The Good Time Charlie Parent

Parenting in divorce often feels like a volley between good cop / bad cop requiring steadfast consistency to avoid long-term suffering for your kids

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I got a message from a client recently recounting her frustration with her soon-to-be ex, the father of her children. I could feel her deflated spirit as she wrote about an encounter with her young son who asked her why she was bugging him, “Daddy doesn’t bug me. Daddy lets me do what I want.” FYI, these are words of a 5-year-old.

And sidenote: ‘bugging me’ = parenting.

I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and console her — to remind her that simply put, sometimes being a great parent sucks! This was one of those moments for her. I remember them well.

In a perfect world two parents would behave like responsible adults and maintain consistent parenting no matter who was in charge of the kids. But hey, that may be a lot to ask for because in a truly ‘perfect’ world — you wouldn’t be getting divorced. Yet here we are.

Parents are inconsistent for many reasons — pure laziness, spite or worse yet, trying to solicit the kids to ‘their’ team, pitting them against the other parent.

Nothing makes me angrier than this as a mama and a coach. This short-term gain reaps long-term pain for your children.

My ex used to drop my small son back off at my house after a weekend of fun — all strung out on lack of sleep and jacked up on sugar, junk food and too much time on electronics. You can imagine how that played out. I always felt like Sunday night was a detox in our house. UGH.

What do your kids really need? Well, there certainly are practicalities like a roof over their head and food in their belly, but what they need most during this time of upheaval is your support and your love. Even in the chaos, the greatest medicine is your presence.

Parents often succumb to over-indulging their kids as a means of overcompensating for all the other stuff they don’t want to deal with.

Don’t try to buy your kids’ love. No shiny object can give them what they really need — your love and your presence.

Far too often, there is a parent who I refer to as a ‘good time Charlie’.

This is the parent who wants to make every visitation feel like a trip to Disneyland…an over-indulgence of material goods, stimulation, crappy food…and shallow conversation. What kid wouldn’t love that?

And then…a strung-out, over-tired, cranky child is returned to your doorstep courtesy of the person you are divorcing. And you are left to clean up the mess. This pattern of over-compensation ultimately doesn’t serve anyone.

Now let’s just interrupt this regularly scheduled program to point out that you may be that ‘good time Charlie’ parent. You may think that what is best for your child is to deflect the realities of the divorce at the moment. And dealing with emotions may be uncomfortable.

I’m not saying that you’re doing anything to knowingly dis-serve your child. However, pretending that this divorce, and all its potential ramifications isn’t happening — doesn’t make it go away.

What your kids need is consistency, a solid foundation and routine that they can count upon during the chaos of divorce — not a dose of ‘good time Charlie’. They won’t like it in the moment — and it likely won’t feel good to you either, but stay the course, mama.

Follow your intuition. Invest in your future and the future of your kid’s wellbeing. One day you will laugh about it. You won’t ever regret staying the course.

—Kristen Noel, Certified Intuitive Divorce Coach