Have you ever had a child who has experienced a crisis or trauma get attached to you? I’ve had children who I knew were connected to me emotionally. However, I had no idea of the depth of these connections.
For the child of divorce and other life-changing traumas, it is a different kind of connection. They become attached not only to you but also to their memory of you. You might call it a heart-felt connection. And they hold on to this memory for years.
In their minds they know where they can find you, and while you might not see them for years, they know you are there for them in that heart-felt connection.
When these children move on to another church or they outgrow your group, in their minds they stay connected to you. You might not realize the importance of this deep connection.
I learned about this phenomenon years ago. Back in the late sixties I worked for the San Diego School system. I taught music classes and also worked in their after-school program. We had an older school-aged child who lived with her dad. After sixth grade we never saw her again.
Several years later the after-school program moved to a different location. The last day of the move my mentor, Kitty Boggionni, was making one last sweep through the buildings to make sure everything had been moved. She said as she approached one building she heard someone crying, and as she rounded the corner she saw a young college-age woman sitting on the steps weeping.
As she walked closer, the young woman jumped up and said, “Oh Mrs. Boggionni, it’s you. I thought I had lost you. When I drove by and saw they were moving everything, I didn’t know what to do. I have been so upset for days. Every time I drive by this place I think about you, and I always know if I needed you, you’d be here.”
It seems as though for the past six years this young woman felt a deep connection to the building and to Mrs. Boggionni, the main player in her life when she was in elementary school. This young woman’s mother had abandoned her when she was very young and unbeknown to any of us, she attached herself to Mrs. Boggionni.
This same thing happened to me when I moved from Oklahoma to North Carolina. The word got out in the community that I was moving, and one afternoon a young woman I hadn’t seen in several years walked right up to me and hugged me. She started crying and said, “I can’t believe you are leaving me.”
I said, “But Jena, I haven’t seen you in at least two years.” To which she replied, “But I always knew you were here, and if I ever needed you, I knew where to find you. Now you are moving away and you are leaving me.”
I had been there for her when her mom and dad had divorced. The only conclusion I can come to is that when you are there for these kids at the most traumatic time in their lives, they connect with you on such a deep level that the memory of that connection lives on inside them.
Now with Facebook and other social media, people can stay connected much easier. I have kids of divorce find me all the time on Facebook. They want to stay connected. They just need to know that I’m here for them. These are heart-felt connections and they go deep.
When was the last time you made a heart-felt connection with a child of divorce?
DC4K blog posts are great for training children’s leaders and volunteers, and they are free. Subscribe now.
Want to learn more about how to start a DivorceCare for Kids group for the hurting children in your community?
Did you know DC4K blog articles are on Pinterest? Divorce & Kids, Children’s Pastors, Single Parents, they’re all there.
Follow dc4kLinda on Twitter.
Like our DivorceCare for Kids and Single & Parenting Facebook pages where we give awesome parenting tips for the single parents in your ministries.
Comments (0)