Co-parenting after a separation

“Parents shouldn’t hide conflict because children need to see resolution skills. How they engage in conflict in front of their children is more important.”

Communication researcher Tamara AfifI, University of California Santa Barbara

Navigating the ups and downs of divorce looks different in each situation, but there are some universal ways to make it easier on our children. These start with better communication — rules around communicating that put your child first.

Here to help us establish some of these best practices is Dr. Tamara Afifi, a professor in Interpersonal Health Communication at the University of California – Santa Barbara. Her TedX talk The impact of divorce on children has been viewed 700,000 times. 

Highlights:

[1:29] What are the most common issues that you see with families confronting divorce? 

[2:34] What kind of communication is not positive for children?

[3:59] How does divorce affect children in the short-term?  

[5:06] What can divorced parents do to support their children’s resiliency over time?

[6:25] What are some best practices for divorced parents?

[9:47] A listener shares a question about maintaining consistency when it comes to childcare.

[11:45] How does divorce impact young children differently? 

[13:18]  We are closer to our children than in previous generations. How has this changed the way that children experience divorce? 

[14:30] How can we differentiate between a divorce-related behavior and something else that might need to get addressed? 

[16:07] Tammy zooms the lens out and offers some perspective.

[18:58] Jessica shares her top takeaways.

Transcript:

Common issues for families of divorce

Jessica: So much of your research at UCSB focuses on how family members communicate around the challenges that they face. What are the most common issues that you see with families confronting divorce? 

Tammy: I think definitely the most important challenge is the parents’ relationship. And that’s what we find in the research at large is that, it’s not so much about the divorce per se, even though that is obviously hugely important and it’s very, very stressful regardless. But it’s really about how the parents communicate with each other, that’s like the most important thing. I would argue in any family structure is how family members communicate with each other, but that creates kind of like the staple of the family and provides kind of the barometer, the stress barometer that children follow in the family. A lot of the short-term effects of divorce dissipate over time. And so, the differences that exist are actually pretty small when you look at children whose parents divorced compared to those who didn’t divorce. And long-term, most of those effects disappear. 

Not all conflict is bad

Jessica: So what kind of communication is not positive for children? 

Tammy: So, one of the things that I study is conflict. I think it’s important for children to still see their parents engage in conflict, so conflict is not inherently bad. Depends upon how it’s viewed and it depends upon how it’s managed. A lot of it is about the intensity of the conflict, whether children get put in the middle of their parents’ conflict. It’s important for children to see their parents engage in disagreements calmly, but that they have a sense of resolution. And that we’re separating the children out from the topics at hand, right? So kind of the most negative conflict is conflict where children feel directly involved or like it’s about them. Small children have the tendency to not understand that the divorce wasn’t their fault. As children get older, they understand that, and they’re able to separate out those feelings, but young children sometimes don’t have the cognitive capability to separate out why a divorce happens. So it’s not that parents should always hide conflict because it’s important to see resolution skills, but it’s more how they engage in conflict in front of their children that’s important.

Effects of divorce on children

Jessica: In your TED Talk, that is so highly viewed and you talk about how divorce has a short-term impact on most children. Can you describe that for us? 

Tammy: You know, there are some gendered effects. And so for girls, they tend to have more propensity for internalizing problems, things like sadness, depression, anxiety, more internalizing a divorce. Boys, do that as well, but they also have difficulties with externalizing problems. So they might start to act out, be more angry. It might seep out in ways at school, like they have difficulty concentrating at school, acting out with their peers or their teachers at school. So if anything seems like a little bit off, you might not understand, you might have a tendency to blame your child for being angry when they’re really not able to articulate their feelings surrounding the divorce and why they feel anxious. 

Jessica: Yeah. And what about the long-term? I mean, we talked about short-term. Should we be thinking about this as a short-term impact in children and that long-term we can do things to support their resiliency over time? 

Tammy: One of the most important findings of the divorce research across decades has been that children whose parents continuously stay married who have a toxic relationship, those are the children who are actually harmed the most, not the children whose parents divorce. So again, it’s less about the divorce per se as it is about like the communication patterns.

But if children feel caught between their parents and their parents are still together, sometimes those effects can last like even 10 years, at least our research shows. Whereas if they get divorced and their parents have a toxic relationship, it’s actually less harmful than if the parents stay together. So divorce is, I don’t think anybody ever wants a divorce. It’s not a positive, usually it’s very stressful, but sometimes it’s better than the parents staying together and having a very toxic relationship.

Jessica: Yeah. And what would, I mean, give us some advice. Let’s say we’re here, it’s not anything, as you said, that any of us choose, but it is a reality. And so how do we, what are the best practices related to kids? Can you get a little bit more specific for us? Let’s just say we’re, we’re struggling here. We’re going through so much as adults, at the adult level. We want to do the best for our children, but it’s hard to be disciplined in those moments. And what if you’re, the person that you’re divorcing, your former partner is really acting bad actor in terms of putting the child in the middle. Like how do you disengage? What tips do you have?

Tammy: Yeah. I think you try your best to work with your former partner and create best practices and rules that you can hopefully both abide by and remembering that your children should always come first. So you’re always going to be a family no matter what, nothing’s ever going to change that, but you’re not married in anymore. So right, so it’s really about changing the way you think about that relationship boundary, that you’re not intimately connected anymore, but you’re still connected as parents, so doing things that put your children first. 

And so, let’s say that your partner still talks bad about you to your child. Right? I think it’s important to first try and stop that, and talk to the parent directly and never go through the child to talk to the other parent that will always place your child in an uncomfortable position. So trying to always go to the parent directly instead of talking through the child is one example. Even though it’s tempting to talk bad about the other parent in return, I would not do it. Long term children will figure it out on their own and they’ll actually appreciate the fact that you didn’t do that.

So, I think even if you’re stressed, and you’re having a hard time, which is normal, I would still try and keep rituals in place with that child and going out and doing fun things with them. And I think one other tip is like sometimes parents sit their children down and they look at them and then they kind of grill them or they interview them about their feelings. That makes, that tends to make children uncomfortable. [chuckle] So one of the tips that we often use in research is eat and talk or do an activity and talk.

And don’t ask them really intense questions, but just ask them how they’re feeling, ask them how they’re doing.

Maintaining consistency during divorce

Jessica: You touched on how important routine is, for young children. We have a listener with a question around maintaining consistency when it comes to childcare. So let me play that for you.

Caller: Hi, I was wondering what you think about the importance of keeping routines, especially when it comes to possibly keeping the same nanny, with parents who live close and the kids are alternating back and forth. If you would recommend that they each have their own childcare arrangements or if it’s better for them to maintain the same nannies. So there’s that sense of consistency with the same person? 

Tammy: I think if you have a good co-parenting relationship with your former spouse, having one kind of nanny or one childcare provider would be better. I always think that consistency is always better, especially for small children, because the less ambiguity they have, the less they have to manage in their minds, I think the better. But sometimes that doesn’t work, and you have to have… You each have to have your own help on the side. I don’t think that that would be harmful to the child at all. I think as long as you keep a very positive environment and you keep the rules, you have to have household rules, if you have two households, right? 

So I think what’s more damaging is when one parent is really lenient and the other parent is very strict. You should try and create rules around like, the same bedtime, what you buy them, how they’re eating. So all those things you should try and talk through to keep them as consistent as possible. And so, I don’t know if it’s, it’s maybe less about the nannies per se and more about the rules that are instituted between households.

Impacts of divorce at different ages

Jessica: Anything about how this, this advice differs by age, let’s say that we have like a toddler, my parents divorced when I was three, we have, let’s say a four or five year old or a little bit older child. Can you give us insight as to how the, what the impact is of divorce on different age, aged children? 

Tammy: Yeah. Like I said, I think it’s actually easiest when children are small. Again, divorce is always stressful, but tends to be a little bit easier when children are younger. As they get older, they’re dealing with a lot more things, it’s not that they’re less resilient, it’s just that their body is undergoing a lot of change and adolescence can be difficult for managing peer relationships and all of those things. So for younger children… There isn’t a whole lot of difference between a toddler, and a pre-school kindergarten age, it’s more about what’s happening in the home, and is there a lot of conflict in the home? Is it very intense conflict? Even things like the number of times you transition. So how many times did you switch schools? How many times did you change houses? How often are you dating? And is the child seeing multiple partners come in and out? Like those things are really important. So it’s less about like the age when they’re young like that, and it’s more about that consistency, and the parenting practices and providing stability.

Jessica: I was curious about this concept of being close to our children and wanting to share honestly our experiences with our children. We are closer in general to our children than in previous generations. How has this changed the way that children actually experience divorce? 

Tammy: So research actually shows that divorce is having actually more of a negative effect on children than it used to in prior decades. And we think the reason is because children are closer to both parents. And so, and part of that is due to the advent of technology and they talk to their parents more often because of the technology and the expectations for the parent-child relationship have changed. And so I think the impact of divorce actually is a little bit harder for children nowadays because they have closer relationships with both parents.

Understanding changes in behavior

Jessica: Yeah, that makes sense. And then it’s obviously so hard when… They can even feel more torn perhaps when parents make that child expose them to the elements of the other relationship, the parent level relationship. So how do we know if our child is having an issue that’s connected to divorce or, I mean, children go through so much and, you know, the impacts of divorce can last when you define a short time, I’m assuming that’s, you know, 18 months or a couple of years. How can we differentiate between a divorce related behavior or another behavior or another issue that might need to get addressed? 

Tammy: Well, it does get really difficult. And I think, just what is your child normally like, right? Was your child normally a certain… Did they have a certain demeanor before, well before the divorce happened, and did you notice a change around the time the divorce is happening? Again, it’s a process, it’s not a quick thing. This happens a lot with children where they’ll get angry at something and they’ll be in a really bad mood and you have no idea and they tend to take it out on their parents, because they’re closest to their parents and their parents are always going to love them. Right? So, I think a lot of it is about, “Okay, I’m noticing that you’re upset right now, let’s dig a little bit deeper to figure out, where that’s coming from. Did anything happen in your day to day, that made you upset? And if not, dig a little bit deeper just to see, is it related to something, about the divorce?” And with younger children, they may not be able to articulate what that is.

So it might come out in the form of aggression or it might come out in the form of crying or irritability. So I don’t know with young children, if you’re really going to know the source of it other than they’re acting different than they normally would. And if it’s that, it might be because there’s so much going on with the divorce.

Advice for parents

Jessica: What other advice do you have? I know parents are so thirsty for answers when it comes to divorce. What resources or other advice have we not covered today? 

Tammy: Parents are really hard on themselves. Most parents want to be good parents and they want to do the best that they can by their child. I think sometimes with a divorce, they get caught up in the emotions associated with their partner and that’s what ends up driving how they communicate. And sometimes they don’t understand the effect that it’s having on their child because the child doesn’t articulate anything that they’re feeling. And I think we have to remember children’s first instinct is to avoid talking about their feelings related to the divorce. So if children aren’t bringing it up, parents think they’re fine. But inside their stomach is doing circles and they’re sad and they don’t know why. So, just remembering that children are always kind of watching, what we’re doing and we’re supposed to be their role models. Lots of things happen in life, divorce is just one of those things. It’s one of like a hundred things that could happen to us. And I think parents have to give themselves permission for a divorce.

It’s okay that something like that happened. We can still be amazing parents even if we’re divorced. In fact, it might be better for the child, because then they’re able to see their parent happy. Then if we end up in another relationship, they could see what a healthy relationship looks like, which would be better for them anyway. So I think a lot of people just beat themselves up and become really stressed like they’ve negatively affected their child forever. Again, if we think about the effects of divorce are actually quite small and most of those effects dissipate over time. So what you’re feeling in the moment of a divorce and even a year later is going to be very different than three years later than five years later. But I think as parents, we just have to always take one step forward and do the best we can every day knowing that we’re going to make mistakes. It’s just called parenting, but we still have to try every day to step up to the plate and just basically be there for them. I think ultimately what children want is they want a parent who’s present.

They want a parent who’s making dinner for them, sitting down at the dinner table, talking with them, asking them about their day and being emotionally available, physically available for their child. I think if you’re doing those things and you’re helping them with their homework and you’re giving them a lot of affection and love, they’re going to end up great.

Jessica: So helpful to hear. Well, it has been wonderful connecting with you, Tammy. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us.

Tammy: Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it.

Takeaway #1:

Research shows that children of divorced parents who communicate well, are better off than children who grow up in a household with toxic communication. Conflict is natural and not inherently bad. It depends on how it’s managed. It’s important for children to see their parents engage in conflict and arrive at a resolution. 

Takeaway #2:

Kids like to talk and play. Rather than “grilling” them about their feelings, ask them how they are doing while they are engaged in an activity. 

Takeaway #3:

Small children sometimes fear that they are to blame for the divorce. Speaking badly of your ex in front of your child can reinforce this fear. Go to your co-parent directly, rather than using the child as a mediary. If children feel caught between their parents, the impact of a separation can be more lasting on the child.

Takeaway #4:

Talk through rules, food choices, and bedtimes with your ex to offer children as much consistency as possible between homes. Remind your child that you are always going to be a family, even if you aren’t married any more. 

Visit our Lovevery blog for more information on how to communicate in positive ways with your child.