How To Use Uncertainty, One of Six Basic Human Needs, To Reduce The Impacts Of Divorce On Children

Welcome to Part 2 of this six-part article series on how to apply Tony Robbins six basic human needs to reduce the impacts of divorce on children. By way of review, in the previous article I shared with you that children of divorce need Certainty to feel stable and safe. This is a fundamental need to be met because once it is; they can focus on meeting their other needs. Hopefully you were able to explore and discuss the Certainty need with your children and each other. I also want to emphasize again to have fun with this with your children, as laughter and joy are the highest states of learning.

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The second basic human need that Tony Robbins identifies is Uncertainty, or also known as variety or surprises. At first blush, this may seem counter-intuitive to the first basic need of certainty, so lets go into this deeper.

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Imagine you are going to watch your kids' ice hockey game. Except this time, you knew who was going to win the game, score the goals and when the puck was going to go over the glass in the second period. It would be boring. This is what happens in our lives when things become too predictable, they become boring with too much certainty.

The opposite end of this is that when things become so uncertain life becomes overwhelming and fearful because you never know from day-to-day, hour-to-hour what is going to happen next. An example of this with children and divorce is communication. Communication for divorcing parents can be challenging and the result of not communicating can have the unintended consequence of unbalanced and negative uncertainty for your children. When divorced parents are not communicating with each other or their children, by clearly listening to each other's concerns, dreams and desires, the level of anxiety is raised. With an increased emotional state, one gets decreased rationale thinking.

Uncertainty is needed in everyone's lives to keep things interesting. Our lives are more exciting when we don't know what's going to happen next all the time. Individually, we all have a threshold of how much uncertainty that we enjoy in our lives.

Once again, when we examine the impacts of divorce on children, clearly the level of uncertainty will increase and fear creeps in. As a professional forester, I spent many years fighting fear in the theatre of forest fires by using fire against fire; and this is where I like to apply the same principle. With the potential for so much negative uncertainty during divorce with children, I like to add in positive uncertainty in a sense fighting fire with fire, or in this case "uncertainty" with "uncertainty". The kids will ask me "hey dad, what are we doing tomorrow?" I like responding with things like "no plans really...but bring your bathing suits". This creates a fun mystery for them and they look forward to the time they are going to share with me.

During your divorce, you want to manage the level of uncertainty that your children are exposed to. Keep the serious stuff between mom and dad and leave the kids out of it. Make sure big tickets items, such as sleeping arrangements, are clear and that your children don't need to spend time worrying about this.

Kids are masters at uncertainty too. Their minds are so creative and I can easily reflect on the many times they change the rules on me during a game in the park. This is typically followed up with contagious laughter. How many times have your children asked you to take a new route home, or brought you a new book to read? Embrace the need for uncertainty that your children are bringing you.

There's a lot of strength in the cliché "variety is the spice of life". I encourage you to look for fun ways to safely change up your routines through your divorce with children so that you can create new ones. What ever it is, make sure it's a loving and positive context that helps nurtures them as you go through your divorce journey together.In my next article, I am going to discuss the third basic human need - Significance.

How To Use Uncertainty, One of Six Basic Human Needs, To Reduce The Impacts Of Divorce On Children

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