I. Description of the problem. Divorce is not a single event. Rather, divorce is a process that begins in an unhappy marriage, extends through the separation, and continues into the new postdivorce life. Long before a marriage ends, children have begun the process of coping with the parental coldness and hostility that leads to or is the consequence of an unraveling relationship between their parents. It has been said that “it is not divorce per se that makes kids crazy but the craziness of divorcing parents that disrupts the orderly process of their children” (Hetherington, 1989).
A. Incidence.
Approximately 50% of all marriages end in divorce, usually within the first 8 years of marriage.
Eighty-five percent of parents who divorce remarry, and 40% of these new marriages also end in divorce.
B. Stages of divorce for the parents. In many divorcing families, each parent is in a different stage of the process. Often one parent is ready to let go of the relationship while another is still holding on. For parents, the timeline for moving through the stages is thought to be 1 year for every 5 years of marriage. During this difficult period, parents are often preoccupied by their own problems, but for their children, they remain the most important people in the children’s lives.
1. Holding on. In this first stage, one or both parents are in denial, looking backward to determine what went wrong. Even 12-18 months after filing for divorce, parents report feeling angry, guilty, humiliated that the marriage did not last, depressed, anxious, and afraid to move forward, often with little energy to attend the needs of their children.
2. Letting go. This stage brings an acceptance of the loss of the relationship, with parents feeling relief, exhilaration, and grief at the ending of the marriage, often without much emotional availability for their children.
3. Starting over. Parents in this stage are ready to take risks and find a new identity as a single person. They tend to be future oriented and quite enthusiastic as they try out new lifestyles and begin dating.
4. Building a new life. This final stage represents stabilization for families as they begin to feel “back to normal.”
C. Emotional tasks for children during the divorce. The basic task for children is to integrate, without psychic damage, the loss of the parenting relationship and the change in their social status. Children need to perceive events as being under their control, even though the divorce was not their decision. They need to avoid constructing a view of divorce and its consequences as random and one in which they view themselves as the hapless targets of external forces.
Thus, the tasks for the children are to:
1. Understand the divorce. Children must understand the immediate changes that the divorce brings and sort out their fantasies and fears from the reality of the divorce. They may respond with blaming, sadness, anger, guilt, and/or anxiety to the separation and decision to divorce. How children are told about the divorce and the way the family separates in part determines the nature of the postdivorce year. Children may blame themselves for the divorce and try to be the “perfect child” in hopes of reuniting the family.
2. Strategically withdraw. Children need to get on with their own lives and to have permission to remain children by continuing to join extracurricular activities, such as sports or art programs. Very young children are unable to avoid the anger and hostility of the divorce, whereas older school-aged children and adolescents often simply escape from the house.
3. Cope with loss. In a divorce, children often lose daily contact with one of their parents and they lose the family into which they were born. Other loses and changes for many
children include a decrease in financial resources and a move to a new neighborhood, school, and peer group.
4. Deal with anger. Although divorce is a voluntary action for at least one of the adults in the marriage, it is an event completely out of control of the children who feel cheated out of family experiences and exposed in front of peers.
II. Factors that affect children’s adjustment to divorce.
A. Temperament. Children with difficult temperaments may receive more negative attention and become the object that distracts the family from the real issue of conflict—the divorce. Shy, inhibited children may become even more withdrawn and reclusive, but because they do not demand parental attention, their confusion, sadness, and anger are often ignored or misinterpreted as adjustment.
B. Developmental level. As Table 95-1 shows, the age and developmental level of children at the time of the divorce greatly affects their response to the event.
Table 95-1. Responses of child to parent’s divorce within the first year
Developmental status
Child’s response
Primary care clinician’s role
Preschool
Regressive behavior
Encourage stable, predictable meal and bedtime routines
Sleep disturbance
Help parents develop consistent patterns of joining and separating from child
Bowel and bladder difficulties
Encourage continued contact with noncustodial parent
Tantrums, aggressive behavior
Provide reassurance
Fears of abandonment, clinging
Promote parental understanding of child’s coping mechanisms
Younger school age
Sadness, anger, fearfulness
Empathize with child’s feelings
Loyalty conflicts
Provide regular opportunities for child to talk
Attempts to determine responsibility for divorce
Support child’s continuing relationship with both parents
Hopes for family reconciliation
Offer reassurance
Declining school performance
Encourage open communication with teachers
Older school age/prepubertal
Grief, intense anger
Express interest in and availability to the child
Declining school performance
Support child’s school and peer involvement
Disrupted peer relationships
Provide clear acknowledgment and support for child’s working through feelings on the divorce
Attempts to clarify responsibility for the divorce
Provide referrals for therapeutic interventions as appropriate for the child’s needs
Caretaking of a parent
Adolescence
Depression, anger
Provide opportunities for discussion
Increase in adolescent acting out
Encourage parents to support appropriate independence in their teens
Premature emancipation Sleeper effects, particularly in females
Adapted from Wallerstein JS. Separation, divorce, and remarriage. In Levine MD, Carey WB, Crocker AC (eds), Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics (2nd ed), Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 1992.
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Divorce
Margot Kaplan-Sanoff
