Divorce and Separation

How parents separate has been proven to significantly impact the childhood experience that follows.

Children can often get caught in the middle when parents are separating or separated.

Parents sitting at table looking at paperwork with teenage girl with her arms wrapped around both parents

Parental separation, although always experienced by children as a crisis point in their lives, need not be the source of lasting emotional trauma. Much depends on the parent’s willingness and ability to be sensitive to the impact of their separation on their children and to be prepared to work together in the children’s best interests. After any relationship breakdown, it takes time to build a successful co-parenting relationship that works well for the child. The transition is complex and requires personal commitment alongside professional support.

Parents need to rebuild a ‘good enough’ long-term cooperative parenting relationship for their children, through childhood and beyond. They need to know how their interactions impact children and that a reduction in their conflict can be a protective factor.

The end of a relationship can often be felt as a bereavement for everyone involved. It can take a toll on physical and emotional well-being, leaving people feeling distressed, isolated, and unsure of the future, including children, whatever age.

When a parenting relationship breaks down, there’s a period of adjustment in which each partner has to adapt to practical and emotional changes. Their living arrangements and finances change, and any shared goals and dreams must be re-evaluated. There may even be an identity shift as they adjust to a new life as a single parent.

With children involved, this process can take longer than usual. The partner relationship has ended, but the parenting relationship has to adapt and continue.

There’s no set pattern for dealing with a breakup but many people will go back and forth between dwelling on the past and planning for the future – it’s quite healthy to have a mix of both. One day they might be grieving the loss, and the next they will seem to be getting on with things. In the beginning, these periods of grieving may be more regular and more intense, but they will soften over time, eventually fading until they are not needed.