Children
in Divorce:
Intervention
in the Phase
of
Separation
Andre P. Derdeyn, M.D.
From the Dieision of Child and Adolescent Psychiatnj, (Tnirersity of Virginia Medical Center,
Charlottes-ville
ABSTRACT. Divorce of their parents can create difficulties
for the development of young children. The ability of
children to integrate the various losses involved in the
breaking up of a family is impeded by limitations of their
cognitive understanding of events taking place during the
separation phase. Because their thinking process is as yet
immature, children often feel responsible for the divorce,
and they otherwise distort the meaning of the events about
them. The pediatrician can often guide and encourage parents to facilitate their children’s understanding and
acceptance of the changes in their lives. Pediatrics 60:20-27,
1977, CRISIS INTERVENTION, DIVORCE, PARENT COUNSELING.
The 913,000 divorces granted in 1973 probably involved a million children.’ Seventy-two percent of divorces occur in the first 14 years of marriage and the median duration of marriage prior to divorce is 7.1 years, indicating that the majority of divorces affect younger children. This article focuses on children from 3 to 8 years of age, but
many
of the ideas explored here apply to children over a wider age range. Throughout this article,mother and “custodial parent” are used inter-changeably, since approximately 90% of children are awarded to the custody of their mothers.3
The impact of divorce can be seen as occurring in two time periods: the acute event of separa-tion, or the separation phase, and the extended process of divorce. This discussion will be limited to the phase of separation, but will not include the related issue of contested child custody, which is treated elsewhere.4h5
The loss of a parent in childhood, whether because of death, divorce, or separation, has been
shown to predispose to depression in later life.7-8 In a study of psychiatrically hospitalized children, one investigator found depression significantly
more common among children from families in
which divorce had occurred than among those from intact homes.i An increased incidence of antisocial behavior among boys has been reported to be associated with parental separation and
0 Nevertheless, in spite of the emotional turmoil at the time of separation and some of the long-term implications of divorce to children, relatively few children who have to cope with the divorce of parents will be seen by mental health workers. Other professionals with particular opportunities to counsel these families are pedia-tricians, family practice physicians, and other physicians and personnel involved in the primary health care of children. This article attempts to develop a rationale for brief intervention on behalf of children in the separation phase of divorce and to suggest techniques for carrying this out.
CHILDREN’S
LOSSES IN DIVORCE
The child’s most critical loss is usually that of the father. Depending on the father’s interest in his children and his ability to maintain a
relation-(Received July 26; revision accepted for publication
December 8, 1976.)
Presented in part before the American Association of
Psychiatric Services for Children, San Francisco, November
12, 1976.
ADDRESS FOR REPRINTS: Division of Child and
Adoles-cent Psychiatry, Box 202, University of Virginia Medical
ship with them, this loss to the child may vary from partial to essentially complete. Divorce is also frequently followed by other profound envi-ronmental changes, compounding the losses to which the child is subjected.
The family’s living standard often must be lowered as a result of divorce.”-’2 The new economic status of the family may require that the mother go to work, and her absence from the home involves a further loss to the child.”
The child of school age or adolescence can suffer a significant alteration of his system of emotional supports and outlets by a major move or even a move across town to share a home with grandparents or others.’ For the younger child, the effect of divorce upon finances and domicile has been documented. One study shows that among female heads of households with children under 3, 56% of the divorced mothers were heads of households, as compared with 85% of mothers
who had been widowed.’ This difference is
probably due in large part to the widows’ eligi-bility for social security survivor’s benefits. At any rate, almost half of divorced mothers with
chil-dren under 3 moved in with parents, other
relatives, or friends in some dependent or sharing arrangement.
Another possible loss is that of siblings. This is most likely to occur in economic hardship when the custodial parent is not able to keep the children together. It may also occur when custody decisions divide the sibship. An instance of a 19-month-old child’s developing a severe depression in response to separation from her 3- and 5-year-old siblings has been reported.” The symptoms were very similar to Spitz and Wolf’s’7 descrip-tion of anaclitic depression. In any family, older siblings are very important figures to the younger ones. In the disorganization that frequently attends divorce, older siblings may function very much as parents to the younger ones, and separa-tion from an older sibling can be as disruptive as separation from a parent.
IMPEDIMENTS
TO THE CHILD’S
ADAPTATION
TO LOSS AND TO CHANGE
Certain aspects of the thinking processes of preadolescent and particularly of preschool chil-dren should be taken into account to appreciate how difficult it is for these youngsters to
under-stand the events of the separation phase of
divorce.
Sensitivity to Parental Anger
Many of the difficulties that the child under 8 experiences in the separation phase relate to what Piaget has defined as egocentricity of thought,
describing the child’s propensity to see and understand things in relation to himself only. An older child at the time of his parents’ divorce will have gained a somewhat wider perspective through knowledge, experience, and psychosocial development.”5 The young child lacks a strong sense of self, his feelings about himself being to a great degree reflected from the important adults about him.’9 The younger the child, the more vulnerable he is to his distorted perception of the attitudes of the adults upon whom he depends. For example, an adult can walk into a room and see that others are upset and angry and not
immediately assume that he is somehow the
cause. The child with his egocentric view almost invariably assumes that, if his parents are upset or angry, he is the cause.
Feelings of Guilt, Responsibility,
and Fear
of RetributionAs a result of rivalry or past friction with the departing parent, the child may feel responsible for the disniption of the marriage and for driving that parent away,2022 while at the same time being angry at that parent for leaving. Because of anger and his wishes to be rid of the noncustodial parent, the child may feel guilty and may fear retaliation from that parent.
Besides feelings of guilt and fear of retribution, children generally interpret misfortune as punish-ment. A group of preadolescent children with chronic illnesses were asked why children get sick. Ninety percent responded that children get sick because they are bad.2’
Feelings
of DevaluationThe child tends to interpret separation as an expression of hostility and to assume that the parent’s leaving him is justified by the child’s own failings.24 The child thinks that if he had been smarter, nicer, or had not been so much trouble, the father would not have chosen to leave him.
Guilt
as a Defense Against ExistentialAnxiety
It has been postulated that the feelings of guilt in the child may have some adaptive value in warding off the child’s fear of having no control or influence upon the events that are overwhelming him.25-2” It may seem less dreadful to consider himself the cause of the events that are over-whelming him than to feel that awful events occur arbitrarily.
Fear of Abandonment
care of him if something happened to the custodial parent. In many instances there is a
conscious fear of being abandoned by the
remaining parent, and the concomitant fear of antagonizing that parent.27
The Wish to Reunite the Parents
Children almost invariably wish that the father would return home and that the family would be reunited. Not only does the child miss his father,
but he also rather desperately wishes that all aspects of life would return to normal. No matter how tense and destructive the emotional atmo-sphere of the home prior to the separation, the child hopes for a return to the prior state. Part of this desire relates to the child’s comfort with the familiar, no matter how unpleasant it may have been, in contrast with a fear of the unknown. Another determinant is a wish for relief from the feelings of devaluation and guilt: if the damage to the family is undone, the child need no longer hold himself responsible. For these reasons, chil-dren cling tenaciously to the desire to reunite the family. The failure to give up this wish is probably the element most detrimental to the future adap-tation of the child.
RESOLUTION
OF LOSS AND
ADJUSTMENT
TO THE NEW LIFE
SITUATION
There are many obstacles to the child’s adjust-ing to the changes that the phase of separation brings to his life. He almost invariably feels responsible and has consequent feelings of guilt. He often refrains from asking questions or sharing his ideas about the separation for fear he will anger or upset his mother. His reluctance to express his feelings directly tends to limit his ability to grieve his losses and to alter his distorted perspective of the separation and of his role in
it;”-#{149}”If the child can be helped in a constructive
way to think about his feelings of responsibility, guilt, and devaluation, then some of these feelings about himself might not be eventually incorpo-rated in his self-concept. Similarly, if the child can review the past and acknowledge his losses, he is less likely to unrealistically work toward or await the reunion of his parents, thus impairing his own investment in new relationships and in other aspects of his new life.
IMPEDIMENTS
TO THE PARENT’S
ASSISTING
THE CHILD
The child’s successful adaptation to the
changes in his life are complicated not only by his own tendencies to distort and avoid; the custodial
parent also tends to impede the process of griev-ing in the child. When death of a parent occurs, the surviving spouse has characteristically been noted to promote in the child avoidance and denial of the finality of death.” In the case of divorce, where the absent parent is usually
deval-ned rather than idealized as in death, the
custodial parent can be expected to have difficul-ties in being able to help the child deal with the various losses that he is sustaining. As a result of the hostility frequently shared by former spouses,
the custodial parent may be quite unable to
facilitate the child’s mourning of the noncustodial parent. When the child requires empathy for his anger, sadness, and his wishes to reunite the family, the custodial parent often finds it very difficult to be sympathetic and supportive because she frequently is in considerable emotion-al turmoil herself.
Mothers in the phase of separation have been shown to be quite unaware of difficulties their children are having. A study of nursery school children found that the great majority of these
children whose parents were divorcing were
extremely sensitive to the disruptions of their parents’ divorce.42 In contrast, another investi-gator found that only 18% of divorced mothers reported their children as having problems around the time of divorce.3’ McDermott suggests that in many instances mothers simply avoid their children’s problems and may observe a “morato-rium for mothering.”2
A major factor that directly affects the relation-ship of either parent with the child is guilt. Feelings of guilt for the dissolution of the marriage almost always exist, and these are perhaps strongest in relation to the children: the parent tends to interpret the child’s unhappiness as a personal indictment’ and may respond either by being intolerant of the expression of anger or sadness or by denying its existence. In either case, the child is unable to share his feelings, discharge his emotions, and progress with grieving and adaptation. It is common for mothers to report that their children have never asked about their father’s absence following separation.
INTERVENTION
Assisting the Father
of affection and concern can significantly aid the child in his adjustment to his new situation. The father often finds visiting his children a difficult task: he may not wish to chance an encounter with their mother, and he may have had little experience relating to his children independently of the mother. He may be quite intimidated by the challenges of visitation and thus fail to main-tam contact with his children. Such reluctance is complicated by his own reactions to loss and, perhaps, frank depression associated with the divorce.’5
The pediatrician may be reluctant to deal with
the father, whom he may tend to perceive
through the distorted view of the mother, the parent most likely to be seeking consultation for the children. The pediatrician should also be sensitive to the father’s suspicion of him as his ex-wife’s agent and must take pains to avoid taking sides in the parental dispute.’638 He might take the initiative to arrange routinely a conference with the father in the separation phase to orient the father to his continuing importance to his children. The father should be encouraged to visit his children and to continue to consult with the pediatrician regarding them.
Assisting the Mother
A woman newly divorced may be sensitive to social disapproval in spite of the wide acceptance of divorce: she may be ambivalent about the divorce for any number of reasons and easily upset by any questions about its inevitability. She frequently has suffered considerable injury to her self-esteem as a result of the deteriorating rela-tionship with her spouse. Granted the custody of her children, she is very likely to find that the now solitary task of supporting and managing them has aspects that are new and frightening. She may experience unexpected difficulty in combining a full- or part-time job with the demands of the household she now heads. The mother has a need herself to assimilate and master the emotionally traumatic process of separation and the realities of its aftermath, as do her children, and she may likely require some help in doing so. The pedia-trician can first hear and support the mother and then aid the mother in the management of her children.
The mother’s new role as the solitary head of the family is a uniquely stressful one. Yet her continuing ability to carry out parenting func-tions is surely the most critical issue in the successful adjustment of her children following divorce.”’ The new one-parent family is a fragile system that is dependent upon a high degree of
coping capacity on the part of the head of the family.
Several important issues are associated specifi-cally with the one-parent status of the new family system. There often tends to be a blurring of generation boundaries between parent and child
or children. When a parent no longer has a
marital partner with whom to share her or his life, there is an understandable tendency to elevate children of any age to a status approaching that of a peer. A concrete example of this is the frequent occurrence following divorce of the custodial mother’s sharing her bed or bedroom with a child. Discipline may become a problem because the custodial mother was not previously the sole disciplinarian of the family, and because the newly ambiguous generation boundaries make it hard for the mother to discipline a child who may in some respects function as a peer. While some of the blurring of generation boundaries is inevitable and may even have some beneficial maturing influence on the child, the pediatrician should be sensitive to problems that may arise from the decreased age-appropriate distance between cus-todial parent and children. Many of the problems of this type involve the child’s responding with anxiety to self- or parent-generated expectations to take a more responsible, adult-like role. When a child and parent are of opposite sexes, and particularly when the child is approaching or has already attained sexual maturity, the child’s anxiety may be particularly high. The parent’s loneliness should first be acknowledged, but then a discussion of age-appropriate roles for the child and of the importance of maintaining more tradi-tional generation boundaries in general should follow and should help to relieve the child’s anxieties. The parent may find organizations such as Parents Without Partners to be very helpful regarding his or her personal needs at this time.
alluded to previously. The pediatrician can emphasize to the mother the feeling of security the child achieves when the parent can maintain
a certain degree of structure and authority with him.
A more deep-seated type of antisocial behavior is related to a process in which the prior family discord between wife and husband is recreated by mother and son. The mother tends to identify the boy with his absent father, and to transfer her negative feelings toward the father to the son. The mother thereby tends to cast the boy into the absent father’s role, and the boy identifies with the mother’s antisocial image of him.”4’ This type of problem usually warrants early referral of the family to a child psychiatrist.
Antisocial behavior may also arise from a third source, unrelated to the sex or coping ability of the custodial parent or to the sex of the child. This third source is depression due to unresolved loss. Antisocial behavior as a defense against depres-sion is a phenomenon that is increasingly being recognized in a variety of situations.4244 Follow-ing divorce, the girl or boy may react to internal-ized feelings of vulnerability and passive helpless-ness with a vigorous and active denial of
depres-sion that is manifested by antisocial behavior.-45
It is hoped that measures of the type suggested in this article will facilitate the child’s resolution of
loss and reduce the frequency or severity of this type of depression in children of either sex, whether or not they erect a defense against the depression that results in antisocial behavior.
Assisting the Child
Once the mother or custodial parent feels accepted by the pediatrician and feels assured of his interest in her problems, she can be engaged by him in a collaborative alliance designed to help her children. The mother or custodial parent can help children express feelings about the divorce at opportune times.
The child overcome by panic or anxiety tends to externalize his concerns and fears.46 When harboring painful feelings of loss, the child is likely to express concrete concerns about having sufficient supplies in terms of food, clothes, or being able to continue dancing lessons. The parent should be warned that this is not a new mean, mercenary trait in the child, but that this is the child’s normal mode of expression. Most important, such expression offers the parent an opportunity to help the child to progress further in integrating his losses. For example, after a divorce-related move, a girt may complain about the size of her new room or the need to share it
with her sister. After sympathizing with the complaint, the mother might add that a lot of things have been different and difficult because of the separation. The child may then be able to express some of her feelings of anger, sadness, and wish to reunite the family and thereby achieve considerable relief. Not only can she obtain some emotional release and some help in placing things in perspective, but then the divorce itself can become a topic of family discussion on the same basis as other important matters.
It may also be important for the parents to provide reassurance regarding their children’s externalized, concrete concerns that have some reality basis. The great amount of separation
anxiety stimulated by the separation phase suggests that many children might find some relief if they could be directly and realistically reassured by both parents, if possible, of the parents’ desire and intent to take care of them.
Due to children’s continuing wish that their parents come back together, they are likely to misinterpret events and communications in ways that support this fantasy. Parents should be made aware of their children’s wish that they reconcile and should be counseled to keep it clear to their children that the separation and divorce are final.
For children who will have limited contact with the noncustodial parent, it is useful for the
custodial parent to enlist a relative or friend of the same sex as the child to take an interest in him and include him in activities. Such a person will help to reduce the disruption of the sexual iden-tification process and keep the newly constituted family group from excessive turning in on itself. The continued interest of the same-sexed adult may also help counteract the child’s tendency to self-devaluation that may arise from his feeling of being abandoned by a parent.
Ideally, the custodial parent is the person who should discuss the divorce with the child. When
the custodial parent cannot carry out the
suggested maneuvers, or if the child continues to
be symptomatic with sadness, anxiety, poor
school performance, or attention-seeking or
reaction, a gentle therapeutic approach to the
child’s feelings of responsibility offers promise of considerable relief in a short period of time.
The following cases provide examples Of inter-vention applicable to the practice of either a behavioral pediatrician or a child psychiatrist.
Direct Work With the Child. Seven-year-old
J
ane was brought because of poor sleeping imme-diately following her father’s leaving the home preparatory to divorce. With little hesitation Janeattributed her wakefulness at night to her
anxiously listening for her mother’s packing her
bags and slipping out of the house under cover of darkness.
In the second play session Jane started loading the Playskool children into the cement mixer to be punished for the rest of their lives. She elaborated that they were being punished because they had been mean. The therapist mentioned that sometimes when bad things happen to people they think they have done something bad to deserve it, and wondered if Jane, like a lot of
other children in her situation, had some ideas that her parents divorced because of her. She became tearful and said that she did think that, but could not figure out what she had done. The therapist said that he knew enough about her parents’ troubles to know that they separated
because of themselves and not because of
anything important that Jane had done. Jane talked more about this in the session, alternating between saying that she knew she did not do anything wrong and that she knew she did. Jane was seen for two subsequent sessions with marked
reduction in nightmares, fears of abandonment, and a return to her interest and involvement in peer activities.
Direct Work With the Family Group. Six-year-old Tom was initially seen because of encopresis. It immediately became evident, however, that the entire family was suffering from the parents’ severe marital conflict, which included violent verbal and physical fighting. The mother was determined to terminate the marriage, while the
father was determined to resurrect it. The thera-pist suggested a meeting of the entire family,
consisting of the parents, a brother aged 15, sisters aged 1 1 and 9, and Tom. In spite of vigorous attempts by each parent to ally the therapist against the other spouse, they both saw the therapist as being interested in their son and in each of them, and they were able to agree to such a meeting.
In the family meeting the therapist said he knew of their parents’ troubles and the fighting, and that he knew that the situation was very
difficult for the children as well. The therapist then asked the children in turn how they felt when their parents were angry with each other. The older brother wished the father would leave but expressed the fear that mother would turn against him as he felt she had turned against the father. He was also fearful of leaving the home for fear his mother would provoke his father into a dangerous fight. The two girls told about retreat-ing to their rooms and turning up the phono-graph to drown out the sound of the fighting. One of the girls talked and cried about the death of her cat, an event that had been given only casual mention previously. Tom expressed the fear that his parents would hurt, even kill, each other. All the children expected their parents to divorce and feared for their dancing lessons, bicycles, or whatever activities or possessions they valued, for fear these would have to be given up in the financial stresses of divorce.
The parents were quite surprised by the chil-dren’s fears for the future and their sensitivity to the parental conflict, and were able to provide some reassurance to their children. The therapist said it was important for all of them to understand the family situation as best they could, and that that was the major purpose in meeting together. The therapist remarked that often children feel they are the cause of their parents’ fighting and wondered if any of them had ever felt that way. Getting no response other than an uncomfortable silence, the therapist went on to say that since their parents sometimes argue about money, it would be easy for one of the children to worry about being the cause of the trouble due to some expense or because of things that have been lost or destroyed or worn out. The two girls were able, in a tentative way, to mention similar thoughts of their own. It was pointed out that while things
like that sometimes happened, and it did
displease their parents, the problems their parents
were having had much more to do with each
other than with anyone else. The therapist noted that they were all upset and unhappy, and that it was useful for all of them to know that about the others. It was suggested that the children talk with each other and with their parents in the future when they are scared by their parents’ behavior. This family will continue to be seen on at least an occasional basis with the goal of mitigating for all family members the destructive effects of the parents’ conflict and apparently inevitable separation.
children were, in addition, helped to gain some emotional distance between themselves and their parents’ anger.
CONCLUSION
The pediatrician can significantly help children involved in the separation phase of divorce through parent guidance and through direct work with children and families if the pediatrician has the appropriate training and interest. The pedia-trician can be alert to the child’s interpretation of the events taking place about him and can help the parents to mitigate their children’s tendency to implicate themselves as the cause of the divorce. An important goal is to help the parents to make a broad range of topics associated with separation and divorce ones that can be talked about within the family, hopefully ending the conspiracy of silence that so often impairs chil-dren’s adaptive capacity. Children can benefit from adult aid to help them accept the new facts of their lives and to free them from excessive involvement with the past and unrealistic hopes for the future.
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ERRATUM
