The pain of divorce and separation is bad enough for adults, but what’s it like for a five-year-old?

After patiently waiting for an hour or more after the appointed time for his father to collect him for their regular time together, one young fellow turned to his mother and said “Daddy not come. I sad.”

And when another scheduled phone call time comes and goes without a ring, the same little fellow’s “Daddy not ring. Why?” is just as plaintive.

“I don’t know,” says Mom. “You’ll have to ask him when you get to talk to him.” And the pain for her child bites despairingly deep. Perhaps these can help:

Most often, child custody is awarded to mothers, so the gender role in that true story is more often the case than not. The mother is intimately involved in the day to day nurture of the child. Without judging, the father’s role is often reduced to just another appointment in a schedule.

That’s not always the case, I hasten to add. But other demands interfere so easily. And when the parents are still in high-emotion conflict, gentle reminders are really not an option.

So parents and child/ren suffer.

An Australian Psychological Society monograph last year on managing the impact of separation and divorce on children noted that the two major predictors of children’s adjustment following separation are the exposure to interparental conflict and the quality of the parent-child relationship.

“Important individual differences in children’s adjustment and wellbeing following parental divorce are largely attributable to parent factors and family processes after divorce,” the report said.

The key predictors of child post-divorce adjustment include:

  • the degree of parental conflict,
  • parental adjustment and quality of the parenting,
  • the cumulative stress associated with multiple changes,
  • residential arrangements and parental remarriage, and
  • child characteristics, such as personality and temperament.

Earlier research had shown that while a wide range of services were available for older children up to the age of 18, there was ‘limited capacity’ to provide specialised service for children, particularly for children in the younger age brackets (ages 0 to 5).

The Australian Government has responded by introducing an educational program that will assist separated parents in regional areas whose inability to communicate without conflict is affecting their contact with their children.

They’ve also introduced the Supporting Children after Separation Program. The objective is to support children within the context of their family to manage and enhance their relationships during and after family separation.

One side-effect of this program is that children will be given a voice in what happens to them. Again, the impact will be greatest in the case of older children, with the pre-school children unlikely to benefit.

Australian Attorney General Robert McClelland said the program would focus on the needs of children and help them deal with issues arising from the breakdown of their parents’ relationship.

“The program will support those children through a range of counselling and group activities, including allowing them to have a say in the separation process,” he said.

Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg is quoted in The Australian newspaper as saying divorce and separation affects 500,000 children in Australia each year.

“There’s also good evidence that if it’s not handled well, it can be a precursor to major depressive illness, anxiety disorders and significantly disrupt their academic performance,” he said.

The Supporting Children after Separation Program sounds great. But have the little kids slipped through the cracks again? Copious research supports the notion that some of the greatest impact on the human mind occurs in the first five years. It’s unlikely therefore that 0-5 year olds are unscathed by parental conflict.

Check the advice in these:

Then I’d be interested in any ideas on how young children can be helped to better weather their parents’ separation and divorce.

Real Estate And A Divorce Case

Tagged with: 0-5-year-old • child custody • parental conflict • separation and divorce

Filed under: Divorce

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