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Children & parentsFor someone close50 min read

Supporting a child or adolescent through their parents' separation

How to tell them, what a child goes through at each age, how to organise two homes — and what research identifies as the real danger: it is not the separation itself, and you have a hold on it.

In short

This guide is for a separating parent, a step-parent, a grandparent, a teacher or a professional supporting a child or adolescent through a parental separation. It sets out what research has established: what a child understands and feels at each age, what actually predicts how they will fare, the words for announcing the separation, how to organise life between two homes, the place of the other parent, and the situations that call for something different — violence, refusal to see a parent, the blended family. It also says precisely when to seek help, and what to ask for.

Topic
Children & parents
Who it's for
For someone close
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Français · English · Deutsch · Italiano · Español · 中文 · العربية

The programme

This guide accompanies you; it replaces nobody. The great majority of children whose parents separate need neither a diagnosis nor a treatment: they need adults who shield them from conflict and stay reliable. A minority develop lasting difficulties that can be treated — section 22 explains how to recognise them and what to ask for. If there is violence in the couple, or if you or the child are in danger, this guide does not apply as it stands: read section 17 first, and contact emergency services or a victim support line in your area without delay. If the child or adolescent talks about dying or is harming themselves, call your doctor the same day. Allow fifty minutes of reading.

1. Before you start

You are separating, or it has already happened. And in the middle of everything this stirs up — anger, sadness, sometimes relief, questions about money, housing, lawyers — there is a child. Perhaps several.

You don't know how to tell them. You don't know whether alternate weeks are better than alternate weekends. You don't know why they cry when leaving for the other parent's, or why they come back impossible, or why your teenage daughter has taken the other parent's side and no longer speaks to you.

The rest is for members

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separationdivorcechildrenadolescentsparentingco-parentingshared custody

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