With reality TV all the rage right now, it seems as though there is a show out there that highlights just about every facet of life, from absolutely every angle, and today I discovered that divorce through the eyes of a child is no exception. While looking for some background noise to have on the TV while I made the upstairs neat and tidy, I stumbled across a new show on MTV highlighting the life of a young professional skateboarder, and how he manages to balance, friends, school, his career as well as his family, which has recently been pulled apart by divorce.

The show, The Life of Ryan, does a good job of showing all of the different areas of 17 year old Ryan's life, yet the troubles in his family seem to, just as for everyone else, spill into every area and aspect of his life. His father has already moved on and found himself a new girlfriend, which has been incredibly hard for Ryan, and his two younger brothers to deal with and accept. Watching some of the candid conversations that he has with his mom about the divorce, his dad's girlfriend, and how all of the adults interact with one another has been a real eye opener for me.

While my adopted stepson was wonderful to me when we first met, and was ready and willing to accept a mom into his life, I can't help but wonder if he too had any of the same feelings that this young man on TV has about his father, his parents divorce, and the new lady in the picture? Was he too, upset and feeling as though he could not talk to his dad because the new lady was always around? I hope not, as in the beginning of our relationship I did my best to give him space, especially when it came time to have those parent to child talks. But no matter how well we as adults handle situations like divorce, the children involved will always have grieving to do over the family life that they no longer have, and no longer have any hope of having again.

I have never seen another show that has highlighted divorce through the eyes of the child, or children, involved. I have watched shows from the custodial parent's point of view, shows from the viewpoint of the non-custodial parent, and shows that read facts off about children of divorce and what to do as well as not do when it comes to helping them navigate through a divorce in a healthy manner, but never have I seen another show that has been bold enough to 'go there' and show us the raw emotions and emotionally sticky situations that children of divorce are forced to go through on a daily basis. It is one thing to talk about the feelings, emotions, and situations that children may find difficult to handle when dealing with their parent's divorce, it is another thing entirely to actually witness a child go through it, completely as an outsider looking in.

If you are an MTV watcher, a reality TV show fan, or curious to see some of the issues that children of divorce have to face, look up the show, new episodes air on Monday nights, and be a fly on the wall as Ryan tries to navigate his way through the professional sports world, high school, getting a girlfriend, as well as trying to be the peacemaker between his parents, and father figure/ role model to his two younger brothers.



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