Heart-rending proof there’s NEVER a good time for parents to divorce

From babies to teens, Britain’s most respected parenting guru reveals the shattering effect of family break-ups — and how you can try to ease the pain

THE break-up of a family isn’t an event; it’s a process — and often a very long and slow one. Even if one partner has left home, swearing ‘That’s it’, almost certainly he’ll have to come back. He’ll be round for his stuff, for agonising conversations, rows and accusations — and maybe he’ll have moments of nostalgic regret when the toddler he’s left behind holds up her arms to greet him.

This is adult business at its most intense. And if you’re going through it, you won’t have much attention to spare for anyone or anything else — including your children. But family breakdown is children’s business, too.

At the same time, wishful thinking may make you under-estimate the impact of your separation on them. New research suggests you’re most likely to under-rate just how much it’s affecting the two age groups at the extremes of childhood: babies and toddlers at one end, and teenagers and young adults at the other.

It’s much less likely that you’ll miss signs of unhappiness, bewilderment and anger in schoolage children. They usually make it all too clear that something’s bothering them, though they are often reluctant to talk about it.

So, divorcing parents should try not to think about their children collectively as ‘the kids’, which implies they’re all going through the same problems. They’re not.

Instead, parents need to concentrate on each child as a separate person, at a different stage of development, who has their own needs.

BABIES

YOU may believe that as long as your baby is being adequately cared for by familiar people, he or she will be unaffected by adult upheavals.

But the truth is that your sixmonth-old needs at least as much thought and attention as the fouryear- old who’s wetting himself or refusing to go to nursery.

Above all, a baby needs to attach himself to at least one particular adult who is devoted to him.

If he has no such person, receives minimal or inappropriate adult attention or lives in a home full of anger or even violence, then his brain structure and chemistry will begin to adapt defensively. He may develop strong fear and anger reactions or intense attack and defence impulses in the deep, primitive part of his brain.

If, as the weeks pass, his brain continues to be suffused with stress hormones, he may start to become hyper-vigilant and disproportionately upset by small things.

On the other hand, when a mother (it’s usually the mother, but it can be the father or someone else who is the primary care-giver) cuddles and plays with the baby, listens to him, laughs with him and comforts him, the connections that form in his brain will be very different.

Indeed, he’ll be well on the way to becoming someone who can cope with emotional extremes and form close relationships with people.

The more a mother tunes into her baby’s feelings, the more likely it is that a secure attachment will grow. And this is key, because attachment is a survival mechanism.

Every baby needs at least one special person to attach himself to (two are even better). In the first year of life, that’s usually his mother.

Studies show it’s the principal caregiver’s loving response to a baby during his first months that raises the levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin in his rapidly developing brain.

If a mother or f ather i s too depressed, sad or angry to behave normally, then the baby’s serotonin levels may remain low. In short, secure attachment to his mother or other primary care-giver is crucial to a baby’s brain development and therefore to his whole future.

And once a baby/mother attachment is under way, losing it — partially or completely — will delay or distort t hat development. So, if your marriage or partnership is disintegrating when your baby i s under a year old, you need to be hyper-aware of the very real ri sk of negative effects on him. It’s all too easy to assume that as long as he’s being looked after by someone else — say, a nanny or babysitter — then that’s enough. It isn’t. Your baby needs someone who bears him constantly in mind, who notices when he smiles, who talks to him and plays with him.

Sadly, though, these are the very things likely to be put at risk by the misery and upheaval of divorce.

And for a loving father who hasn’t been much involved in caring for the baby, one of the most difficult things he may have to face is that right now it’s more important to a baby to be with his mother than with him.

It takes true selflessness for a dad to put his baby’s feelings ahead of his own.

However, the plain fact is that a baby or toddler doesn’t need to spend whole days and nights or weekends with his father in order to form a secure relationship with him. The two of them can become securely attached just by spending mutually enjoyable time together during the day.

If things can only be enjoyable for the baby if he’s within reach of mum, she may have to be selfless in her turn and let the father come to the baby’s home.

What will definitely not help the relationship between them is if a father forces a baby or toddler to leave his mother. This is counterproductive as well as cruel. A baby who cries and clings and has to be peeled off his mother will not remember the nice time he eventually had with Daddy, but the distress of the parting.

TODDLERS

CHILDREN between 20 months and five years usually react to the separation of their parents with a mixture of grief and rage. And the ones who react most negatively are often those aged three.

One reason for this is that early toddlerhood is a stage of development when all children, even those in the most secure families, tend to suffer from separation anxiety or the fear of losing a parent.

At this point, a child’s brain is only just becoming able to hold on to an image of you when he can’t see you, and therefore he’s only beginning to understand that when you go away you still exist and will come back.

So, when one parent — let’s be realistic and say Daddy — moves

out, he really is lost to the child. Lots of visits in the daytime will help the child to believe in his vanishing father’s continued existence and to have confidence in his reappearances. But in the meantime, he’ll probably experience daily life as a miserable muddle.

Having ‘lost’ Daddy, he will be desperately anxious about losing Mummy. He’s likely to cry far more often — and for longer than before — and to be extra demanding.

If the child is a boy, he may seem angry and restless as well as sad.

Some girls react similarly; others completely differently. You may find your daughter suddenly behaving like a small adult, trying to take care of herself instead of seeking adult help, and perhaps becoming worryingly concerned with being ‘a good girl’ and keeping her clothes clean.

Insecurity, anger and sadness make a potent mixture. And in a large enough dose, they can slow up, halt or even reverse a child’s development. Newly dry beds may be wetted again, for instance, or the loo rejected in favour of a nappy.

Unfortunately, your child is demanding more of you just when it would be easier for you to give less. And if you do give less — because you can’t help it — his demands will escalate.

Above all, don’t expect him to understand you are having a tough time and need him to be ‘good’. He doesn’t know that spilling his cereal was the last straw for you.

Try not to stick any problem labels on him, which so easily becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell your toddler he’s naughty and nasty, he’ll live up to that view and may come to share it himself.

So, try to hang onto the truth — which is that he’s very young; family life is difficult right now; you aren’t perfect and shouldn’t expect yourself to be; and things will eventually change for the better.

AGES 4 TO 7

SADNESS and frequent crying are often the main reaction, but tears are unlikely to be only about missing a parent.

These children are overwhelmingly sad because they assume that the parent who’s moved out of the family home has rejected them.

As well as blaming himself, the child may also be worried about both parents, and will almost certainly be desperately hoping to get them back together again.

In this case, there’s a real risk of depression and a high probability of a drop in school performance.

Boys this age whose fathers leave the family home are likely to be more distressed than girls, however regularly their fathers visit.

AGES 8 TO 11

THESE children may be angry with one or both parents, both during and after the break-up.

They’re likely to take sides against whichever parent is seen as having fractured family life and often a child’s limited understanding means he blames the wrong parent.

For instance, he may blame his mother for forcing his father to leave the family home, when the reason she took a stand was an ongoing affair.

Though anger is the dominant emotion in this age group, many children are also enormously concerned for their parents’ wellbeing and frightened about what’s going to happen to Mummy and Daddy.

Often, they try to take care of the parent at home, trying to act like parents themselves. At school, there’s a 50:50 chance performance will drop off — as well as selfconfidence and concentration.

Boys are more susceptible than girls to becoming withdrawn and to ‘acting out’ their feelings through unacceptable behaviour.

Children of either sex may also have psychosomatic symptoms, such as headaches and bellyaches.

These are not made up; the pain is real, but the basic cause is emotional rather than physical.

AGES 12 TO 15

A 13-YEAR-OLD’S concern over a family break-up may be less obvious than a nine-year- old’s, but it will probably be even more intense — and potentially more hazardous. Even teenagers with stable home l i ves t end t o be emotional, im impulsive and liable to take risks.

When a 12 or 13-year-old is less c carefully supervised than before, he can sometimes seek refuge with groups of older children.

At that point, there’s a real risk of him joining in with inappropriate activities — such as drug-taking, u underage drinking and sex, and possibly shoplifting or other antisocial or illegal behaviour.

An opposite reaction, which is s seen almost exclusively among girls, is when a teenager tries to cope with her loneliness, confusion a and guilt by helping to run a fr fractured household or to care for y younger children.

If you’re struggling to work fullt time as a single parent, your a adolescent’s help may be crucial.

But if she’s expected to care for y younger siblings and do domestic chores, she’s actually doing a parttime job. It’s one thing for her to feel needed — which is good — but quite another for her presence to be indispensable.

She needs to be encouraged to go out with friends and to make her homework a priority.

AGE 16 UPWARDS

IT ISN’T uncommon for parents to drift on in a loveless marriage until the children leave home — and then split up.

If you’ve stayed together ‘for the sake of the children’, you have given them stability, but you may also have presented them with a chilly model of adult relationships.

What’s more, the break-up, when it comes, may not be any easier for these nearly adult children than it would have been years ago.

Your teenager probably assumed you were reasonably happy together ( or hadn’t given the matter any thought), yet he’s now being told your separation has long been planned.

Therefore, he’s liable to feel that if your relationship with each other was a lie, then so was his whole childhood — i ncluding your relationship with him.

So, a late family break-up will have an enormous impact on a young person’s sense of himself and his family history.

Try not to assume that at 19 or even 20 your children are grown-up enough to be able to understand why you’ve split up, let alone be ‘sensible’ about it and ‘fair’ to both of you.

Above all, don’t assume that because they have sexual relationships themselves, they’ll sympathise with a parent’s affair.

Young people are often judgmental about their parents’ behaviour and intensely embarrassed if they’re forced to acknowledge their parents’ sexuality. The less you confide in them, the better.

Don’t assume, either, that almost adult children who scarcely spend any time at home are unconcerned about your relationships.

Their family and their home — particularly their room — are important to them as the safe base to which they can return when outside life gets too problematic.

Be aware, too, that regular arrangements for spending time with their other parent may get more and more difficult.

Older teenagers want to be with their friends. Encouraging them to invite friends to come with them may help to keep up their enthusiasm for weekends with their father (or mother). Or Dad might offer to meet them for supper and a movie near his former partner’s home.

Crucially, be aware that your almost adult son or daughter will be finding your divorce problematic, too.