21 Ways to Guide Your Children Through Divorce or Separation

Divorce and separation can be as devastating an experience for children as for parents.  But, if you are aware of the symptoms in the post-separation period, and follow the guidelines set out below, you may be able to minimise to some extent the damaging effects.

Caught in the divorce process, children all too often become scapegoats for their parents' resentment of each other, or tools in the manipulation of custody or property settlements.

All children show some distress at the immediate crisis of family break up.  Such distress can continue if the parents remain tense and angry with each other.  Children react differently depending on temperament and age.  It is important to allow for individual differences in making an assessment of the situation.  Some signals that children are stressed can be: 

• Very little children lose the gains they have made in maturity and revert to behaviour of an earlier age group;
•  Primary age children can have bouts of weeping, show worried behaviour, become irritable, aggressive or whinging; 
• They may lose language skills, sleep habits and eating and toilet habits; 
• They may become rebellious and have tantrums; 
• They may withdraw into dreaming, in "withdrawal sleeping" at home and school; 
• They may suffer stress related complaints such as asthma, vomiting, diarrhoea and eczema; 
• They may lose weight and withdraw from parents and peers, showing a loss of interest in social contacts, sport and play. Their mood may be flat and unemotional; 
• They may show evidence of preoccupation with compulsive thoughts about the family and be unable to concentrate for very long on any activity; 
• There may be a marked change in their attitude to one or both parents.

In the interests of increased understanding of these symptoms and in an effort to reduce them, Family Court Counsellors and members of the medical profession with a special interest in the effects of divorce on the mental health of children have contributed the following general advice as a guideline for both custodial and access parents: 

1. Tell your children what is happening and why.  How you tell them will vary according to their ages and comprehension, but keep it simple and do it without drama.  Repeated simple explanations and answering all their questions can help children to adjust.  The worst thing you can do when your marriage breaks up is to keep your children in the dark.  Fear of the unknown is far harder to cope with than the fact of a split up and how soon it will affect them; 
2. Allow your children, as well as yourself; time to adjust to the new order of things.  Expect erratic outbursts of temper, tears and periods of tiredness.  Your children are probably experiencing a whole range of emotions, from fear through to anger, and this is their way of expressing their feelings; 
3. Try to be more available to your children than ever before.  They need the reassurance of your physical presence and your emotional support; 
4. Reassure your children that they are not to blame for your marriage break up.  Young children, especially, tend to believe they have "done something" to make Daddy or Mummy go away; 
5. The guilt you may feel about the marriage break-up may affect the way you discipline your children, but children need consistent control direction, and discipline; 
6. Don't get into a competitive, over-compensating cycle with your former partner.  The tension and hostility this generates carries through to your children, who may either withdraw from both parents altogether, or play one off against the other for bigger "rewards"; 
7. Encourage your children to talk to you about their fears or worries (even relatively small worries like whether or not they can continue to afford to go to Scouts or ice skating can build up to breaking point in a child's mind), but don't push for confidences.  Children are often afraid they will have no one to care for them, and need lots of reassurances from parents and teachers and fairly frequent access to minimise these worries. 
8. If you cry in front of them, tell your children why you are crying, children assume guilt for their parents' anxiety all too easily unless they are helped to understand that it is not caused by something they have done. Children can overload themselves with responsibility for the well being of one or both parents.  Parents need to clearly show they have taken responsibility for themselves and children need to be given simple manageable tasks. 
9. Try to accent the positive aspects of your past marriage.  Talk to the children about the good times; do not omit all mention of Daddy or Mummy just because they are no longer living with the family.  This reassures them they do not have to "take sides"; 
10. Think positively, yourself.  Continuing anger or bitterness towards your former partner will injure your children more than the separation itself; 
11. It is absolutely essential to your children's emotional stability that separated parents establish a reasonable attitude towards custody and access rulings - at least, in front of the children.  If there is any fighting to be done, do it through your lawyers and try to make the hand-over at access times as pleasant as possible for the children's sake; 
12. Custodial parents should give their children plenty of notice about access visits and make the build-up period one of agreeable anticipation.  Talk about the coming visit and encourage your children to look forward to it. Sometimes access visits can lead to upset behaviour but if parents treat this calmly without disrupting access it is likely to settle down.  Some of this upset is part of children's normal reaction to loss. 
13. Access parents should plan their visits well ahead and make sure they arrive punctually.  Children interpret delays as lack of interest in, or love for them personally.  The hours before an access visit can cause a child incredible anxiety - does Daddy or Mummy want him or her enough to show up? 
14. Both custodial and access parents should get together to agree on exact locations for pick-up and drop-off points, Children left alone on the footpath or dumped in the driveway have to cross a no-man's-land between their parents, with no emotional support from either at a time they need it most. 
15. Listen with interest if your children talk about conditions at home with the custodian parent or what they did on an access visit.  But don't question them.  If you do, they may clam up and you could close off a valuable escape valve for them. 
16. Never pump your children for information about your former partner's lifestyle.  Children must feel the love they receive from both parents is unconditional and not dependent on giving the "right" or "wrong" answers. Children often feel very loyal and get caught in loyalty conflicts they love both of them and wish to live with them.  Parents need to make clear what are adult decisions and what are decisions in which the children should be involved.  Discourage children's attempts to gain approval by telling tales and acting as a spy;
17. Don't put your child "on display" for the visiting parent.  Dressing children up may make them think they are unacceptable as they normally are, or worse, that they have to be made to look attractive to attract the parent's love; 
18. Non-resident parents should try to introduce their children to their own normal living conditions rather than take them to "special" places.  Confidences are exchange more easily across a kitchen table, or lying on the floor playing with slot-cars than in the artificial atmosphere of restaurants and other "special" places; 
19. If you are concerned about problems arising from contact visits - or residence - discuss them with the other parent away from the children.  The worst thing for your children is to witness open conflict between the two people they love most - especially if it appears they may have caused the conflict; 
20. If you are ever concerned about the physical safety or the emotional wellbeing of your children, get in touch with your family doctor; 
21. Children may be ashamed, embarrassed and betrayed by the behaviour of one parent and become judgemental and blaming.  One should not make too big a thing of this and encourage the child to reconcile with the parent.  Children sometimes become so worried about themselves and their future they shut off from one parent.  They need permission to withdraw from the family conflict. 

The key to ensuring the healthy emotional development of your children, whether they have one or two parents living with them, is for both parents to show mutual respect for each other. 


Source: "21 Ways to Guide Your Relationship Through Divorce" - by Relationships Australia