posted 15th August 2023
How Divorce Affects Children: What Parents Can Control
Parents going through a divorce worry most about the children. It is usually the first thing raised and the thing people feel least able to influence.
The research points somewhere more useful than most parents expect.
It is the conflict rather than the divorce
There is strong evidence that conflict between parents which is frequent, intense and poorly resolved harms children's mental health and their longer term outcomes. That holds whether the parents are together, separated or divorced.
What the evidence does not show is that separation by itself causes the damage. Where a separation happens between parents who are not in sustained conflict, it does not predict the same problems.
That distinction matters, because conflict is something parents can do something about. The divorce itself is already decided.
What children actually notice
- Arguments they overhear, including the ones parents believe are private
- Being asked questions about the other parent
- Sensing that money is uncertain, without being told anything
- Being used to pass messages between two adults who are not speaking
- Loyalty pressure, spoken or unspoken
Very little of that list is about the divorce. Most of it is about how the divorce is conducted.
Why the financial settlement is part of this
A contested financial case takes months, sometimes longer. Every hearing is another round of conflict, another period of uncertainty and another stretch of both parents being preoccupied and short tempered. Children live alongside all of it.
Reaching agreement without a court fight removes the single largest source of sustained conflict from the household. It also settles the money, which removes the uncertainty children pick up on even when nobody explains it to them.
Child maintenance forms part of that settlement. Getting it agreed and recorded means it stops being something to argue about every month.
What helps
- Keep the detail of the dispute away from the children
- Do not ask them to carry messages or report back
- Hold the routine steady where it can be held
- Tell them what has been decided rather than leaving them to guess
- Settle the finances as quickly as both parties reasonably can
The part most parents underestimate
Choosing how to resolve the finances is a decision about the children as much as a decision about money. A negotiated settlement is quicker, cheaper and far less adversarial than a contested application. It also leaves both parents able to speak to each other afterwards, which matters for years.
