Q: We are the parents of eight year old and a six year old children who do not know about
our plans to separate and divorce. We worry about how our divorce will affect them. Do you
have any suggestions about how to reduce the impact?

A: Your task is to create conditions that will help your children to absorb the impact of the
divorce and to respond with growth. This can be done, but it is not a simple task. Although
there is ample data to indicate that divorce may negatively affect the emotional development
of a child, we know that unhappy marital situations are not helpful to children either.
We believe that a child's emotional well being depends not upon whether parents divorce,
but upon how the separation and divorce are handled. As always, our actions should be
guided by our understanding of the child's perspective. We would like to focus upon four
key concerns for children whose parents are separating.

Children worry that their parents will stop loving them or leave them,
just as they are doing to one another.

Children can express this worry through words or behaviour. For example, they might
become overly compliant, worried that a parent's disapproval would lead to abandonment;
or, paradoxically, they might become naughty, trying repetitively to elicit a response that
will assure them that their parents will love them "no matter what." This worry about the
permanence of their parent's love for them may remain for some time, but appropriate
words and actions can help.

When you talk to your children about divorce, you might say something like: "the love
between a mummy and daddy is a different kind of love than between a mummy or daddy
and their child, even though it is the same word (love). The kind of love that a mummy
and daddy have for each other can change and even go away; we tried very hard to keep
loving each other, but we were not able to do it. We are very sorry. However, the love
between a mummy or daddy and a child is a different kind of love. It never goes away,
it just grows bigger."

A child's experiences are even more important than words. It is not enough just to give
verbal reassurances. Because of the crushing emotional strain of separation and divorce,
parents are often depressed, anxious or, at the very least, distracted after a separation.
Children may feel that their parents are not emotionally available in the familiar ways,
and misinterpret this temporary change as confirmation of their worry that they will be
abandoned emotionally. Anything that each of you can do to secure support for your own
emotional well being during the tough times ahead will be in your children's best interest.
For many reasons, some parents move outside the geographic area soon after a divorce.
A parental move also increases the risk of supporting the fear of pre-school and junior
school age children whose parents have separated that their relationship with their parents
is vulnerable to loss of involvement and love.

Children need a protected "space" within which to assimilate
the changes in their lives.

Children can grow from challenge or even adversity if they feel that it is manageable.
If they feel overwhelmed, they can only adapt and find ways to protect themselves.

Because children have so much to try to understand and reconcile after their parents
separate, any additional challenges during the first few years after a separation will
decrease the chances that a child can manage the separation constructively. This is
another reason that parents must try to maintain their own physical and emotional
health and to remain in the geographic area. In addition, children that have to try to
accommodate their parents' new partner, or even step-siblings, within the first year
or even two of a divorce are being presented with a significantly more complex task.
Such complexity, for your young children, will entail higher risk for problems in emotional development.

Children worry about whether they have caused the divorce.

You should tell them in your first and subsequent conversations that this is not the case.
You will need to constantly reassure them. Pre-school children, and, to a lesser extent,
junior school age children continue to have this worry because they tend to believe that
their thoughts or actions have been responsible for important bad (and good!) events.
Sometimes, there are some grains of truth in a child's fear, because the demands of
parenting strains all marriages and can, in that sense, contribute to marital disharmony.
Parents can most powerfully convey that the child is not responsible when they continue
to value each other as parents and continue to show a caring, respectful relationship
around their child. Then the child can say to himself or herself, "Obviously it has nothing
to do with me- they really enjoy talking about me!" On the other hand, if a child's parents
- who are able to be nice to strangers- relate uncomfortably, antagonistically or even not
at all about matters concerning their child, he or she may conclude that they are the
source of the parent's enmity.

Children need to "idealise" their parents.

There is another reason to value your continuing parental relationship and your child's
relationship with each parent. Successful development requires that a child sees his or
her parents as powerful and wise (even more so than they really are) and then to come
gradually to see their human flaws and limitations for themselves. The child is
automatically placed in an irreconcilable conflict if one beloved parent thinks poorly
of the other parent. Even if a parent encourages a child to have a good relationship
with the other parent, the parent that he or she also denigrates, the child may well feel
disloyal for having a different view and relationship, and will have difficulty maintaining
the needed idealisation of the denigrated parent. There are some very extreme
situations in which a parent's function is so impaired that painful realities must be
faced by the other parent and child together.

It is always difficult to work together as a parental team at a time of such emotional
and perhaps financial stress for your family. From the point of view of your children's
development, your task is clear: You must maintain the primacy of your children's
interests at a time when they are suffering enormous disappointment, confusion,
anger, anxiety and guilt. By maintaining this focus, your children will learn important
lessons about love, commitment and getting through tough times. Under those fortuitous circumstances, you should have confidence that they will grow through the difficult
days ahead and maintain their potential for a full and rewarding future.

back to top