Christchurch Psychology » divorce

Separated parents: What’s it like?

admin — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 04:59:23 +0000

Approximately one half of committed relationships (marriage or de facto) result in separation – that’s a lot of separated adults. Between August 2007 and July 2008, the Family Court in New Zealand granted 10,000 divorces – and that doesn’t account for all of the de facto relationships that ended during that time. The breakup of a committed relationship is a stressful event. In fact, separation and divorce have been ranked as the second-most stressful events in life after the death of a spouse. Overseas research has found that people going through a divorce are more at risk for psychological difficulties (like anxiety and depression and the overuse of alcohol) than people who are married, or people who have never been married. Interestingly, it seems that there may be some differences between men and women with regards to these difficulties. Some research says that men struggle more than women, and other research says that women struggle more than men. One of the reasons that these differences have been found may be that people are usually only asked once about how they’re coping. So, maybe women suffer more at the beginning and men suffer more later on, or vice versa. If they’re only asked once about it, the researchers may never know that things got better (or worse). Unfortunately, we don’t have that information about separated parents in New Zealand.
In 2008, there was an average of nearly two children involved per divorce in New Zealand, which suggests that a large proportion of divorces involve people who have children. So, how much more stressful is separation when there are children involved? Anxiety about the children’s welfare adds a huge burden to the already-difficult process of separating from someone you’ve loved and shared your life with for a considerable period of time. Needing to communicate and co-operate with someone who makes you feel sad or angry or guilty or scared is very difficult. Working out how children are going to continue to get the best out of both parents can be a minefield of frustration and anxiety and even despair. It’s been suggested that parents going through a divorce are twice as likely to think about suicide than parents who are not going through a divorce. Some research says that fathers who don’t have custody of their children are at particular risk for mental health problems. It seems that being separated from your children a lot makes being separated much worse. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about how New Zealand parents cope after separation, and if we’re going to be able to provide the support that they need, to come through it all with as little damage as possible, we need to know. Not only is it important to know in order to support the adults, we need to know how the parents are doing because the well-being of parents has direct effects on children. We know that the well-being of children is directly related to the well-being of their parents, because children’s anxiety levels take off like a rocket when they become aware that there is something wrong with their parents. There’s lots of research demonstrating this with parents who are physically ill and parents who are distressed in any way. You can imagine how important a parent’s health and well-being are to someone who depends on that parent for their very survival. Because of their dependence on the adults around them, children are quick to notice signs that all is not well with a parent. For example, sad faces, signs of crying, and withdrawal from others are all evident to children. Obviously, arguing and fighting are equally evident that something is very wrong with the adults. All of these behaviors are frightening to children because their support systems seem to be in trouble, making the children even more vulnerable than usual. For these reasons, it’s really important that we know how separated parents are coping with the enormous stresses they face.
We also know that the well-being of children is directly related to the ways that their caregivers take care of them. Some researchers have suggested that parenting practices (the ways that people parent their children) change after separation, and this obviously has significant implications for children’s adjustment to the changed family structure. Differences have been found in the ways that mothers and fathers change their parenting after separation, and this may depend on whether the parent is the resident parent or the non-resident parent. Because adults can be overwhelmed by the emotional, physical, financial, and social changes associated with separation, it’s not surprising that their attention may not be as focused on the children as it previously was. Some research suggests that parents may become more irritable than they were, may not monitor their children’s behavior or whereabouts as well as they used to, may use harsher discipline than before, or may lean on their children for emotional support instead of leaning on other adults. Again, we don’t have any information about how New Zealand parents change (or don’t change) their parenting after separation. Again, we need to know so we can help reduce the impact of separation on parents and their children.
That is why I am doing a research study at the University of Canterbury that explores these two questions – what happens to parents’ mental health, and what happens to their parenting practices, after separation? My name is Kirsten Ritchie and this study is part of my Masters degree. I am being supervised by a lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Dr Fran Vertue. Fran teaches child and adolescent development at the university, and also works for the Family Court, counseling parents who are struggling to reach agreement about their children’s care, and making assessments of children’s custody arrangements. So she knows a lot about parents who are separated, and a lot about what children need to grow up happy and productive when their parents have separated.
Because I know how busy people are, and that it’s often easier to talk about difficult things if you don’t have to talk face to face with a stranger, and that it’s easier to talk about difficult things if your identity can be protected, I’ve decided to collect my information through an internet survey. So, all people need is a computer and access to the internet – oh, and about 30 minutes of their time – to let me know what it’s like to be a separated parent. I’m very keen to have any parent (male or female) who has separated in the past year go to the website [[http://psycdb.canterbury.ac.nz/limesurvey] and click on “The Mental Health and Parenting Practices of Separated Parents” study to complete the survey. The survey has questions that you answer (mainly by clicking on boxes). To make sure that my study doesn’t have some of the problems of other studies, I’m going to ask people to fill in a shorter version of the survey later in the year so we can see if anything changes. I would also like to stress the importance of male involvement as females are generally more likely to complete these sorts of surveys. When you go to this website [[http://psycdb.canterbury.ac.nz/limesurvey] and click on “The Mental Health and Parenting Practices of Separated Parents” study to you will find more information about the study, such as how it will work and how I’ll keep all the information confidential. I hope that you can find the time to help us collect this vital. I can be contacted on 3642987 ext 3638 or by email at khr19@uclive.ac.nz if you would like more information at this stage.
This project has been reviewed and approved by the University of Canterbury Human Ethics Committee.

10 Commandments for separated parents

admin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:06:35 +0000

1. You will recognize the child’s right to a positive relationship with both parents, and will not badmouth the other parent in the child’s hearing. You will not make remarks or facial expressions that suggest that the other parent is not a worthwhile person.
2. If you have been left by your partner, you will recognize that your partner wants out of the relationship with you – not the relationship with the children.
3. You will not become so wrapped up in your own misery that you neglect the child’s care. You will maintain routines that are familiar to the child; you will not neglect your child; and you will pay attention to the child’s grief about their losses.
4. You will maintain good health practices and support systems for yourself so that you can be the best parent you can be.
5. You will not complain to the child about financial arrangements between yourselves, and you will not try and use money or material goods to “win over” the child or make up for emotional neglect.
6. You will keep the child informed of decisions that affect him or her. Therefore, you will not suddenly leave the family home one day (unless there are issues of safety involved) without explaining to the child that you are going to separate from the other parent and how the visitation is going to work. You will reassure the child that you will do your best to support the child’s relationship with the other parent, and you will always be committed to your own relationship with the child. If you decide to re-partner, the child has a right to know in advance and be told exactly how this will affect him or her.
7. You will not share your distress with your child – remember who the parent is in this relationship – so you will talk to other adults about your rage or distress, not the child. A child has other life tasks to deal with rather than being your friend or confidante.
8. You will maintain good limits and boundaries around the children’s behavior. Just because you don’t see the children all the time doesn’t mean that you should be “softer” than the parent with whom they spend most of their time. Equally, just because you have the care of the children the majority of the time doesn’t mean that you should be “stricter”.
9. You will not use a child to send messages to the other parent or to spy on the other parent, and will not ask questions about the other parent’s activities or relationships.
10. You will make sure that the handover times, when a child is delivered from one parent to the other, are conflict-free. If that is impossible, you will find a more neutral way for these handovers to occur.

Changing houses in separated families

admin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:35:44 +0000

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It is Saturday morning, and Jenny is preparing 8-year old Hayden to go to his father’s house for his fortnightly access visit. Hayden and his 12-year old sister, Candice, will spend Saturday night and Sunday night with their father, Jock, and he will drop them off at school on Monday morning. On Monday afternoon, they will return to their mother’s house from school.
Jenny and Jock have been separated for about a year and there has been a lot of fighting about access in that time. Jenny says that Jock (who has a new baby with his partner) is not parenting the children appropriately. She complains that when they come back from an access visit with Jock, Hayden and Candice are unsettled, oppositional and defiant. Hayden tells her that he is allowed to stay up late, eat whatever he likes, and is unsupervised on the TV or computer. He complains that she’s too strict on him and sometimes says that he wants to live with his father. However, Candice complains that her father won’t let her talk to her friends on the phone at night and that he restricts her social life. Jenny is frustrated, and concerned that her children’s inappropriate behaviors are starting to appear at school. She complains about Jock to the children and becomes very distressed at times. When collecting them or dropping them off, she and Jock sometimes have bitter arguments about where the children’s clothes should be, being late to collect or drop them off, or parenting rules. Jenny always tells them that she will collect them if they’re unhappy at Jock’s house, and that they don’t have to go if they don’t want to go.
Jock complains that Jenny is “poisoning” the children against him and that Candice is becoming a “man hater”. He finds it difficult to negotiate with her about curfews and her social life, and tells her that she will turn out like her mother did – a pregnant teenager. Jock tries desperately to keep a positive bond between himself and Hayden, and is loathe to punish him for inappropriate behavior because he sees so little of him, and he wants their time together to be a happy time.
Parental separation is hard for children. The departure of a parent leaves a vacuum in the house with the loss of a playmate or role model. The quantity and quality of time spent with each parent is often undermined by the additional responsibilities each has in their sole-parenting role – or with the start of another family. The loss of family rituals and traditions can cause anxiety, and there is often a sense with younger children that they are somehow partly responsible for the separation, but can also make the parents reunite. The reasonable confusion and anger that children may feel about the separation can result in aggressive behavior, and the sadness can result in low mood and withdrawal.
The transition from one household to the other is a ripe opportunity for conflict between parents, and between parents and the children. Children may pick up on one parent’s grief or anger as the children move to the other household, and may become anxious about leaving that parent. Comments about the other parent’s parenting or lifestyle; asking the child to carry hostile messages; creating a need for the child to hide information or feelings about the other parent; making good-byes drawn out; encouraging the child to protest about going; and mourning while the child is away all serve to make the child feel anxious about leaving the one parent and ambivalent about going to the other parent. This can result in tantrums and tears at transition time and makes everyone feel distressed.
Here are a few groundrules that will help reduce distress around transition times and reduce the children’s anxiety.

Make the transition times predictable, reliable and consistent. Both parents have to make certain that times of collection or drop off are adhered to, with minimal disruption to routines and plans.
Do not undermine the other parent’s parenting – it undermines the child’s trust and security and ultimately backfires, as the research shows that when one parent complains about or undermines the other parent, the complaining parent is the one who is criticised by the child in young adulthood.
Keep arguments or possibly heated discussions with the other parent for private phone calls – make the handover times as neutral and upbeat as possible. Keep your attention on a short, sweet goodbye to the child with some advice to have fun. This allows the child to leave feeling that you are going to be OK without them and that they have your permission to enjoy their time with the other parent.
Make sure that you give your child a clear message that you see his or her time with the other parent as an important and positive experience, and that you trust the other parent to cope with any difficulties that may arise. For example, if the child becomes distressed while with the other parent, allow the other parent to be the parent and comfort the child. This builds the secure base for your child with both parents and encourages positive social and emotional development.
Make sure that you have a plan to keep yourself happy and productive while your child is with the other parent. Meet friends, exercise, indulge in selfish pleasures such as making your favourite food, reading as long as you like, or lying in the bath for an hour!. This can also be an important time to spend time alone with a new significant other. Remember that if your child can see that you are happy and positive, they can be relaxed and get on with their own development rather than worry about yours!

Remember that some separation anxiety means that you and your child have a strong and loving bond. Try not to turn that bond into shackles that bind you both and disrupt development. By making transition or handover times as positive and smooth as possible, you will allow your child to feel secure about leaving you and going to the other parent. By encouraging your child to have a strong positive bond with the other parent, your child will grow to be a loving and secure human being, even if his or her parents don’t live together any more.