By the time they are fifteen years of age, 47% of children no longer live with both birth parents. Almost half of all divorces(48%) involve children under 16. 12% of married couples and 32% of cohabiting couples will have experienced a period of separation by the time their child is seven [1].
The annual cost of family breakdown in England and Wales is estimated at £51 billion [2], and the long term consequences for children can be more costly: pain and suffering; anxiety and stress; and a loss of health, wealth, and wellbeing.
Children are at risk of harm when parents separate. A recent report from the Family Solutions Group (2020) concluded that family breakdown is a time of great vulnerability and research has consistently shown that unresolved parental conflict is harmful to children [3].
An analysis of private family law in England confirms that the majority of cases are about child arrangement orders. They are usually brought by the non-resident parent – most often the father – and concern one or two children between one and nine years old [4].
The evidence is clear that the quality of the relationship between parents impacts children [5] [6]. How parents communicate and relate to each other is increasingly recognised as a primary influence on effective parenting practices and children’s long-term mental health and future life chances.
Parents and couples who engage in frequent, intense, and poorly resolved conflict put children’s mental health and long-term life chances at risk. Destructive parental conflict can affect children of all ages, with effects evidenced across infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Exposure to destructive patterns of parental conflict can have long-term negative impacts on children’s early emotional, behavioural, cognitive, and social development [7] [8]:
In addition, how parents separate has been proven to have a significant impact on the childhood experience that follows. Following parental separation, warmth and parental support are linked with social competence, subjective wellbeing, and lack of externalising problems in young people [9].
In contrast, the impact of parental conflict and separation leads to poorer physical and mental health, and poorer social and educational outcomes for children [10] [11] [12]. Children recognise negative hostile communication between their separated parents and are affected by it, with increased risk that the parental conflict casts a long shadow over the child’s life course.
Recent studies have shown that children are more likely to exhibit behaviour problems following divorce if their post-divorce home environment is less supportive and stimulating, their mother is less sensitive and more depressed, and their household income is lower [13]. On the other hand, the detrimental impacts on children are minimised by maintaining a positive relationship with the ex-partner and by not placing the child ‘in the middle’ of disagreements or conflict [14].
A further consequence of parental conflict for separated families is that some children lose a close relationship with one of their parents [3]. The law is clear, that, in the absence of safety concerns, a child should be able to enjoy a close relationship with both parents, and one parent does not have the right to stop that. No child should lose a close parental relationship during critical childhood years because of the decisions of one parent in a time of conflict [3].
Parental separation, although always experienced by children as a crisis point in their lives, need not in itself be the source of lasting emotional trauma. Much depends on the parents’ willingness and ability to be sensitive to the impact of their separation on their children, and to be prepared to work together in the children’s best interests [3].
After any relationship breakdown, it takes time to build a successful co-parenting relationship that works well for the child. The transition is complex and requires personal commitment alongside professional support.
The needs of the separating family go beyond ‘dispute resolution’ of a particular issue. Parents need to rebuild a ‘good enough’ long-term cooperative parenting relationship for their children, through childhood and beyond. They need to know how their interactions impact on children and that a reduction in their conflict can be a protective factor. Any programme for separating or separated parents must include action to improve communication and reduce conflict between them [3].
Getting it Right for Children (GIRFC) was designed and developed with this in mind and has been shown to be a popular and effective intervention for co-operative parenting programmes [14].
GIRFC adopts a Behaviour Modelling Training (BMT) approach. BMT applies the principles of Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977) and uses visual demonstrations of behaviours to promote knowledge and skills acquisition and improvement in attitudes, intentions, and self-efficacy. Review data show that BMT is an effective, psychologically-based training approach that has been used to produce sustainable improvements in a diverse range of skills [15] [16].
Social Learning Theory has four core components described as attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. In the context of BMT and the GIRFC programme, these components are used to ensure skill development:
BMT programmes provide information, an outline of the skills to be acquired, skills modelling, goal setting, practice, real life implementation, and feedback.
The BMT approach, together with evidence from best practice in digital behaviour change methods, has influenced the design of this resource for separated parents [17] [18].
The end of a relationship can often be felt as a bereavement. It can take a toll on physical and emotional wellbeing, leaving people feeling distressed, isolated, and unsure of the future [19].
When a parenting relationship breaks down, there’s a period of adjustment in which each partner has to adapt to practical and emotional changes. Their living arrangements change, their finances change, and any shared goals and dreams have to be re-evaluated. There may even be an identity shift as they adjust to a new life as a single parent [19] [20].
With children involved, this process can take longer than usual. The partner relationship has ended, but the parenting relationship has to adapt and continue.
There’s no set pattern for dealing with a breakup but many people will go back and forth between dwelling on the past and planning for the future – it’s quite healthy to have a mix of both. One day they might be grieving the loss, and the next they will seem to be getting on with things. At the beginning, these periods of grieving may be more regular and more intense, but they will soften over time, eventually fading until they are not needed [21].
When working with separated parents, think about where they might be in this process and notice how things develop over time. Remember that each parent might be at a different point, with one having had more time to adapt to change than the other.
The ability to make effective co-parenting agreements and reduce conflict following separation depends on parents’ emotional readiness [22]. Dispute resolution around co-parenting arrangements has often been found to end without agreements because one or both parties had not been emotionally ready to cope with negotiations with their ex-partner.
Emotional readiness is sometimes referred to as emotional adaptation to relationship dissolution. In this context, it refers to a person’s emotional reaction to their separation:
As such, emotional adaptation to relationship dissolution is inherently linked to psychological wellbeing.
We have included a scale to measure emotional adaptation to relationship dissolution in the pre- and post-test questionnaires as part of the ongoing GIRFC evaluation.
OnePlusOne: www.oneplusone.org.uk
