Where’s my daddy gone?

Synopsis

An escalating divorce rate in Western society has caused all who work with children to look carefully at the impact marriage breakdown has upon families. When parents separate, unquestionably children will suffer, although intrafamilial disagreements may reach such a pitch that dissolution of the marriage represents a relief of tension, if nothing else. Additional to the central issue of divorce are many problems which have serious impact upon the emotional development of the child. These include arrangements relating to custody and access, economic difficulties often resulting in a mother’s unwilling return to the workforce, the splitting up of families and not uncommonly an introduction to stepparents and their issue. Children may blame themselves for the divorce, project blame on to the parent who leaves, or on to the one who remains for letting the other go. Long-term sequelae to parent divorce may be shown by persistent hostility to parent figures (expressed by aggressive and antisocial behaviour), delinquency, depressive symptoms and underachievement at school. Since it seems unlikely that the number of divorces affecting children will diminish in the future, it behoves all professionals involved with divorcees and their children to look to ways of helping both child and family during the process of divorce and subsequently, of educating those who make legal decisions relating to divorce and the parents themselves about the emotional needs of children when family breakdown occurs. It is suggested that the children of de facto relationships should be given the benefits of the Family Court.