children.' (Malachi 4:6 and Luke 1:17). To read and use this book is to be confident that our children in our homes, churches and synagogues will be loved, protected, listened to, and cared for during their parents divorce and all the years following. Clergy often witness role reversal in divorce where the children cease to be the children and become the caretakers of their parents. Dr. Flesberg provides a concrete book which helps any parent and child to keep close through and following divorce. There is real healing on these pages. This book is a warm coat in a chilling wind. Professor Flesberg’s book fulfills an urgent need in our homes and faith communities. There is healing, God’s healing, in these pages. Help has come.
    --April Ulring Larson is Bishop of the LaCrosse, Wisconsin Area of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

    "In this book, Dr. Flesberg makes the point that children in divorce have feelings. They are more than just chess pieces to be moved around to satisfy the needs or demands of the parents. The painful and poignant stories in this book, told from the perspective of a child, should help parents, attorneys, judges, mediators, and counselors understand how to consider children more in their plans. She makes it clear the traumatic toll on children is all too real. Dr. Flesberg gives many good suggestions and thought-provoking ideas to help parents and children post-divorce."
    --Marietta Shipley,The Mediation Group of Tennessee, LLC, Nashville

    "Some 20 million children in the U.S. are shuttled between divorced parents. At each change, at each 'switch' of location, children confront burdens and fears visible only to themselves. In this generous book, Dr. Flesberg reveals those burdens and fears to the parents, grandparents, teachers, and counselors who wish to help. The Switching Hour is an essential book for families, teachers, and caretakers."
    --Volney P. Gay, Ph. D., Vanderbilt University, Nashville

    "Through quotations, letters, postcards, and vivid scenarios and vignettes, Evon Flesberg captures the hardship that children of divorce experience by living in two homes. She also gives specific suggestions for helping children cope with 'the switching hour' and other challenges in their lives."-- -William Bernet, M.D., co-author of Children of Divorce: A Practical Guide for Parents, Therapists, Attorneys, and Judges

    "Evon Flesberg, has written an important work. She illuminates our understanding by flipping the switch on a national dilemma: kids of divorce saying hello and goodbye again and again. The poignant stories of these kids present us with voices most often never heard, and give us insights to their fears, pain, frustrations, and challenges. Begging the question . . . What can we do? Evon presents clear guidelines of both words that can be spoken and actions to take that will make all the difference in the lives and future of these children. Her recommendations will serve as a guide to true carin

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2010
    ISBN9781426724909
    The Switching Hour 34098: Kids of Divorce Say Good-bye Again
    Author

    Evon O. Flesberg

    Author Evon O. Flesberg, Ph.D., M. Div., LCPT is the founder of A Talking Place Pastoral Counseling Service in Brentwood, Tennessee. Growing up in the Midwest, she did her undergraduate work at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. After graduating from Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque. Dr. Flesberg was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and served churches in Iowa. She went on to earn her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is currently a lecturer in pastoral theology and pastoral counseling. In addition, she is a Diplomate in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors.

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      Book preview

      The Switching Hour 34098 - Evon O. Flesberg

      THE

      SWITCHING

      HOUR

      WHAT EXPERTS SAY ABOUT

      THE SWITCHING HOUR

      Children deserve to have their parents read this book.

      —Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSE, Interaction Consultants

      and I Promise Program, Inc., Ontario, Canada

      In this book, Dr. Flesberg makes the point that children in divorce have feelings. They are more than just chess pieces to be moved around to satisfy the needs or demands of the parents. The painful and poignant stories in this book, told from the perspective of a child, should help parents, attorneys, judges, mediators, and counselors understand how to consider children more in their plans. She makes it clear the traumatic toll on children is all too real. Dr. Flesberg gives many good suggestions and thought-provoking ideas to help parents and children post-divorce.

      —Marietta Shipley, The Mediation Group of Tennessee, LLC, Nashville, Tennessee

      THE

      SWITCHING

      HOUR

      KIDS OF DIVORCE

      SAY GOOD-BYE AGAIN

      Image1

      EVON O.FLESBERG

      Abingdon Press

      Nashville

      THE SWITCHING HOUR

      KIDS OF DIVORCE SAY GOOD-BYE AGAIN

      Copyright © 2008 by Evon O. Flesberg

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801 or permissions@abingdonpress.com.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Flesberg, Evon O., 1954–

      The switching hour : kids of divorce say good-bye again / by Evon O. Flesberg.

      p. cm.

      ISBN 978-0-687-64976-1 (binding: printed/casebound : alk. paper)

      1. Children of divorced parents—Psychology. 2. Children of divorced parents—Attitudes.

      3. Children of divorced parents—Family relationships. 4. Divorce—Psychological aspects. I. Title.

      HQ777.5.F57 2007

      306.874—dc22

      2007029161

      All scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      The Switching Hour: Kids of Divorce Say Good-bye Again is a Switching Hour™ Series publication.

      08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      CONTENTS

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      1 / The Switching Hour

      2 / The Hour I Wait and Long For

      3 / The Hour I Hope Comes, But Does Not

      4 / The Hour I Wish Wouldn't Come

      5 / The Hour I Try to Avoid

      6 / The Hour I Spend with God

      7 / The Switching Hour Revisited

      8 / How Can I Help?

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Each NFL team has eleven named players on the field, but is supported by thousands. You who are the unnamed twelfth player have helped carry me beyond my own limits.

      Thanks to you:

      My research assistant, Ken Jackson, attorney and mediator

      Janelle, Bob, and Lucy for quiet places

      Volney, Ken, Victor, Mary, Larry, April, Judd, Ryan, Cos, Matt, Beth, Norm, Sharon, Ev, and Bud for comments on drafts

      Abingdon Press—Kathy Armistead, John Kutsko, Barbara Dick, and Rick Schroeppel for catching the vision

      Norm for being the loving constant

      Peace to all children of the switching hour;

      you know who you are.

      INTRODUCTION

      "I liked yesterday,

      I don't like today,

      And there's nothing anyone can do

      about it."

      He looked at me with dark brown eyes, wide and sorrow-filled, as he slowly and emphatically spoke these words. Life as he knew it for seven short years was over. There was no going back—no way to change what had happened. Mommy and Daddy got a divorce.

      Nothing he could do about it. Nothing I, his counselor, could do about it. Nothing his mother, who sat on the couch beside him with tears sliding down her cheeks, could do about it. He liked yesterday. He doesn't like today. And there's nothing anyone can do about it. The years of the switching hour had begun.

      Now Jimmy has two homes: two sets of parents, four adults who tell him what to do instead of two. He will have to say good-bye again and again.

      Image1

      With suitcase (or duffle bag, grocery sack, or black garbage bag) in their hands, you will see the children of the switching hour at the McDonald's and grocery store parking lots, and even maybe in the police station, on Friday evenings . . . and again on Sunday evenings. At least two times a month, and sometimes midweek too, children switch parents, homes, siblings, friends, pets, playthings, clothes, food, beds—and so much more.

      If you look closely, you will see the children of the switching hour at airports when school is just out or is about to begin. Summer may be spent with Dad; when it's time for school, it's time for life with Mom, again. Around their shoulders will be the arms of the airline employees steering them through the maze of airport corridors and gate changes.Maybe you will sit beside the child who travels from Minnesota to New York so that she is able to have two parents in her life instead of one. You notice the children sometimes looking quite exhausted as they make extra trips at the holidays so everyone will get to celebrate—so no parent will be left out; no half brother or stepsister will be forgotten.

      Statistics tell us that each year more than 1 million children join the switching hour life; at least 18–20 million children under the age of eighteen live divided lives. What do all those hours of going between households bring? The Switching Hour: Kids of Divorce Say Good-bye Again considers what the regular switching of homes means in the lives of young people. What is it like for them to live between parents in the switching hour?

      Being between—leaving one place and moving toward, but not yet arriving in the new place—is called being in aliminal place. Look at a doorway; the piece of wood or metal across the bottom is called the limen in Latin. At that point, one is between spaces—neither in nor out. Psychologically, physically, and spiritually, the experience of liminality is a difficult one. Think about your time as a teenager. You were no longer a child but were not yet an adult. Children who experience the separation or divorce of their parents will spend years moving between them. It is not a single period of time dedicated to adjusting to the new experience of separated parents. The switching between parents continues for as many years as the parents are alive and the child continues to travel in order to be with each of them.

      As you read this book, some of the stories may cause you to feel pain and sorrow. You may say, "That's not true for my child!" However, even the most upsetting stories are true for many children. More children than we would like to acknowledge wait to be part of the lives of both of their parents.The pain of waiting and wanting to know that a parent thinks about them at all shapes the lives of most children. It may not seem possible to you, a good and concerned parent, that many children visit parents who have addiction issues, anger problems, and mental illnesses that are severe but not sufficient to keep them from spending time with their children. These stories are intentionally included because those children have the most difficult time communicating what life is like for them in the hours they spend with that troubled parent. Having read and thought about all of these experiences may help you be a more caring adult for those children whom you may meet in your life.

      I do not believe that being divorced or separated makes a person a bad parent. It will make life more complicated and, possibly, more stressful, both for you and your children.Research has shown that many changes cause stress and may contribute to illness. The changes may be positive as well as negative, unwanted and wanted. A story is told about good parents who divorced and who had the money to provide the same living conditions—same toys, clothes, music—in both homes. On one occasion, the child wanted a pair of shoes that were at Dad's house. Thinking that just buying an identical pair would take care of it, the mother offered to take the child to the store immediately. When the child said that

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