In my last article I talked about relationships as part of child-rearing.  I raised a number of issues, but mainly focused on the need to maintain a relationship in the face of the inevitable pressure, and stress, when raising children.  In this article I would like to talk about the process associated with those relationships that do not survive.  In other words, I'd like to talk about breaking up and how that affects the kids.  Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that breakups in relationships are a common occurrence, and there are many children who have been through this process with their parents.

No one ever plans to break up.  In fact, it is often a great shock to at least one member of the partnership!  And often it is a confusing and bewildering experience.

Relationships can break up in a number of ways, ranging from amicable to extremely destructive.  And there is a corresponding range of effects upon the children of the relationship, with the same degree of proportion and severity.

In the extremely destructive break up the children are often severely traumatised, and often developed severe psychological symptoms which can often adversely affect them for the rest of their lives.  Depending on how young the child is will usually determine the extent of dysfunction, and the nature of that dysfunction.

Young children are usually quite limited in their way of expressing their distress, and often act out with extremes of behaviour that can often be misconstrued as simply being “naughty”.  Older children get a little bit more sophisticated.  They can become demanding, clingy, difficult to manage and so on.  All children are capable of becoming depressed and/or anxious.  After we find that pre-existing undesirable behaviours become more exaggerated when the family is breaking up.

Often when there is a breakup between parents, the children can be an effective way of keeping relations civilised and actually helping the parents through their crisis.  In therapy I have found on many an occasion that I have been able to get a couple to breakup amicably (if that is what they ultimately want) by getting them to recognise the very important priority of the psychological well-being of the children through this crisis.

Unless a parent is emotionally damaged or dysfunctional, they are usually very concerned with how the child or children are being affected by the breakup.  They are also usually keen to minimise any trauma or distress that their children may suffer.  The difficulty is the lack of cooperation from the other partner.

This lack of cooperation is an understandable result of the breakup process.  After all if you are co-operating in getting along well there is often no reason to breakup!  But it is often best to see this simply as one of the many obstacles that one has to overcome to survive the breakup experience as relatively unscathed as possible.

So, let’s talk about ways to minimise the trauma for the children.

The most significant issue for children that are involved in a relationship breakup is the issue of Abandonment.  The children have a natural fear that they will be abandoned by one or both parents.  They may not be sufficiently sophisticated to articulate it in such a clear manner, but the central issue is one of security as relating to the fear of being abandoned.

This is why many children during a breakup become quite clingy and demanding.  They are seeking reassurance.  After all, their entire life as they know it has just been significantly turned upside down for no logical reason!  From a child's perspective mummy and daddy should always be together and they often have great difficulty in understanding why they are not!

So the one thing that I should emphasise at great length is the importance of Reassurance for your children.  It is best if this reassurance comes from both parents equally, and consistently.  That is, both parents are saying the same things to the children and are reinforcing each other.  It is obvious what you can say.  “Yes mummy/daddy does love you”, “you are just as special to mummy/daddy even though they don't live here any more”.

Now most people realise that this is the kind of approach that is best to adopt with children in the circumstances, but it is a bit hard to be reassuring when your child is bedwetting, waking up in the middle of the night, being disobedient, being destructive, being aggressive at school and so on!  But, it is even more important to be reassuring and supportive when your child is acting in this manner, because it indicates that the child is being quite adversely affected by the breakup.

Unfortunately, we are all familiar with the technique of parents using children as weapons against each other.  Using children in this manner is a very effective way of traumatising your ex partner.  It also has the additional effect of significantly traumatising the children as well.  This kind of irresponsible behaviour on behalf of the partners is usually the result of short-term thinking rather than long-term planning.  The exploitation of the children is usually for the purposes of expressing hurt and payback for the moment.  Interestingly, those extremely destructive breakups that I mentioned earlier are usually the direct result of short-term thinking by one or both partners.

But, let's get back to the kids.  The most effective thing you can do for them during this particularly difficult period is to be supportive, consistent, caring, loving and appearing to be in control (although this can be very hard during those times of deep depression that all parts suffer when a relationship breaks up).