helping children cope with divorce

Coping with Divorce/Well-being/Your Emotions

Stop Demonizing Divorce. Start Supporting the People Going Through It.

Published on September 18, 2026September 10, 2026

Natasha Bacca
Divorce Doula, Mediator & Writer

It’s time we stopped confusing preserving marriages with protecting families—and replaced judgment with compassion.

There are few major life transitions we still expect people to endure with as much shame as divorce.

When someone is diagnosed with a serious illness, we rally around them. When someone loses a loved one, we bring food, send flowers, check in, and make room for grief.

But when a marriage ends?

People often disappear.

Friends don’t know what to say. Families quietly take sides. Communities that once offered belonging can become sources of judgment. The person going through the divorce may feel pressure to explain what happened, defend why they are leaving, prove they tried hard enough— or remain silent altogether.

Divorce is still too often framed as a personal failure. A broken promise. A selfish choice. Evidence that someone didn’t try hard enough to save their family.

And that framing does real harm.

Because divorce is rarely a simple choice between staying married and walking away.

Sometimes a marriage ends because of betrayal, addiction, abuse, coercion, chronic conflict, or years of emotional harm. Sometimes one person wants the divorce and the other is devastated by it.

Sometimes two people love each other and still cannot create a healthy life together. Sometimes people spend years trying to repair a relationship before finally acknowledging that staying is costing them too much.

And sometimes ending a marriage is not the destruction of a family. Sometimes it is the beginning of making that family safer.

Whatever brought someone to divorce, they are already facing one of the most significant transitions of their lives. What they need from the people around them is not another layer of judgment.

They need compassion.

The Cost of Stigma

Divorce stigma doesn’t simply hurt people’s feelings. It can influence the decisions they make long before anyone files paperwork.

When people believe ending a marriage makes them a failure, they may stay silent longer. They may minimize what is happening inside their homes. They may hesitate to ask for help or tell the truth about their relationships.

They may remain in harmful dynamics because leaving feels morally worse than suffering. For parents, the pressure can be even greater.

Stay for the kids.

Keep the family together.

Don’t be the one who breaks up the home.

But preserving a marriage and preserving a healthy family are not always the same thing.

By the time some couples finally separate, years of damage have accumulated. Resentment has deepened. Communication has deteriorated. Finances may be strained. Children may have spent years absorbing tension between their parents.

The divorce didn’t necessarily create all of that.

It may simply have revealed what was already there.

Stigma does not necessarily prevent divorce. Sometimes it simply delays support until families are already in crisis.

This Is Not a Fringe Experience

Nearly one-third of American children experience parental divorce before reaching adulthood, according to a 2025 study using linked tax and Census records for more than five million children.

Think about the scale of that for a moment.

This is not a rare family aberration. It is a major childhood and family transition experienced by millions of people—and one that deserves far more thoughtful support than our culture currently provides.

Yet we continue to treat divorce as something families should whisper about. Something parents should apologize for.

Something children should be protected from discussing.

Something adults should have to justify before receiving compassion.

When an experience touches this many families, shame is not a solution.

Support is.

What We Get Wrong About Children and Divorce

Divorce can be hard on children. We should acknowledge that plainly.

It can bring enormous changes: two homes, altered routines, financial stress, grief, uncertainty, and less access to one or both parents.

But “divorce can hurt children” is not the same thing as “parents should stay married for their children.”

Research tells a much more complicated story. A 2022 review of the literature on children’s adjustment to divorce found that the family environment before and after divorce—particularly the level of interparental conflict—plays a crucial role in how children fare.

In other words, the legal end of the marriage is only one part of the story.

The environment children are living in matters enormously.

Decades of research have also linked interparental conflict with emotional and behavioral difficulties in children, and those associations exist in both married and divorced families.

A marriage can remain legally intact while a family is emotionally falling apart.

Children can live with married parents and still grow up surrounded by hostility, contempt, fear, volatility, silence, or chronic tension. They can learn that love means enduring disrespect. They can learn that keeping a family together matters more than the wellbeing of the people inside it.

Those lessons matter, too.

The marriage certificate itself is not what makes a home safe.

So perhaps the question should not simply be, Is divorce bad for children?

A better question is:

What environment gives these particular children the greatest opportunity to feel safe, loved, connected, and emotionally secure?

Sometimes the answer will be helping parents repair their marriage. Sometimes it will be helping them separate well.

Either way, shame should not be making the decision.

Divorce Is a Life Transition, Not a Moral Diagnosis

There is something else we rarely acknowledge: for some people, divorce is not the beginning of their suffering.

It is the end of it.

That does not mean divorce is painless.

Relief and grief can exist at the same time. A person can know that ending a marriage was necessary and still mourn the family they hoped they would have. They can feel freer and terrified. Heartbroken and hopeful. Certain and devastated.

Divorce can affect housing, finances, parenting, identity, friendships, traditions, community, and a person’s understanding of their own future—sometimes all at once.

Research on marital dissolution and health reflects that complexity. Divorce can be a significant stressor associated with poorer health outcomes for some people, while research also finds that resilience is the most common trajectory following marital separation.

Both things can be true.

Divorce can be deeply destabilizing, and people can rebuild lives of health, connection, and meaning afterward.

And yet we often expect people going through divorce to function as though they are simply completing a legal transaction.

They may be asked to make enormous financial decisions, navigate an unfamiliar legal system, figure out where they will live, protect their children, negotiate parenting arrangements, grieve their marriage, keep working, keep parenting—and somehow remain perfectly calm and rational through all of it.

Then we judge them when they struggle.

What if we treated divorce not as evidence of someone’s moral failure, but as a major human transition deserving meaningful support?

Supporting Divorce Does Not Mean Promoting It

This is where conversations about divorce often become unnecessarily polarized. If we stop demonizing divorce, some people fear we are somehow encouraging it.

But supporting people through divorce doesn’t promote divorce any more than caring for someone with cancer promotes cancer.

We can value marriage and still acknowledge that not every marriage should continue.

We can believe relationships deserve effort while recognizing that effort has limits.

We can encourage repair without demanding endurance.

And we can support someone whose marriage is ending without requiring every private detail before deciding whether they deserve our compassion.

The goal is not more divorce.

The goal is less unnecessary suffering.

What Real Support Looks Like

So what would it look like to respond differently? We could start by breaking the silence.

Many people say nothing because they are afraid of saying the wrong thing. But silence can feel remarkably similar to abandonment when someone’s entire life is changing.

I’m thinking about you.

I’m here.

What would feel supportive right now?

Those words matter.
We could resist the urge to immediately judge, diagnose, interrogate, or assign blame.

We could become more curious and less certain that we understand someone else’s marriage from the outside.

What appears sudden may have been unfolding privately for years. The person who files for divorce may not be the person who ended the marriage in every meaningful sense. There may be grief, betrayal, relief, love, fear, responsibility, and hope tangled together in ways outsiders will never fully understand.

And perhaps most importantly, we could stop requiring people to prove that their marriage was terrible enough to justify leaving it.

There does not have to be a villain in every divorce.

Sometimes a relationship has simply reached its end.

Sometimes staying requires one person to disappear inside it.

Sometimes leaving is the most honest thing someone has done in years.

Whatever the circumstances, someone facing the loss of their marriage should not have to earn basic human compassion.

We Need a Better Story About Divorce

Divorce reshapes households, friendships, finances, workplaces, schools, and communities.

It is not a private aberration happening to a small group of people who somehow failed at marriage.

It is part of the landscape of human relationships.

That does not mean we should celebrate every divorce or pretend separation carries no consequences.

It means we should become mature enough to hold multiple truths at once. Divorce can be deeply painful.

Divorce can affect children.

Marriage can be worth fighting for.

And ending a marriage can sometimes be the healthiest choice available.

We can value marriage without treating divorce as a moral failure. We can acknowledge that divorce can be painful for children without assuming that an intact marriage is always the healthiest home. We can believe relationships deserve effort without believing people must suffer indefinitely to prove they tried hard enough.

The goal shouldn’t be keeping every marriage intact. The goal should be protecting the wellbeing of the people inside our families.

Sometimes that means helping a marriage heal.

Sometimes it means helping a family survive the end of one. Either way, what people need from us isn’t judgment.

It’s compassion.

About Natasha Bacca

Natasha Bacca is a divorce doula, high-conflict divorce coach, mediator, educator, and author who supports people navigating divorce, co-parenting, and major life transitions. Her work centers on helping people move through divorce with greater clarity, dignity, and support—and build meaningful lives on the other side. Learn more at NatashaBacca.com.

Children of Divorce

Supporting Your Child Through Divorce: The Role of Play Therapy

Published on April 10, 2026March 24, 2026

Shelley Coleman
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
Regional Liaison -The Texas Association of Play Therapy

“This is a war. The farm animals are fighting the ocean animals.” says my 7 year old client as she creates an elaborate battle scene in the sand tray. “The cat is in the middle” she further explains as she gingerly places the cat amidst the waring animals.

In my therapeutic playroom, the sand-tray allows for sharing in a protected space that a child may not otherwise have. As a Play Therapist, I have the privilege of working with children of various developmental stages who are experiencing parental separation or divorce. The play room allows for a child to freely express themselves through play. As children choose toys and play activities, they can share their world with the therapist.

In simple terms, play is the language of children. This concept is best explained by Landreth (2002) in Play therapy: The art of the relationship and is the basis for Play Therapy. It is through play that children make sense of the world itself. They explore relationships, solve problems, learn to regulate their emotions, and navigate transitions or challenges.

The benefits of Play Therapy are well researched and include the following…

Helps children better understand and express feelings
Reduces behaviour problems and improves coping skills
Helps to process loss and transitions
Improves caregiver-child relationships
Improves adjustment outcomes

For families experiencing a transition like divorce, play therapy can be a resource for both the child and the caregivers. Even in the most amicable divorces, I see children feeling confused or in the “middle” between households. At times, a child may feel out of control and need to assert their control in the play room by directing the play or directing the therapist. Or, a child may need a therapeutic space to make sense of their changing household.

In the event of parental separation or divorce, the play therapist is not only a support to the child, but to the caregivers as well. In fact, play therapy can improve communication between parents and children around difficult events like divorce (Hirschfeld & Wittenborn, 2016). And, some specialised forms of Play Therapy have been demonstrated to strengthen the child-caregiver relationship and positively impact children’s behaviour (Fernando et al., 2011).

In my own practice, I work with caregivers at varying stages of divorce including co-parenting post divorce and blending families. Though the child is the primary client, a Play Therapist provides valuable psychoeducation around developmentally appropriate ways parents can support their child. Specifically a Play Therapist can provide..

Education around making transitions between homes smooth
Education around behaviours that are or are not developmentally appropriate
Ways to improve parent child relationships
Ways to limit the child’s involvement in parental conflict

The benefits of play therapy for children experiencing a life transition like divorce are well researched. It is not uncommon for children to feel out of control, confused, or blame themselves for the divorce. Play therapy provides a way for a child to freely express these feelings and process them with the help of a trusted therapist. In addition, a Play Therapist can support the caregivers and provide valuable resources during a time of transition.

Resources for this article

Book citation (APA):

Landreth, G. L. (2002). Play therapy: The art of the relationship. Brunner-Routledge.

Bratton, S. C., Ray, D., Rhine, T., & Jones, L. (2005). The efficacy of play therapy with children: A meta-analytic review of treatment outcomes.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 36(4), 376–390.

Hirschfeld, M. R., & Wittenborn, A. K. (2016). Emotionally Focused Family Therapy and Play Therapy for Young Children Whose Parents Are Divorced.

Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 57(2), 133–150.

Fernando, D., Jayne, K., Lindo, N., Purswell, K., & Dillman Taylor, D. (2011). The Impact of Child Parent Relationship Therapy on Child Behavior and Parent-Child Relationships: An Examination of Parental Divorce.
International Journal of Play Therapy, 20(3), 124–137.

About Shelley Coleman

Shelley Coleman is a Licensed Professional Counsellor and Supervisor (LPC-S) as well as a Registered Play Therapist and Supervisor (RPT-S). She has 18 years of clinical experience, 10 years of business management experience, and 23 years of parenting experience. Shelley’s private practice serves children, adolescents and families. She provides parent education, play therapy, child and adolescent therapy, and family therapy. She is trained in EMDR, Play Therapy, TF-CBT, New Ways for Families, and PCIT. Shelley was the 2022-2023 President of the Hill Country Chapter of the Texas Association of Play Therapists and currently serves as Regional Liaison to the Texas Association of Play Therapists.

Visit website.

Children of Divorce/Well-being/Your Emotions

“They’ll Be Fine”: Why Saying Kids are Resilient After Divorce Isn’t the Whole Truth

Published on October 3, 2025August 22, 2025

Karen Omand BASoc BAThan CT
Co-Founder
Divorceworkshop

I went to a social worker as a teenager for over two years. And yes, it helped. I could finally talk about the horrendous things that happened to me growing up. But the truth? We only scratched the surface. The deeper wounds stayed buried.

As a child of a high-conflict divorce, I didn’t realise how much the instability and constant tension were shaping me. On the outside, I looked like I was fine. Inside, I was just surviving.

In my twenties, my mom gently pointed out that I seemed to overreact to little things. She was right. I felt edgy, overwhelmed, and ashamed of how easily I snapped. I had no idea what was going on with me. Was it my parents’ divorce and conflict? My father’s and stepmother’s toxic behavior toward my mom and me, and their need for control? Had this unstable and neglectful environment affected me so much? Yes, apparently it had.

But here’s the thing: children don’t always show the effects of divorce right away. On the outside, I looked like I was managing. I went to school, had friends, did what I was “supposed” to do. I even made it to university, earned my first degree, and completed a post-grad programme.

That’s what adults often see as resilience in kids during divorce: a child carrying on, coping, adapting. What’s harder to see is the cost of that coping.

My story isn’t unique. Many children of divorce appear to be “fine” while silently carrying pain that surfaces years later. And that’s why I want to pause on the phrase we all hear, and sometimes even say ourselves: “Kids are resilient.”

Therapy and Understanding

Four and a half years of therapy later, I began to understand myself better. I wasn’t just “reactive.” I was having trauma responses. My nervous system had learned to survive chaos, and all the emotions I had stuffed away were finally demanding to be felt.

That’s what unresolved childhood pain and anxiety look like. It doesn’t always surface immediately; it comes out later in our bodies, our emotions, and our relationships.

And yet, through it all, I kept hearing the same refrain: “They’ll be fine. Kids bounce back”.

The truth? Resilience doesn’t mean untouched. It doesn’t mean unaffected. It means that for some children, they survive, but survival can carry invisible scars that take years to heal.

Why We Say It

If you’re a parent going through a separation or divorce, especially a high-conflict one, you’ve probably said it too: “ the kids will be okay,” or you really hope they will be.

It slips out almost automatically, a way to calm the fear of not knowing how deeply this might be affecting your child. We don’t always say it because it’s true. We say it because we need it to be.

And those messages don’t just come from inside us. They echo all around us, through friends, family, teachers, even strangers:

“They’ll adjust.”
“Kids are tough.”
“My cousin’s kids turned out fine.”

Society, too, is uneasy with grief, conflict, and uncertainty. It feels safer to lean on comforting shortcuts than to sit with the reality that children might be struggling. That’s why “Kids are resilient” becomes our shield.

A Psychological Shortcut

When I was studying for my thanatology degree, I learned about Terror Management Theory (TMT), sometimes explained more simply as the Anxiety Buffer Theory. The core idea is this: when painful truths feel unbearable, our minds cling to beliefs that make the world feel less threatening.

Take divorce, for example. Parents often reassure themselves with, “They’ll adjust.” And while it’s true that children can adapt, this belief often functions as a protective shield for the parent. It eases guilt, fear, and shame about the impact divorce may have on their kids. The danger is that it can keep us from seeing what children really need: emotional safety, reassurance, and consistent support.

We do this in other areas of life, too. Imagine hearing that a neighbour has been diagnosed with lung cancer. A common first response is, “Were they a smoker?” If the answer is yes, it reduces our anxiety; we can tell ourselves the illness was linked to a choice, which makes us feel safer. But if the answer is no, the truth feels scarier, because it reminds us that illness can strike anyone, even without warning.

What If They’re Not Fine?

Divorce, especially high-conflict divorce, does affect children. It touches:

Their nervous system
Their sense of safety
Their ability to trust
Their beliefs about love and conflict

Not every child shows it right away. Some hold it together because they think that’s their role. But holding it in doesn’t mean they’re okay.

Resilience isn’t pretending nothing happened. It’s built through emotional safety, consistency, validation, and supportive relationships.

What Children Need

If you’re navigating divorce, here’s how to support real resilience:

Emotional Safety: Let them feel all their emotions, anger, sadness, relief, without trying to fix them.
Consistency: Keep routines where you can. Predictability is grounding.
Honest Reassurance: Remind them it’s not their fault. Tell them they’re loved. Explain what will stay the same.
Permission to Love Both Parents (if safe): Kids should never feel like they have to choose sides.
Therapeutic Support: Even short-term counseling can give children tools and language to process what’s happening.

You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to show up, reflect, and let them know it’s safe to be real with you.

Why We Hold Onto “They’ll Be Fine”

Parents usually don’t say it to dismiss their kids. They say it to survive their pain. The alternative, that our choices or circumstances might hurt our children, is heavy. But pain doesn’t vanish when we deny it. It resurfaces later, often in ways we don’t expect.

My mom probably didn’t know. It was the 1970s, and back then, people assumed divorce was just between the adults and that kids would simply bounce back. She did her best with what she had, and I hold a lot of compassion for what she went through without much support.

But today, we know better. The effects are real. It’s time to let go of the shortcut phrases, “kids are resilient,” “they’ll bounce back,” as ways to comfort ourselves. Research is clear: resilience isn’t automatic. Children don’t just bounce back from divorce, especially in high-conflict situations. Resilience has to be nurtured through emotional safety, consistency, and support.

The hopeful part? Research also shows that most children can and do turn out well when they have even one supportive parent who shows up consistently and provides a secure base. One safe, steady relationship can be enough to anchor them and foster resilience.

Children deserve more than survival; they deserve healing. Resilience isn’t something they magically possess. It’s something we help them build. And the first step is awareness: not assuming they’ll be fine, but committing to helping them become so.

References

Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (1997). Terror management theory of self-esteem and cultural worldviews: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 61–139.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60016-9
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.227

Disclaimer: This blog reflects my personal experiences and research. It is not a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or legal advice. If you or your children are struggling during or after divorce, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional for support.

About Karen Omand BASoc BAThan CT

Karen Omand holds a rare university degree in Thanatology and a B.A. in Sociology. She is the co-author of the “Just Separated Divorce Workbook,” coming out this October, and co-founder of The Divorce Workshop. As a private counsellor and coach, Karen specialises in high-conflict cases, post-divorce abuse, grief, and divorce. Having navigated her own high-conflict divorce, she is also the mother of two lovely daughters.

Children of Divorce/Well-being/Your Emotions

Supporting Children Emotionally and Mentally During Family Transitions

Published on September 26, 2025August 18, 2025

Mental health expert Noel McDermott examines what our children need through periods of transition; it’s first important to understand what we mean psychologically by a transition. A transition isn’t just a change of something, it is a change that requires an emotional adjustment. To some extent this type of change, a transition, is mediated by age and experience, but there are also some types of change that require an insight into transition, or adjustment needs, for all of us and especially kids. Transition needs affect humans in general and are linked to deep needs we have connected to survival mechanisms. These transition issues generally fall into 3 categories often called central life circumstances:

Home – place of safety and survival
Love relations – family, close friends, romantic partner
Work – meaningful productive activity that is social and has survival outcomes (school, workplace, university)

Changes to these areas will likely produce transitional phenomena which are behavioural and emotional disturbances that might see A) a reversion to previous coping mechanisms (regression) or B) the development of new coping mechanisms (adaptations.) Typically coping mechanisms are designed to manage distress and some will be fine and some might be upsetting or even destructive. Types of coping mechanisms or soothing mechanisms in younger kids that we accept as normal might be:

Being clinging
Being grizzly emotionally
Thumb sucking, return to pacifier
Holding on to ‘blankie’

If age appropriate we don’t notice these and assume correctly they will grow out of it, but when they are a little older and we see these behaviours suddenly emerge again, which they can and do through transitions, we might get worried. But, regression is normal when the three central life circumstances are affected as are adaptions. The key question is are they doing something to help? Adaptations in particular may be unhelpful or what we call ‘maladaptive’. Examples might be aggression, self harming, substance misuse, excessive drinking. These might seem extreme but often they might emerge over time. More subtle forms of expressing distress in children in particular would be sleep disturbances, changes on mood, appetite, withdrawal etc.

The question is how do we reduce the risk of disturbance during transition and when it does emerge help our kids and ourselves manage it? These are some key ideas to utilise:

Normalisation – knowing and accepting that transitions can be upsetting allows us to normalise and explain to ourselves and our children what is happening. Often it’s the magnification or catastrophising of the behaviours that is the problem. When we can say, ‘oh this is normal’ during times of change we can manage things better

PPP – plan, prepare and practice. Plan: If you know the change is coming discuss it before it happens, if it’s a big change start the discussions early, some months before. Prepare: Get folk on board with organising the practicalities which facilitates normalisation, discussion and empowerment. Practice: If say moving home, go visit the new place or area. Stay there if possible for a night or two before moving etc. Build an emotional ‘on ramp’ that allows the reality of the change to be grown into, as opposed to an emotional cliff edge where you all fall off and smash into the rocks of the new reality below

Increase soothing and support for all before during and after the change. More movie nights on the sofa, more self care, more massages, more spa days, more friends and fun, more family meets and openness about feelings, tell the school, work and all support networks about the transition and ask for understanding

Refocus on the four corners of health and wellbeing:

Nutrition (hydration) – eat well and regularly (in between the movie night binges of course!)
Sleep and rest regularly
Get moving and exercise
Manage stress with relaxation, massage, meditation

Often adapting these approaches will not only take the sting out, but it will also mean you have no discernible negative transition issues. Or if you do have them, they are less intense and of shorter duration. If there is a history in your children or yourself of mental health issues, eating disorders, addiction etc then it is super important to focus on support and also developing individual plans for those involved around relapse prevention; for example should a mental health professional be brought in to help, should medication be used prophylactically to reduce the risk of relapse?

About Noel McDermott

Mental health expert Noel McDermott is a psychotherapist and dramatherapist with over 30 years’ work within the health, social care, education, and criminal justice fields. His company Mental Health Works provides unique mental health services for the public and other organisations. Mental Health Works offers in situ health care and will source, identify and co-ordinate personalised teams to meet your needs – https://www.mentalhealthworks.net/

Children of Divorce

Separate But United – Parenting Post-Divorce

Published on August 8, 2025August 7, 2025

Richard Bromfield, Ph.D.
Clinical Faculty Member
Harvard Medical School

On a gorgeous spring day, a friend and I walked my dog down Newbury Street in Boston. We passed by a sidewalk café where a young girl sat with her father, eating sundaes, which were what first caught our attention. Two empty chairs were full of shopping bags.

“Divorced father,” my friend said as matter-of-factly as if he’d identified a Dalmatian dog or a vintage ’65 Mustang. Who knows if my friend was right? If I had to bet, though, I’d go with his hunch.

I suspect the majority of divorced fathers do not take their daughters out for lunch and fancy shopping sprees every weekend. But many of the divorced fathers I’ve worked with try to make their time with their children fun. It is often at the father’s place that kids seem to watch movies that aren’t allowed with their moms, eat foods that aren’t allowed at home, and stay up later than they should. You get the picture.

And, of course–I can hear the thunderous protests–political correctness and reality require my proviso that sometimes it’s the other way around, meaning stricter fathers and more indulgent mothers.

When children spend less time at your home and with you, there is a tendency to make the most of it. This fosters an unnatural and unhealthy disequilibrium where the primary home is left to discipline, set limits, establish structure, hold expectations, and perform the harder necessities of family life. The “visitation” home becomes the place for everything else. Divorce can make the “removed” parent feel less central, critical, and essential to the children’s daily life and caring. Not always, of course, but sometimes.

The child, however, needs their parents to be parents and do the important parenting stuff just as much as ever, probably more now. The child needs that parent to be there for all of the things that the same parent might do in an intact home and marriage. Both parents need to nurture, feed, care, support, inspire, and discipline. The out-of-the-primary home parent must be careful that, even when they have limited visitation, they build in room and space for the essentials of everyday life, whether it’s toothbrushing or getting the math problems done or doing that ten minutes of reading or, just as necessary sometimes, to be in conflict that needs resolving. In some ways, a child’s not getting that stuff is tantamount to losing that parent.

If overindulgence is an issue, it’s an issue, divorce notwithstanding.

Spouses who are divorced can have a wide range of difficulty negotiating and communicating around family life (the same difficulty they had while married). Strive to get over it, or at least, create enough space to discuss, problem-solve, and implement parenting plans in collaboration. Children do not need their parents to be in perfect synchrony. The goal is not for two parents to live and parent as one.

Do your utmost to uphold your end of the parenting equation, even if you dislike your ex. If, for example, your ex confronts you about having no bedtimes for your elementary-school-aged children, try looking in the mirror and being candid with yourself before going into a rant about what you judge to be your ex’s uptight and critical view of parenting. Even if the two of you couldn’t get along, could your ex maybe be right that you have difficulty getting the kids to bed at a reasonable time? Even if, in your opinion, your ex fails to do so much else, can you possibly note and say Good job for the way they managed some situation with your child?

Strive to do what’s needed, regardless of what your ex does. Children know the score, and at the end of the day (more like in adulthood), they will acknowledge the good parenting that came their way. Resist battling via the children. Avoid competing for their love with lenience or indulgence. This is sure to cause your children harm, sometimes big harm, and instill all the wrong messages about love, relationships, and life. Divorce itself shakes a child’s world.

Children who undergo divorce want to know that their relationships with both parents are strong and secure and not susceptible to bribery. Love me enough, to not just buy me things, but to deal with the real (parenting) stuff I need to grow well.

In my experience, I have seen several fortunate sets of divorcing and divorced parents who’ve taken their life transition as a challenge to their parenting, specifically their indulging of their children. These parents took the divorce as an opportunity not just to separate from their spouse, but to reassess their parenting. They each recognised that the guilt, pain, and distraction of divorce can lead to more lenient, aimless, and indulgent parenting, especially as the hurt of a divorce makes husband and wife, father and mother, needier for their children’s love and attention. Instead of surrendering to those untoward forces, these parents committed to a joint enterprise of guarding against their competition for the child’s affection and approval.

If there’s one single Golden Rule for divorced parents, it is to try one’s best to respect and honour the child’s love for the other parent. Nothing can make a child feel more loved by and devoted to one parent than that parent’s allowing the child to love the other parent.

I realise that this expects a lot, maybe too much of people who have experienced a lot of hurt. But what else is there to do?

About Richard Bromfield

Richard Bromfield is a clinical faculty member of Harvard Medical School, he is author of Playing for Real: Exploring Child Therapy and the Inner Worlds of Children and How to Unspoil Your Child Fast (2025).

Children of Divorce/Divorce News/Family Mediation/No Fault Divorce UK/Step-Parenting/Well-being

Help Shape the Future of Support for Separated Families

Published on August 1, 2025

Dr Soila Sindiyo
Counselling Psychologist and Founding Editor of The Divorce Magazine

We’ve been contacted by Dr Sarah Foley, Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, about an exciting new research project exploring parenting after divorce or separation.

The Parenting After Divorce or Separation Study aims to better understand family life and children’s wellbeing in different post-separation child arrangements, particularly in families who have not gone through the court system.

This research will help inform future support for separated parents and their children, filling an important gap in what we know about post-separation family experiences.

Who Can Take Part?

The research team is looking to hear from parents who:

Have children aged 4–8
Live in Scotland or England
Are comfortable taking part in English
Have been separated for at least six months
Have regular contact with their child
Do not have a court-ordered child arrangement

What’s Involved?

If you take part, you’ll be asked to:

Join a confidential online interview and complete a survey
Optionally involve your child in child-friendly storytelling or game-based activities

(These are completely optional and designed to be fun and engaging for children)

Participation is entirely voluntary and confidential.

How to Get Involved

If you meet the criteria above, or know someone who does, you can learn more and register your interest here.

For questions about the study, you can contact Dr Sarah Foley directly at:
sarah.foley@ed.ac.uk

We’ll be sharing the findings of this important research once the study is complete. By taking part, you’ll be helping to build a deeper understanding of how separated families live, parent, and thrive, and how support can be improved in the future.

Children of Divorce/Step-Parenting

When You’re Becoming a Stepparent, Be Present and Patient

Published on August 1, 2025July 30, 2025

Tucker Lieberman
Writer / Researcher
Custody X Change

When you’re partnering with someone who already has a child, you can expect to play a significant role in that child’s life. As you move in with and marry your partner, your involvement with their child is likely to increase. The child may not feel comfortable with you immediately, and it’s OK to take it slow. Patience, compassion and steadiness make a big difference.

Starting slow as a new parental figure

Children appreciate when adults take an interest in them. While you’re first getting to know your partner’s kids, observe the family dynamics and learn what the kids are like as individuals. You may not need to be hands-on at first. Just be present and actively witness what their family life is like. Gradually become part of it.

You might be inclined to give the children treats as a way of gaining their goodwill. However, spoiling them can make you a “Disneyland stepparent” — with your partner doing the hard work of child care, while you’re there for TV, ice cream and outings. This won’t be a good long-term dynamic, as it sets unrealistic expectations and leaves everyone frustrated.

At an early stage in your stepparenting role, you can simply affirm or gently enforce existing household rules. Later, you may take a more active disciplinary role.

No one can force a child to feel a particular way about their stepparent. You can’t choose a child’s feelings nor when those feelings change. That shift may be internal and private to them, or they may share their feelings about you with other people they trust rather than conveying them to you directly.

Nonetheless, a parent can say that their child has to respect and obey their stepparent, while a stepparent can support and reinforce parent–child relationships.

Family intimacy grows over time. Hugging and other expressions of affection may happen when they seem natural or appropriate.

Meanwhile, keep putting effort into yourself and your new marriage.

Practice self-care. You matter too, and you show up best for others when you value yourself.
When you’re upset, take responsibility for your own feelings. Don’t make a child reassure you, predict your moods or accommodate your needs.
Pay attention to your spouse. It not only develops and deepens the relationship between the two of you, it enables you to show up for the kids too.
Encourage your spouse and their ex to cooperate on parenting matters. If they handle issues out of court, great. Don’t escalate drama.

Form a new sense of who you are as a family

Consciously choose your language. Your stepchild can give input on what they feel comfortable calling you — your first name or something else. This might be a part of your relationship that you can co-create.

Similarly, think about how you name your relationship to them. Originally, they were your partner’s kids. Once you’re married, you might call them your “stepkids”, but if the word “step” doesn’t feel right, maybe you refer to them as “our kids” or “the kids.”

You and your spouse should support the child’s other family relationships. Sometimes a stepparent adopts their stepchild, becoming the legal parent, after which (depending on the situation) the child may or may not have any contact with the former parent. But if the other parent will remain in the picture and you’ll remain the step-parent, you should enable appropriate parent–child contact.

It’s in the child’s best interests to keep their family connections, even if they don’t yet understand that. Respect those relationships and help preserve them. Don’t try to replace other important people in your step child’s life, especially their other parent. The child may suffer real loss when people come and go. Don’t give them a reason to resent or blame you later.

Allow your step child to have private time with both of their parents: your spouse and your spouse’s ex. Start your own unique activities with the child so they can come to understand and appreciate you as an individual.

As a married couple, when you welcome the kids back to your house after they’ve visited their other parent, respect the time they may need to settle back in. Handovers can be stressful, sad or confusing. You don’t have to pretend otherwise and push the kids to socialise if they need time to rest. Empathise, acknowledge their feelings and connect with them. And don’t interrogate the kids about what they did with their other parent.

If you’re bringing your own children to the marriage too, reassure them that your love for them won’t diminish just because you’ve remarried and have new stepchildren. Find ways you can all merge into a family. Kids of similar ages may form special bonds with each other.

Stepparenting is a role in which you’ll not only support your stepchild’s growth — you’ll grow too. Your stepparenting will be a big part of your family’s future.

About Tucker Lieberman

Tucker Lieberman is a Writer / Researcher for Custody X Change. After a decade with an investment company focusing on saving for university, he now writes about co-parenting arrangements.

About Custody X Change: This powerful tool helps divorced and single parents create parenting plans, track their custody schedules, manage expenses and more. Since 2005, we’ve helped over 60,000 parents ensure the best possible future for their children.

Children of Divorce/Well-being/Your Emotions

Navigating Family Changes in a Positive Way

Published on June 27, 2025May 13, 2025

Getting a hug during times of change

One of the most important things to learn about having healthy ways of navigating change is to fully accept that a different set of rules apply to transitions for all humans. Change is perceived by our primitive functioning brain as a threat. Predictability and routine are standard elements in the prescription bundle in modern psychological therapies for treating all forms of psychological distress.

Various words are used for this, containment being a useful one in this context. When distressed we find it difficult to contain our feelings and they can spill over. Imagine your child crying due to something beyond theirs or your control, and you scoop them up and hug them into your arms and gradually the tears subside. You help them contain the distressing feelings. In some ways predictability and routine are like that for us in the background of our lives helping us navigate challenges. Imagine now during the middle of the distress you drop your child and tell them to stop being silly?

Change to our personal circumstances can feel very much like being dropped when we are distressed. So, what can we do to create a new pair of arms to help hug us when we have been dropped? Again, think about your child, somehow, they are ok simply with the hug, it’s not the circumstances that you change, but the feeling in your kid of the capacity to survive and manage. Similarly, it’s not possible to stop the change, it’s happening, but it is possible to manage the emotional distress allowing yourself and others to function better.

What are these new arms holding us?

Normalisation or forgiveness of self and others – it’s normal to be distressed during times of personal change and understanding that allows us to accept that our own behaviour and that of others is based on the distress about the situation and not a moral, personal or psychological failing. It may be that one of the reasons the change is happening is because of another’s unacceptable behaviour in the relationship for example, and it is likely to get worse during the transition. Knowing this and not being unrealistic about how well you or others will cope is crucial in lowering the distress. In the same way that you know your child will be ok in your arms, you too will be ok if held and comforted and being able to link the behaviours to the situation tells us that it will pass.

Transitional phenomena – teddy bears and comfort blankets

When our kids are growing especially during the time they begin to psychologically individuate from the primary carer they develop attachments to special toys or pieces of cloth. These special objects represent emotionally the special relationship to the primary carer and have the advantage of being portable when the carer isn’t. They can to some extent stand in for the actual comforting presence of the carer. These transitional phenomena allow our children to manage this change in reality as the carer is no longer magically available to them. So, allow yourself that or allow that in others. Try to avoid using alcohol, anger or drugs to facilitate the transition and instead stick to warm humans or the equivalent stand by. If you haven’t got an emergency teddy bear in your life, time to get one!

Empowering the embrace of change

There is a large body of evidence to show that people who feel empowered in life manage better, even when they have exactly the same circumstances as others, the outcomes are better. Whilst it is important to risk assess in intimate relationships if we can feel like we have some power over change, and circumstances we manage much better. The key task is something along the lines of accept what you can’t change and change what you can. You can’t for example, change the fact of a divorce, or the fact that the person you are divorcing is behaving in an exaggerated form of the person you wish to divorce but you can say, what is in my power to change here? Maybe you can change your health and wellbeing activities and increase your exercise? Maybe you can reduce your unhealthy coping through drink? Maybe you can engage in random acts of kindness to strangers without possibility of reward rather than spreading your gloom? Finding all these things that you can influence and do will be comforting and help you manage better

Create ritual and structure

Ritual during change is a key strategy that humans have developed through time to help manage the distress of change and unpredictability. Rituals allow us to ascribe bigger meaning to suffering and develop and maintain purpose. This has the impact of reducing both anxiety and crucially depression through loss of meaning. We are meaning making machines and we invest meaning into our relationships with others and if they change, we can lose that invested meaning… but by transferring that to something bigger we can reduce the depression relapse in our functioning. It’s unlikely that your situation has never been experienced by any other human ever before, in fact, millions will have experienced it. Doing even a cursory search you will be able to find how others through common cultural expression have developed meaning in change. You can adapt these to meet your needs.

Compassion and kindness to self

Listen to John Lennon, “whatever gets you through the night is alright” – projecting compassion reduces stress in yourself and improves everything around you—but that compassion has to start with yourself.

About Noel McDermott

Mental health expert Noel McDermott is a psychotherapist and dramatherapist with over 30 years’ work within the health, social care, education, and criminal justice fields. His company Mental Health Works provides unique mental health services for the public and other organisations. Mental Health Works offers in situ health care and will source, identify and co-ordinate personalised teams to meet your needs – https://www.mentalhealthworks.net/

Children of Divorce/Step-Parenting

Keeping Divorce Pain Out of Parenting

Published on May 5, 2025February 24, 2025

Johanna Lynn
Founder
The Family Imprint Institute

When your child does or says something that reminds you of their other parent, it can stir up all kinds of mixed emotions. A certain expression, a way of laughing, or a habit that is unmistakably their other parent. In those moments, it can be easy to get pulled into fear, frustration or unresolved hurt.

Sitting back with your cup of tea in hand, you remember your choice that the love for your children has to be the guiding force through all of this, even when resentment, exhaustion, or heartache threaten to take over.

Divorce reshapes everything. One home becomes two. The quiet of shared evenings now echoes with the absence of the other parent. And the children—caught in the in-between—look to you for answers. They don’t ask outright, but they watch, listen, absorb. Their sense of security hinges on how you navigate this new landscape.

What I’ve observed in my almost 20 years in my practice is that divorce can become a battlefield, with children unwittingly caught in the crossfire. It’s tempting, in a moment of frustration, to let a sigh escape when their other parent is late again. To roll your eyes when they rave about the fun weekend they had with them. To let your disappointment seep into conversations meant to be neutral.

The truth is, your pain in this relationship ending is yours to carry, not theirs.

Your children don’t need to know about the arguments over who forgot to send the backpack or the text messages left unanswered. They shouldn’t have to decode passive-aggressive comments or feel the tension created when they mention their other parent’s name.

Children do best when they can love both parents without hesitation, without guilt, without fear or feeling like they need to have an alliance with one parent, leaving out the other.

You may have every reason to be angry, still carrying wounds that feel impossible to heal. What is also true at the same time is that for your child, their other parent is someone they love, someone who is a part of their world. And for their wellbeing, having access to both parents without tension or conflict will make all the difference in their lives.

That means keeping what belongs between you and your co-parent exactly where it should stay—between the two of you. When the tension rises, take a deep breath before responding. If the other parent fails to follow through, handle it without dragging your child into the disappointment.

It’s natural that there will be times you want to make sense of all that happened, find a friend, a therapist, a journal—anything but your child’s open, impressionable heart. They are not your allies in the war of who is the better parent. They are simply your children, and they need to be allowed to love both of their parents.

That doesn’t mean ignoring reality. Children are perceptive, and they know when things have changed. Acknowledge their feelings without making them carry yours. “I know it’s different now. I know you miss how things used to be.” Remind them that Mum and Dad will always agree on is loving you. Make it clear “You don’t have to choose. You are loved—fully, completely—by both of us.”

Your child will one day grow up and form their own conclusions about both parents. Let those conclusions be built on their experiences, not on the whispers of resentment they picked up over the years. Give them the gift of a childhood where they were free to love openly, without the burden of carrying someone else’s pain.

Co-parenting is not about proving who is the better parent. It’s about giving your child the stability they need to thrive in a world that has already shifted beneath their feet.

So when they come home talking about the amazing trip they had with their other parent, smile. Let them be excited. Let them know their happiness is never a betrayal. When they struggle with the changes, be the place where they can land softly, without judgment, without expectation, just love.

The greatest gift you can give your child after divorce isn’t a flawless parenting schedule. It’s the freedom to love both parents without the pressure to choose sides, that is something that will stay with them far beyond childhood into who they become as adults, into the relationships they build, and into the way they show up in the world.

About Johanna Lynn

Johanna Lynn is the founder of The Family Imprint Institute with over 20 years of experience. She specialises in supporting individuals navigating divorce, helping them uncover the root causes behind their separation. Johanna uses innovative mind-body techniques to illuminate how family dynamics influence relationships, providing clients with deep insights, clarity and healing.

Children of Divorce

Easter Countdown: How Co-Parents Can Best Manage School Holidays

Published on March 6, 2025

Anthony Parrish
Partner
Jones Myers

The Importance of Communication, Cooperation and Compromise

In our extensive experience, effective organisation, communication and collaboration between estranged parents are vital both during and outside school terms to ensure children’s best interests always come first.

The formula below helps to ensure stability in a shared commitment to children’s wellbeing while avoiding the court route – for which there is limited public funding – to determine arrangements.

Involve Children in Plans

During all school holidays, children will want to spend as much time as possible with both parents, their wider family including grandparents, and friends.

It is the responsibility of both parents to try to achieve this and may result in one parent spending less time with their child(ren) during the break.

Children and young people need certainty and security so let them know as far in advance as possible how, and with who, their holiday will be spent. This gives them time to adjust to any new arrangements.

Keep Talking and Communicating

Set aside your differences to always put your children’s interests first. Aim to plan school holidays as much in advance as possible so you can organise logistics such as travel, playgroups and sporting activities.

Be Flexible

In cases where a court is involved, parents will be referred to a Planning Together for Children course which helps them to understand how to put their children first while undergoing separation.

The four-hour course helps parents learn the fundamental principles of how to manage conflict and difficulties. For more information, visit this website.

Managing Special Occasions

This formula also applies to birthdays and the festive season – special occasions when parents can give their children magical memories to look back on by manging them creatively. For example, by organising a birthday celebration or outing with each parent.

When it comes to Christmas – which brings additional commitments and financial pressures – a spirit of co-operation, communication and compromise is needed more than ever for parents to work together.

Advance planning and keeping calm irrespective of challenges including bad driving conditions, or reluctant children (who find moving from one parent to another difficult, not that they don’t want to go) – is vital.

Christmas celebrations can take place at any time over the holiday to make them special for children. Parents can therefore make the magic of Christmas happen twice with Santa making two appearances with his presents.

Achieving this requires meticulous organising, allowing time to consider each other’s expectations and plans. It is also advisable to have a back-up plan in the event of an unforeseen circumstance.

Letting children know as far in advance as possible that they will have two birthdays and two Christmases gives them time to get used to the idea and look forward to it with excitement.

The Importance of Parenting Plans

Jones Myers’ dedicated, multi-award winning Children’s Department balances children’s and parents needs in wide-ranging issues.

Working closely with our clients, we devise the most suitable arrangements for children both now and in the formative years ahead. We also highly recommend that parents who split up have a Parenting Plan in place.

A Parenting Plan is a written plan which helps estranged couples to work out practical decisions in areas including communication, living arrangements, money, religion, education and emotional well-being. Providing a valuable reference point, it helps everyone involved to know what is expected of them.

The document can help ensure a degree of stability and continuity in a shared commitment to children’s wellbeing – without having to go to court.

In cases where parents need to go to court because they are unable to agree on certain issues, a judge will expect them to have started a Parenting Plan.

Helping them to record their plan and inform the family court judge what they have agreed and not agreed, it also enables parents to let the judge know areas where they need more help.

Family Law group Resolution, which promotes a non-confrontational approach to family problems, provides valuable advice for separating parents.

It is reported that babies as young as three months can be affected by negative vibes and parents who argue in front of their infant can cause them lasting damage.

When children’s futures are at stake, we recommend choosing a family lawyer like Jones Myers – who champions a non-confrontational approach to relationship breakdown and is a member of Resolution – when seeking legal advice.

Working closely with our clients, we devise the most suitable arrangements for children – both now and in the formative years ahead.

The actions and decisions of separating and divorced parents can play a formative role in ensuring their children’s emotional happiness and well-being though their journey to adulthood.

Read more articles by Anthony Parrish and Jones Myers.

About Anthony Parrish

Anthony Parrish’s extensive experience in family law spans over two decades, during which time he has developed specialisms in matters relating to children law.

A member of Jones Myers internationally renowned Children’s Department, he deals with issues relating to children, teenagers, parents (including those represented through their official solicitor) and local authorities.

His expertise also encompasses international child abduction cases and same sex relationship issues.

Children of Divorce

Setting Boundaries So You Can Work Better with Your Co-Parent

Published on February 10, 2025January 31, 2025

If you and your ex will co-parent your child, you’ll be in regular communication to make it happen. That means you’ll need to find new ways to speak and work together.

At least one of you will have to make big decisions for your child: where they’ll go to school, how their special needs will be supported, which religion to raise them in, and whether to pursue a complex medical treatment. Some co-parents make these kinds of decisions together. Even if you don’t, one of you will have to inform the other of the big rules that guide your child’s life.

You and your ex will also coordinate exactly when and where you’ll exchange your child, and you’ll have to notify each other if you’re running late. You’ll pass on minor details like whether your kid already ate dessert or argued with a friend.

So, even as you envision a new life apart from your ex, stay realistic about your future need to talk to them. Though you’ll no longer be spouses, you’ll have important roles in each other’s lives.

Talking with Your Ex During the Divorce Process

A split can be so emotionally painful that it’s hard to keep open lines of communication. The hurt that one of you caused the other, or that both of you caused each other, is real. Nevertheless, for parents, it’s crucial to keep talking for your child’s sake.

Ideally, both of you should try to give your child as much stability as possible until the court can order a child arrangement, which means agreeing to a parenting routine and sticking to it civilly (rather than yanking the child back and forth and arguing in front of them).

You’ll also benefit from negotiating productively so you can get a fair outcome for your child and for yourselves. In the UK, parents may use mediation, collaborative practice or arbitration to help them reach decisions out of court.

Keeping open lines of communication doesn’t mean you have to pick up the phone at any hour of the night, respond to excessive text messages, or tolerate disrespectful emails. Nor does it mean you have to tell absolutely everything to your ex or allow them to micromanage your parenting time. You each deserve some privacy and autonomy.

In fact, communicating well as co-parents involves respecting each other’s limits. It’s a great idea to explicitly set boundaries with your ex. Do your part to obey the limits in good faith, and apologise when you make a mistake. Thank your co-parent for respecting your boundaries, and calmly hold them accountable when they don’t.

Rebuilding Your Co-Parenting Dynamic for Your Child’s Sake

It’s widely recognised that it’s in a child’s best interests to maintain a relationship with both parents. Sometimes there’s a reason to exclude one parent from the child’s life, but apart from situations of parental abuse or neglect, children generally benefit from meaningful, frequent contact with both parents.

In the UK, it’s common for courts to order shared parenting, meaning that the court divides parenting time close to equally. You’ll have to follow the order, and that will entail working together with your former spouse.

While some exes remain amicable and genuinely appreciate knowing what’s happening in each other’s lives, others insist on limiting conversations to matters involving their child. If one of you wants minimal interaction, the other has to accept reality and learn to let go.

And while spouses may have once enjoyed regular contact with each other’s family members and friends, most divorcing people find that those mutual connections decrease and eventually disappear. An exception would be if one of those adults is a carer for their child.

To help grant each other a sense of freedom and privacy, some co-parents agree to use only a designated messaging app with each other. Or they may agree to refrain from mentioning each other on social media.

Divorce is no easy road, but starting today, you can strive to build a good life for yourself and your child. By putting your best foot forward and interacting in good faith with your ex, you form a new co-parenting dynamic. What you do today leads to a better tomorrow.

About Tucker Lieberman

Tucker Lieberman is a Writer / Researcher for Custody X Change. After a decade with an investment company focusing on saving for university, he now writes about co-parenting arrangements.

About Custody X Change: This powerful tool helps divorced and single parents create parenting plans, track their custody schedules, manage expenses and more. Since 2005, we’ve helped over 60,000 parents ensure the best possible future for their children.

Children of Divorce

Doing it For the Kids: Co-Parenting Strategies For the New Year

Published on December 11, 2024

Emma Alfieri
Legal Director
Greene & Greene Solicitors

Following separation, often parents start the arrangements for their shared children without much of a plan whilst the family settle into their new situation. Sometimes parents might adjust the arrangements over time until they can settle into a routine that suits the family.

Sadly, and often where there is poor communication and the co-parenting relationship is not a strong one, the arrangements later breakdown.

Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service say that if children experience poor inter-parental relations or do not know when they are next seeing the other parent, they are more likely to worry, especially if there are long gaps between visits without an explanation. Therefore, it is important for separated parents to always put the children’s needs first, despite any differences with their former partner.

As a family lawyer, I am often approached by separated parents who seek to regulate the arrangements between them and the other parent. Before considering Court intervention, there are a number of tools available that can help separated parents to co-parent more effectively:

A Parenting Plan – Parents can work together and formulate a Parenting Plan, which is a plan negotiated and agreed between the parents setting out what the arrangements for the child / children will be. For a free Parenting Plan template, visit: www.planningtogether.cafcass.gov.uk/plan

Parenting App – Where there is conflict between parents, and they struggle to communicate, a Parenting App should be considered. There are many free and paid Parenting Apps available, and the idea is that the App is used by the parents for discussion about the children only, and it can include things like calendars, ability to make audio and video calls, share expenses, make payments and maintain a secure text communication with the other parent. Feedback from parents who have tried this have reported that limiting communication to an App has been helpful.
A parenting course. Attended alone or together, a parenting course can be a useful way for parents to gain insight about positive co-parenting and the benefits to the child / children. The courses usually consider how parents can effectively communicate and work together with the other parent to agree co-parenting arrangements without the need for Court intervention.
Mediation – If separated parents cannot agree the arrangements for the child / children, then they should consider Family Mediation. This is a process in which an independent professional trained Mediator helps the parents work out the arrangements for the children. The Mediator will help to try and find a solution which works for both parents. The process is less stressful and significantly quicker than going to Court, and Mediators work with separating parents in ways that are flexible. If separated parents do not want to be in the same space, then often remote Mediation sessions can take place.
Child Inclusive Mediation – This is a structured process which is suitable for older children where a qualified family mediator speaks to the child / children to ascertain their wishes and feelings. Where the children give permission, these wishes and feelings are then shared by the mediator with the parents in a separate feedback meeting. The parents can then use this information to agree the child arrangements moving forwards.

Conclusion

The risk to a deterioration in the child / children’s emotional wellbeing and mental health increases significantly where separated parents have a high level of conflict between them. Therefore, separated parents are encouraged to consider how they can try and work together and communicate.

Remember that as children get older, often their needs will change. Therefore, when arrangements for children are made when children are very young, sometimes those arrangements could have a limited shelf life and later need to be reviewed – another reason to try and remain amicable with the other parent, where possible.

This is only intended to be a summary and not specific legal advice.

About Emma Alfieri

Emma Alfieri is a Legal Director at Suffolk firm Greene & Greene Solicitors.

Emma advises on all aspects of family law, including divorce and associated financial matters, disputes between cohabitants and child related disputes.

A member of Resolution, Emma is committed to resolving disputes as positively and agreeably as possible whilst also being motivated to obtain the best possible outcome for her clients.

Since 2012 Emma has been consistently recommended by the Legal 500 on an annual basis and in the most recent 2024 edition Emma is ranked as a “rising star”.

As an advocate of fault free divorce, Emma lobbied at Parliament with other members of Resolution in 2016 to bring about the recent changes to divorce law.

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