A single parent’s struggles are unique and often overwhelming. Project Kadima at the Marion and Aaron Gural JCC works to help families confront and overcome these challenges while moving forward on the difficult journey of separation, divorce, and post-divorce. In addition to offering services including short-term one-on-one counseling, support groups, and holiday and family programming, an invaluable workshop is held at the JCC each month. These workshops, always on a relevant and compelling topic, are led by noted professionals in their field and are available at no charge to the 100+ Kadima clients in the program.

Last week, the JCC hosted Barbara Lauer-Listhaus, Psy.D., and Rena Kutner, MFT, student and intern at the Hofstra University Clinic for Marriage and Family Therapy. Their topic was “Making Your House a Home: Preparing your children to face the outside world after divorce.”

This workshop was a follow-up to a previous lecture Listhaus and Kutner presented to Kadima clients last spring, “Accepting Your New Normal: Rebuilding a better you.” After speaking about shaking off the stigma of divorce through positive behaviors and hearing the comments and questions of their attentive audience, the duo formulated this second workshop.

The focus of last week’s workshop was to create a safe and comfortable environment for children of divorce. Children of all ages need house rules and set boundaries to create stability. Listhaus explained that what we do in our own homes is practice for the real world. Family life serves as a model for real life. It is a parent’s responsibility to teach his or her children to recognize a problem and to work responsibly toward solving it. Even lessons learned from sibling rivalry are tools to use in facing the outside world. It is essential for parents to help their children identify how they are unique and what they can contribute, and to teach them independence. When raising children in a divorce situation, this is clearly more challenging but also more essential.

 Each Kadima member who attended the workshop had the opportunity to address the speakers privately and came away better equipped to deal with their own personal struggles.

Barbara Lauer-Listhaus completed a doctorate in clinical psychology at the Yeshiva University Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and postdoctoral training in adolescent and adult neuropsychology at the International Center for the Disabled in New York City. She works in private practice and recently published Flavors for Everyone: A guide to raising siblings in a special needs family (available on Amazon).

Project Kadima is made possible by a grant from UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Communal Fund. If you or anyone you know is going through or has gone through a divorce and can use support and services, please call Rachayle at the JCC at 516-569-6733, ext. 222, or e-mail rachayle.deutsch@guraljcc.org. 

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