On Wednesday, Oct. 22, in the Adult Student Center, Michael Day, director of personal counseling services, and Jason Schwenker, graduate student, held a discussion on the topic of divorce and how to help your children deal with the situation.
The Adult Student Center holds the diversity brown bag lunches once a month. The topics vary in relation to the campus, community and student requests.
“This topic touches everybody,” Kim Pelle, non-traditional student program coordinator, said. “We all know someone who has or is going through divorce. Whether it be a personal situation, family or friends.”
“I’m always interested in what students want to talk about,” Pelle said.
“Some students of mine have been going through this situation, and they requested this topic for our diversity brown bag lunch event this month,” she said. “I also thought it was a good way to introduce Michael to them as well.”
“It’s important to talk about divorce,” Pelle said. “For students, especially. Sometimes when you are married and trying to go to school at the same time, it can weigh on the marriage.”
The discussion was broke into two parts. Michael Day spoke about the stages of divorce. He compared it to the stages of dealing with death.
“Divorce is a lot like a death,” Day said. “It is the end of a marriage, and the way people deal with the situation is the same as you would deal with the death of a loved one.”
“There are different types of divorce,” Day said. “There are the slow divorces that just build and build and finally fall, sort of like a long terminal illness, there are the unexpected ones that happen out of the blue and there are some that you almost hope to happen.”
“Sadness is a part of life,” he said. “It is a natural part we go through to get to the other side.”
The other half of the discussion was lead by Schwenker. He spoke about children and divorce.
“Children at different ages will react differently,” Schwenker said.
Schwenker discussed the different stages children go through at different ages of divorce.
He said from ages 3to 5, the children will blame themselves.From ages 6 to 11, children try to get parents back together no matter the situation. At around the ages of 11 to 18 they analyze the divorce and place blame.
“The one piece of advice I would give a college student that is a child of divorce, whether they are going through it right now or have in the past, is reaching out for support,” Schwenker said. “Be aware of the experience you are going through and know how it affected or is affecting you.”
“College is a time where you continue to define yourself,and, just know you are not the only person that is experiencing this,” Schwenker said. “Others dealing, or that have dealt with this same situation, can be found.”
“Divorce rates have gone up,” Day said. “Reach out for others who have been through divorce.”
By KRISTINA BLEUEL
Staff Writer
kcbleuel@ius.edu