How Do Relationships Affect the Emotional Stability of Our Children?

The biggest concern for parents is the welfare of their children. Whether they are moments of crisis, family or personal problems, if our child is stressed all we want to do is save him any kind of suffering.

But the truth is that we can not always save the bad moments to our children, especially when it is a personal decision of couple, for example, the separation between the two parents or either the relationship of parents with an outside partner.

Surely as adults we have already acquired all the necessary tools to manage a relationship. Good communication, making agreements and having compromises is certainly the best way to deal between couples. But a decision to separate could affect our children much more than we would like.

A study by the Andean Area University Foundation of numerous professional psychologists and psychiatrists, evidence that children suffer worrying degrees of stress and anxiety when their parents separate. "Separation anxiety in children is the effect of the fracture and subsequent dissolution of a parental relationship that emotionally supported the children," explains the study.

They argue that 83% of young people have anxiety disorders after the breakup of their parents or their parental figures. This disorder usually manifests itself in a state of poor sleep, poor nutrition and poor concentration at school, and 8 out of 10 children are currently experiencing it. So how to improve this situation, should it arise?

First, the study concludes that "it is necessary for people to seek help and advice before, during and after separation". For while a separation is not a simple matter and many agreements need to be reached both sentimentally and financially, the mental health of the children cannot be neglected, despite the feelings we as a couple may have.

Parents must understand that the development and well-being of their children comes first, before anger or resentment over a troubled couple situation. If parents who are going through a separation sit down with their children and explain to them why mom and dad decided that they are no longer going to live together or share things, and do so in a loving, understanding and, above all, honest way, they will be doing the right thing.

Parental figures in a child's life are some of the most important things, as it is the basis on which they are guided to grow and develop individually. And this does not mean that parents can not separate, it means that they must be aware at the time of doing so that their children do not suffer or understand that situation as the loss of something very important, on the contrary, they can understand the separation perhaps as something good, or as something necessary that does not have to be wrong.

When we explain things to children with love and honesty, we prevent their suffering, we strengthen our relationship with them, and most importantly, we are teaching them to do the same in the distant future.