The Psychological Perspective
You'll want your parenting plan to fit the psychological needs of your children as well as meet the legal definitions. Experts say children have very specific needs, depending on their ages and levels of development. Even in the womb your child responds to what is going on. When a woman is pregnant, she shares her circulatory system with the fetus. If she is upset, her system sends out extra hormones and chemicals. These may circulate into the fetus, making it more agitated and active. Stress during pregnancy can result in premature birth. Add these stresses to the other stresses of divorce, and a baby's arrival can be more a nightmare than a dream come true.
Infancy to Age Two
Infants may not be able to understand words or recognize all the people in their world, but they're very aware of emotions. They respond to familiar faces. One of the first things they learn is trust. When they are wet or hungry, they cry and someone comes to care for them. Divorcing parents may be less responsive, and the infant may suffer. The interaction between infant and caregiver is critical to the baby's development. Infants and children up to about two years of age need a consistent caregiver. Their sense of security comes from the quality and consistency of care they get during this time.
At about a year old, children develop a fear of strangers. They also develop a deep fear of losing the parent who is their primary caretaker. This may make putting them in day care traumatic for child and parent.
Two-year-olds are just beginning to develop a little independence. If parents separate, children this age are likely to redevelop fears they had seemed to outgrow. They may resist going to bed, both because they're afraid of losing their primary caretaker and because their nightmares may have intensified. Having a parent move out may make these fears worse.
Little kids need to see their parents frequently. The absent parent should spend time with these little ones at least every third day. The visits should be frequent but short. Ideally, they should take place at the child's home, because small children aren't ready for overnights with the visiting parent. Children under two need consistent caregivers. This is the time when children bond, or develop human attachments.
One piece of good news: Very young children often are less affected by a divorce because they have a much shorter history of living with both parents and less exposure to fighting and stress in the home.
Ages Three to Five
Children from three to five may react to a divorce with regression, going back to a happier time when Mom and Dad lived together. They may deny their parents are divorced because it's too scary to admit they've lost one parent. They're afraid they may well lose the other. Children this age may believe they caused the breakup, and if they're just good enough their parents will get back together.
Regardless of their ages, never assume your children don't have at least some understanding of what's going on. Though you may believe they're too young to understand what you're saying, they'll often get the gist of the conversation, or at the very least pick up on the tension.
You need to give children this age a specific, concrete plan in language and concepts they can understand. They need frequent contact with both parents. They need predictability and consistency. It's extremely important that parents handle exchanges with a minimum of stress. By this age children can handle overnights and weekends with the visiting parent.
Ages Six to Eight
Children from six to eight experience enormous sadness when their parents divorce. They feel torn between their parents. When they're with Mom, they miss Dad. When they're with Dad, they miss Mom. They often cry when moving from one parent to the other. Despite these strong emotions at exchanges, they need to spend time with each parent. They often worry the other parent will forget about them. Frequent time with both parents helps them get past their feelings of loss and abandonment.
Divorced or separated parents often misread this behavior. The fact that your child misses her other parent when she's with you doesn't mean she loves you less. The fact that she cries when she leaves you doesn't mean she loves you more.
Children this age have strong and elaborate fantasies about their parents getting back together. At the same time, some children may welcome their parents' new partners, as long as the children themselves are included in the “new family.” Other children may be adamantly opposed to a new partner and refuse to see a parent when the new partner is around. A danger here is that children can attach to the new partner. If this new relationship ends, the children will be devastated all over again.
Encourage your children to voice their feelings. Your children could be suffering silently, allowing the unspoken feelings to fester until they become too much for the children to handle. The buried emotions could then be released in unhealthy ways, particularly in older children.
While children this age will benefit from spending frequent time with each parent, they may not be ready for a shared arrangement that has them spending part of each week with each parent. They have a lot of sorting out to do, so managing such a schedule may be more than they can comfortably handle. The ideal arrangement is for parents to live near one another, so the children can easily spend time with each parent without actually moving from one house to the other for prolonged stays.
Children of this age are particularly troubled when their parents remain hostile. Fear of losing both parents may force a child to avoid mentioning one parent in the other's presence for fear of triggering an angry reaction. This can even result in a child refusing to see one parent to appease the other parent. It can also result in children making up negative stories about one parent in order to align with the other parent.
Ages Nine to Twelve
Kids from ages nine to twelve have rigid moral rules, and when they believe one parent has violated these rules, they get very angry. They may refuse to see or talk to that parent or may act hostile and revengeful when they're together. Sometimes they may take the side of the parent with whom they live, out of a sense of self-preservation, and never mention the other parent and act badly toward that parent.
The custodial parent needs to stress the absent parent's good points and try to defuse the child's anger, even if that parent secretly agrees the other parent has behaved badly. The parent who feeds into a child's anger may become the object of the child's anger in later years. The older child may blame that parent for depriving him of a relationship with the other parent.
While children this age have a better understanding of what led to the divorce and are less likely to blame themselves, they still want their parents to be figures worthy of veneration. When parents try to put children in the middle, the youngsters are resentful, and rightfully so. Boys at this age may become defiant toward their mothers and girls toward their fathers.
A divorce can sometimes cause a child to give up or lose interest in extracurricular activities. It is often recommended that the parents encourage their children to keep up with normal activities to help them move on with their lives. The more normal you can keep their schedules, the easier time they will have adjusting to their new living situation.
Kids this age may be well aware of the financial differences between their household and that of their other parent. This may make them even more protective of the parent with whom they live. In addition, adult responsibilities are too often imposed on children this age. If the custodial parent works, an older child may have to look after a younger one until the parent gets home. A son living with his mother may be told he's now “the man of the house” and may worry unnaturally about keeping his household safe.
It's important to remember children perceive themselves as “part-Mom” and “part-Dad.” When Mom criticizes Dad, or vice versa, children hear it as criticism of themselves. It's important for children this age to make peace with both parents so they can get on with their development.
The Teen Years
As children get older, their activities at school and with friends become very important to them. Parents need to accommodate these activities, but they shouldn't be used to limit their time with the visiting parent.
Teenagers want to be adults, so they are constantly testing family limits and values. At the same time, they want a secure home base from which to operate. The teenage years are turbulent in any family. One moment teens want to be treated as adults, and the next they want to have their parents' advice and guidance.
While these older children may understand the reasons for a divorce — and may be better able to distance themselves from guilt — they still seek a family history that says their parents wanted them. They want happy memories of their childhood. Their sense of self can be badly damaged by a parent's offhand comment such as, “We had to get married because I was pregnant with you.”
Teenagers without rules tend to get into trouble or drop out of school. Even though they pretend otherwise, they want their parents to provide a structure within which they can operate, resentfully sometimes, but safely. Parents need to be on the same page so that teenagers know what the rules are and that they will be enforced.
Even teenagers may have a hard time with a shared parenting arrangement. With so many demands on their lives — activities, friends, dating — they seek a secure home base. They need rules. Some parents go through a second adolescence after divorce, trying to experience things they think they missed the first time around. They may eliminate rules for themselves and their children, too.
Parents need to respect the many activities that compete for time with their teenagers. They need to work very hard at saying good things about the other parent. Teens are very aware that they are part-Mom and part-Dad. They need to believe this is a good thing.
