Gains and losses for children

Troubled parents sometimes ask whether they should stay together for the sake of the children or separate with a view to remaining single, cohabit or remarry. There are no easy answers to this complex question.

Ultimately, each parent must decide, preferably with professional help, what is best for his/her family. What works for one family may not be right for another.

As far as the families involved are concerned, the moment of legal separation is just a part of a long drawn-out process that begins with disagreements and arguments and, in some cases, leads to pervasive and destructive conflict that sadly carries on for years even after the legal dissolution of the marriage.

H. Rudolph Schaffer, professor of psychology, puts it this way in his book Making Decisions About Children: "Any psychological disturbance found in children of divorced parents may well have resulted from the period when the family was still together rather than from the legal dissolution of the marriage and the consequent loss of close contact with one of the parents". A recent University of Alberta study suggests that couples in a conflict-ridden marriage who stay together for the sake of the children are not necessarily making the right choice. The study points out that the most harm to a child's mental health is done in the years preceding the dissolution of marriage.

The notion that parental divorce is an experience that will continue to reverberate negatively throughout childhood and well into adolescence and adulthood needs to be treated with caution. For, among other factors, one can refer to the recuperative powers of children, given favourable circumstances.

In an article titled Resilience In The Face Of Adversity, Sir Michael Rutter, professor of child psychiatry, lists a number of factors that protect and buffer children from being damaged in life. His clinical experience led him to believe that some children, with everything against them, thrived, whereas others, with less to cope with, succumbed.

Some of the protective factors Prof. Rutter refers to are the following: assistance to make sure the child makes sense of what has happened, guiding the child to act and not react, maintaining the child's self-esteem and ensuring the child continues to interact appropriately with his/her parents and significant others.

One needs also to bear in mind a whole configuration of factors that influence the process of adjustment: the age and sex of the child, the nature of previous relationships with each of the parents, the arrangements made for custody and access, the quality of life in the single-parent family or cohabiting parents and so on.

That any failed marriage is hurtful, sometimes deeply to children at all ages, cannot, of course, be discounted, yet from a long-term point of view, divorce may well be the lesser of two evils. This cold hard fact must be faced squarely by both parents.

In his book Helping Children Cope With Divorce, Edward Tyler, director of the Psychology Clinic at California State University writes: "This much is known: It is not in the children's best interests for unhappy married couples to stay together when this exposes children to chronic marital conflict.

"Researchers have consistently found that children adjust better in split homes that function well than in conflict-ridden marriages. More specifically, a harmonious intact family is best for children but a harmonious divorced environment is better than a disharmonious divorce".

I am in no doubt that family stability and life-time commitment are ideals to be vigorously pursued. However, divorce as a result of a conflict-ridden marriage may not only protect the physical, emotional and mental health of the couple involved but also the psychological well-being of their children.

My professional experience in working with families leads me to believe that not all parents are able or willing to assume the responsibilities associated with child-rearing.

Some children are abandoned, given away or compulsorily removed from home on care orders and substitute arrangements for their care must then be made.

Children and young persons are capable of forming attachments to parent-figures. There is nothing wrong in human nature to prevent this occurring.

Most of the children and young persons I worked with made the transition to an adoptive home or to a reconstituted home successfully; some did react adversely.

It follows that divorce must sometimes be regarded as a positive solution - one that has gains for children as well as losses.