This programme is a treatment manual written for mental health professionals. It assumes clinical training, experience of working with children, adolescents and their families, knowledge of screening for domestic violence and of the rules of child protection, and a supervision framework. It replaces neither your clinical judgement nor your professional responsibility. Diagnostic categories are reformulated in our own words and never reproduced: refer to the original manuals for the wording itself. It is not written for the parents or the children concerned: if you, or a child, are in danger today, contact your country's emergency services, or a helpline specialising in domestic violence or in children at risk.
1. The programme at a glance
Indication. A child or adolescent aged 6 to 17 whose parents are separating or have separated, who shows distress that is stronger or longer-lasting than what is expected in the first months, or who remains exposed to conflict between their parents; and their parents, or one of them. The programme begins only after separate interviews that have checked each person's safety (section 9), and it does not replace the treatment of an established disorder in the child (section 3).
Reference model. The evaluated prevention programmes for separated families. For the parents, the New Beginnings Program of Wolchik, Sandler and their colleagues, which targets the quality of the relationship between parent and child, consistent discipline, and protecting the child from conflict (Wolchik et al., 2000; Sandler et al., 2020). For the child, group programmes centred on expressing emotions, correcting mistaken ideas and coping skills, among them the Children of Divorce Intervention Program (Pedro-Carroll and Cowen, 1985). For co-parenting, that is, the way the two parents exercise their role together, work on their communication, and mediation (Emery et al., 2001). This manual adapts their published principles to individual work, without reproducing their materials.
Format. Three assessment sessions (É1 to É3) of 75 minutes: each parent alone, then the child. Eight sessions of the parent module (P1 to P8) of 60 minutes, held separately with each parent who takes part. Six sessions of the child module (E1 to E6), of 45 minutes before the age of 12 and of 50 minutes after that, which begin after session P2. And one joint session (C) of 75 minutes with both parents, only if safety allows. For you, that makes 17 sessions when only one parent takes part, and at most 26 when both take part and the joint session takes place, over about three months. Three booster sessions follow, at one, three and six months after the last session.
Mechanism targeted. The separation cannot be undone, but what the child experiences of it can be changed: that they are less exposed to conflict and no longer placed in the middle; that each parent keeps a warm relationship with them and discipline that is kept up; and that they form an accurate idea of what happened — it is not their fault, they do not have to choose, they do not have to repair it.
| Session |
Focus |
Session output |
| É1 |
The first parent, alone |
Safety assessed, request and history gathered |
| É2 |
The second parent, alone |
Safety assessed, agreement to the child's treatment |
| É3 |
The child |
What they are going through, in their own words, and baseline measures |
| P1 |
What protects a child |
The circle drawn, the record begun |
| P2 |
Time together |
A one-to-one moment set each week |
| P3 |
Listening |
A conversation listened to without advising |
| P4 |
Out of the middle |
The four places taken away from the child |
| P5 |
Talking to the other parent |
A way of communicating chosen and written down |
| P6 |
Rules that are kept |
Three rules and their consequences written down |
| P7 |
Two homes |
Handovers without conflict |
| P8 |
Review and plan |
Measures repeated, written plan |
| E1 |
Getting to know each other |
The family told or drawn |
| E2 |
What I feel |
Emotions named and rated from 0 to 10 |
| E3 |
What is not my fault |
Two mistaken ideas corrected |
| E4 |
What I can change |
One problem solved, another left to the adults |
| E5 |
Not in the middle |
A sentence for getting out of the middle, rehearsed |
| E6 |
What I keep |
Written plan, message prepared for the parents |
| C |
The joint session |
A written co-parenting agreement |
What the family takes away. Nine printable worksheets, listed in section 42: five for the parents, three for the child, and a safety worksheet handed only to a parent exposed to danger, in an individual interview.
What distinguishes this programme from the other manuals on this site. Three things. The target is neither the child alone nor the couple, but what surrounds the child after the separation: the conflict they are exposed to and each parent's parenting. Each parent works separately on their own part, because a single parent who changes is enough to reduce what the child goes through. And safety comes before everything, down to the caution required by the notion of "parental alienation", which is not a diagnosis (section 10). Couple therapy: a therapist's manual helps a couple decide whether to stay together or separate; this manual begins when the separation has been decided or has happened.
2. Before you begin
The five preliminary decisions
Is there violence, coercive control or danger to the child? That is section 9, the only one that can stop the programme. The question is put to each parent alone, and to the child alone.
Who can authorise the child's treatment? After a separation, both parents most often keep parental authority, that is, the whole of the rights and duties they have towards their child (a provision of French law; elsewhere, the local equivalent), and, as a precaution, regular treatment is undertaken with the agreement of both. Section 11.
Does the child need this programme, or a treatment? Adjustment distress, even intense, falls within this programme; an established disorder falls first within its own treatment. Section 3.
Are there legal proceedings under way? A request for a consultation sometimes hides a request for a written statement, and you will be neither the expert nor the witness of either parent. Section 11.
Is the parent who is consulting well enough to look after their child? Depression, substance use or exhaustion in the parent weigh directly on the child, and they are treated in parallel. Section 8.
What this programme does not treat
A situation of ongoing violence. Section 9 says what is done instead, and the programme Coercive control: recognising it and getting free may be indicated for the parent who is subjected to it.
An established disorder in the child, which falls within the manuals cited in section 3; the parent module can accompany those treatments.
What belongs to family mediation (a provision of French law; elsewhere, the local equivalent), to a lawyer or to an expert assessment. You help the parents protect their child; you do not settle residence, property or anyone's rights.
The couple. Two parents who are still hesitating about separating belong to Couple therapy: a therapist's manual.
The parent's own distress, when it is in the foreground: it is treated elsewhere, for example following Treating depression in adults: a therapist's manual.
How to use it
Read the whole thing before the first session, in particular sections 5, 6, 9, 10 and 35: what harms the child, the model, safety, the child who refuses to see a parent, and protecting the child from conflict. These are the five places where the work turns. Each session follows the same framework: the aim, the steps, what you say, the common errors, and the criterion for moving on.
Three warnings specific to this reason for consultation.
Each parent expects an ally in you. They will tell you about the other, often convincingly, and they will sometimes be right; yet you work only with what each of them can change themselves, and you never judge a parent you have not met.
The child is neither a witness nor a messenger. You will be asked to get them to say where they want to live, or to pass on what they said. That is not your role, and their words, taken out of the session, can be turned against them.
And separation is not an illness. Most children of separated parents are doing well (section 5). Treating a child as ill because their parents are separating is a mistake; failing to see the one who is not doing well is another.
3. Four presentations not to be confused
1. The expected reaction
What you observe. In the first months, sadness, anger, worry, tears at departures, difficulty getting to sleep, a temporary drop in school results, somatic complaints, and in the youngest a return to behaviours of a younger age, often concentrated around the moves from one home to the other.
What points the way. The intensity remains proportionate, it decreases over the months, and the child essentially keeps going to school, seeing friends and playing.
What this implies. Information for the parents, and above all protecting the child from conflict. The parent module alone is often enough, sometimes the public programme Supporting a child or adolescent through their parents' separation. You reassess at three months.
2. Marked adjustment difficulties
What you observe. Distress that lasts, that spreads to several areas and that clearly affects the child's life: emerging school refusal, withdrawal, daily outbursts of anger, repeated somatic complaints, open conflict with one of the parents.
What points the way. The link with the separation and its aftermath is clear, and the picture does not meet the criteria of another disorder. It often corresponds to an adjustment disorder (section 7).
What this implies. The programme described here, in full.
3. An established disorder
What you observe. An anxiety disorder, for example separation anxiety that goes beyond the handovers; a depressive episode; post-traumatic stress disorder, in particular after exposure to violence; an oppositional disorder; anxiety-based school refusal.
What points the way. The picture meets the criteria of a disorder, it has its own dynamic, and it will not give way to a reduction in conflict alone.
What this implies. You treat the disorder with the corresponding manual (section 8), and the parent module can be run in parallel.
4. A child in danger
What you observe. A child exposed to violence between their parents, maltreated or neglected, left in the care of a parent whose substance use puts them in danger, threatened with abduction, or who is afraid of one of their parents.
What points the way. The fear, the child's accounts, physical signs, a parent's words describing a specific danger.
What this implies. Protection first (section 9). The programme waits.
The three sorting questions
"Since when, and is it decreasing?" It separates the expected reaction from difficulties that are becoming established.
"What does your child see and hear of your disagreements?" It measures exposure to conflict, the programme's main target.
"Is anyone in the family afraid of anyone?" It is put to each parent alone and to the child alone, and it opens section 9.
4. What the child goes through, by age
Age changes the way the child understands the separation, and therefore the mistaken ideas they form about it, which the child module works on (session E3).
From 6 to 8 years
The child still readily thinks that what happens around them depends on them. They look for what they did to make their parents separate, and they may believe that by being very good they will bring them back together. They often fear that the parent who left will not come back, and that the other will leave in turn. You see tears at departures, fears at bedtime, a return to younger behaviours.
From 9 to 12 years
The child understands the situation better, and judges it. They may name someone responsible, take the side of the parent they see suffering, hold it against the one who left. Anger and somatic complaints are more frequent than visible sadness. They are sometimes ashamed in front of their classmates, and they try to sort out themselves what is wrong: carrying the messages, consoling a parent, avoiding touchy subjects.
From 13 to 17 years
The adolescent understands, judges and takes a position. Some distance themselves from the family; others become a parent's confidant or support, a place that is not theirs. Risk-taking behaviours, substance use, school difficulties and suicidal ideas are asked about explicitly. They often want to give their opinion on residence: they have the right to be heard, which is not the same as deciding (section 11).
What is common to all ages
Handovers concentrate the tension. A child who comes back "impossible" from a weekend at the other parent's is often reacting to the transition itself more than to what happened there. Saying so to the parents defuses many accusations.
The loyalty conflict. Loving one seems to betray the other. The child resolves it by keeping quiet, or by telling each parent what they think that parent wants to hear.
Painful memories that are not an illness. Many children keep sadness and distressing memories of this period for a long time without presenting a disorder; Kelly and Emery (2003) propose distinguishing these painful memories from pathology, a distinction that is useful to make in front of the parents.
What should raise the alarm, at any age: distress that does not decrease after several months, withdrawal, a refusal to go to school, talk of death, self-harm, a manifest fear of a parent, a persistent refusal to see them (section 10).
5. What harms, and what protects
What the meta-analyses show
Children of separated parents do slightly less well on average, and most of them are doing well. A meta-analysis of 92 studies found lower well-being in them than in children whose parents had stayed together, with a median difference of 0.14 standard deviations, that is, a small one (Amato and Keith, 1991); its update on 67 studies from the 1990s found this difference again for school results, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept and social relationships (Amato, 2001). The majority of children of separated parents are well adjusted emotionally, and what happens in the family after the separation strongly predicts which ones will do badly and which will adapt (Kelly and Emery, 2003). Trajectories vary a great deal: separation brings relief to some, takes others through a temporary dip in their well-being, and sets others on a downward path from which they may never fully recover (Amato, 2000). What has to be looked for, then, is what in the family tips the child one way or the other.
Conflict between the parents
It is the factor most consistently associated with the child's difficulties. In the 1991 meta-analysis, the explanation through family conflict received the most consistent support, more than the absence of a parent or economic hardship (Amato and Keith, 1991). A twelve-year follow-up showed that children of high-conflict couples were doing better in adulthood if their parents had separated, and those of low-conflict couples if they had stayed together (Amato et al., 1995).
What makes it harmful. Children react very differently depending on the way their parents argue, to the point that their reactions make it possible to classify these ways as constructive or destructive (Goeke-Morey et al., 2003). According to Grych and Fincham (1990), the effect of conflict passes through the way the child understands it, in particular through the threat they perceive and through the idea that it is their fault, self-blame (Grych et al., 1992). Davies and Cummings (1994) speak of emotional security: exposed to repeated and hostile arguments, the child loses part of their sense of security, and part of their energy goes into containing their own alarm and intervening between their parents.
Being placed in the middle. In adolescents questioned about four and a half years after their parents' separation, the feeling of being caught between the two was linked to conflict and hostility between the parents, and it was through this feeling that conflict was associated with their difficulties; adolescents in shared residence felt particularly caught between the two when their parents were in conflict, and particularly little when they cooperated (Buchanan et al., 1991). Carrying messages, reporting on what happens at the other parent's, hearing one parent run down the other, acting as a confidant: these are the concrete forms of this place, which session P4 takes away one by one.
Violence. Children exposed to violence between their parents present greater difficulties than children who are not exposed, with a difference of 0.40 standard deviations, and these difficulties do not differ significantly from those of children who are themselves physically maltreated (Kitzmann et al., 2003). This is no longer conflict, and it falls within section 9.
Parenting that collapses
Separation disorganises parenting at the moment when the child needs it most: the exhausted, sad or angry parent becomes less warm, less consistent in their rules and less attentive to what their child is doing. In a trial with separating mothers and their sons in the early years of primary school, the improvement in parenting practices achieved by the programme was linked to better adjustment in the children, at school and at home (Forgatch and DeGarmo, 1999). In the second randomised trial of the New Beginnings Program, the programme for mothers improved the mother-child relationship, discipline and the children's adjustment all at once, especially in the families that were doing least well at the outset (Wolchik et al., 2000).
The bond with the other parent
A meta-analysis of 63 studies of non-resident fathers showed that the frequency of visits was not, in general, linked to the children's well-being, whereas emotional closeness and parenting that was both warm and firm were (Amato and Gilbreth, 1999). What counts, then, is not only the time spent with each parent, but what happens during that time.
Changes that accumulate
Recent research is less interested in separation as a single event than in the number of family transitions the child goes through (Amato, 2010): house moves, changes of school, new partners, new separations. Limiting those that can be limited is part of the work.
What protects
Conversely, a warm relationship with at least one parent, consistent discipline, parents who keep the child out of their disagreements and are reasonably well themselves, a stable daily life, and, in the child, accurate ideas and active ways of coping: each of these elements is a target of the programme.