How Children React to Separation and Divorce

Your Child Needs You to Be There

It's normal and healthy for a child to react to change, but it still hurts to watch. When your child mopes around with a furrowed brow, melts down over nothing, or looks at you with sad eyes, it's clear the divorce has put them through something hard. And in the middle of a separation, we parents are less able to respond — we're in upheaval ourselves, with a long list of practical things to sort out. Try to remember that your child is reacting to the change, and that the reactions will fade once life settles again. A separation should, after all, lead to everyone in the family feeling better. So when your child reacts, they need our help — and our reassurance that things will get better.

It Can Take Time for Children to Understand

We child psychologists sometimes say that children react "in stripes": the reactions come in waves, with completely ordinary life in between. Maybe it has to do with children's enviable ability to live in the moment. Maybe they don't even find the separation itself particularly hard. Instead, they react when they realize that you won't both be at the school graduation, or that the yearly family trips to the favorite spot won't happen anymore.

Children's reactions often surface alongside the practical consequences of the divorce, and it's common for them to shift over time. Some children go through periods of grieving that their parents are divorced and fantasize about them getting back together. As your child reaches each new stage of development, they'll need to make sense of the separation all over again — so be patient, and be ready to explain once more why you separated and why you won't become a "real" family again.

Children Who Don’t Seem to React

Many parents with shared custody say their child reacted less than they had feared. That can come down to the child's personality, but also to the parents having arranged things in a way that spared the child. Even so, keep checking in regularly on how your child seems to be doing — just as you did when you all lived together.

You may still worry that your child is quietly holding something back. The risk of a child bottling up their feelings shrinks when you keep an ongoing conversation about the divorce and an open atmosphere where you talk about — and show — what you feel. You can also try putting words to what you see and letting your child respond: "You seem pretty happy and like your usual self, even though we've divorced..." I don't recommend pushing or prodding children to "open up". Some children don't react at all, and some react much later. Talking simply doesn't suit everyone, and pressing a child who doesn't want or need to talk can leave them wondering whether they're feeling the "wrong" way.

Tip! Children express and release feelings in different ways. Some do best talking to an adult. Others process by playing, being physically active so the feelings can work their way out through the body, or confiding in friends. No one way is better than another — what matters is finding the way that suits your child.

Not Everything Is About the Divorce

As parents we often feel guilty about the separation and read every reaction as being connected to it. That instinct has an upside — it keeps us open to our children's feelings — but it can also make us over-interpret or misread them. Children develop on many fronts at once, and they go through phases no matter how their family lives.

Summary

• Children, just like their parents, are different and handle a separation in their own ways.
• When children react, they need support — and hope that things will get better.
• Children often react "in stripes": reactions come in waves, with ordinary life in between.
• An ongoing, open conversation about what's happening in life and how everyone feels lowers the risk of a child keeping things bottled up.
• Parents sometimes misread children's reactions — not everything is about the separation!