How Children Get Wounded During Divorce

In this powerful episode of The Intelligent Divorce with Mark Banshick, M.D., we discuss how children can become wounded during a divorce. Our guest is Ditta M. Oliker, Ph.D., author of Hide & Seek: Reclaiming Childhood’s Lost Potential.

After the personal tragedy of losing one of her sons, Ditta began to develop her ideas about psychological survival and the lasting effects of the experiences and hidden messages of childhood. She continued to develop these themes after beginning her practice and incorporated them into her concept of survival systems.

Ditta draws a parallel between the death of a loved one to divorce, which is the death of a marriage and the death of a family as it existed, and explains why how we deal with the loss makes a huge difference for all involved, especially the children.

In the program we learn:

• How children become wounded during divorce and how the wounds can carry over into their adult relationships
• How some children take on the role of caretaker to a parent or sibling and how harmful that can be
• How children adapt to the demands of their situation
• And you’ll hear the original version of the fairy tale, Snow White, and see how it captures the conflict of childhood.