He is 26 now. She still sees him when he was 4, picking tomatoes as soon as they turned red in the garden.

Taking a big bite as if into an apple. The big smile that came afterward.

She started him early in first grade. She will come back to this, blame herself for wanting him busy. Was this the decision that snowballed into his later addiction? An unanswerable question she poses to herself weekly, sometimes daily.

She sees him jumping on the beige fabric sofa with the bleached wood frame at six. She had just come home with a new baby, a little sister. He was so excited and so he jumped and jumped. She tried calling to him to stop the jumping. Warning him he would be hurt. One morning she heard the jumping and then the thud. He had fallen.  He had been hurt. He broke a toe. His spirit remained intact.

Until it didn't. He became addicted to drugs. The glass sharp memories. Visiting him in "Juvy," then visiting  him in "county", then in the "state pen". He wasn't a bad kid. It was alw...

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT CHILDREN'S WORDS SPOKEN OUT OF ANGER

A  note I received from a mom devastated by the news that her child said he wanted to live with his dad:

I am also very concerned that my son now wants to live with his dad. He hasn’t been very nice to me .......His dad won’t talk to me and I have given up trying. That would change everything. Each day just seems to be getting worse for me. 

We discuss this hurtful situation in Module 1 of the Enlightened CoParenting Course.

Here is an excerpt from the course:

When your child throws a temper tantrum, becomes angry, and blames you for ruining their life don’t take their behavior personally.

Realize that in many instances when children blame one parent or another for the divorce occurring their blaming is a way of coping and a defense against feeling overwhelmed by the many changes they are experiencing in the course of a short period.  It is often not meant against the parent personally.

It is not easy to refr...