Key takeaways for caregivers
- Parental separation, including the separation of co-habiting couples or the legal divorce of married couples with children, often has negative effects on children’s emotional experiences and behavior. This is the case for children as well as for adolescents.
- However, parental separation is not universally disruptive for children. An intimate and low-conflict parent-child relationship can cushion the negative consequences of parental separation for children’s well-being.
- Even if the period of parental separation is stressful, the resident parent should try to maintain good ties with their child by ensuring that the relationship is close and does not feature much conflict. This may help the child feel more involved during the parents’ decision-making process, which may help them accept the new family structure with fewer harms to the child’s emotional and behavioral well-being.
Parental separation and the effect on children’s well-being
In reports of research, newspaper articles, and parent chat groups, discussions abound about the negative consequences of parental separation for children’s well-being.
These can lead to feelings of guilt for parents going through any separation that involves one parent moving out of the house, whether in the context of a marriage dissolving through divorce or the separation of an unmarried co-habiting couple.
In terms of the effects of such separation on children’s well-being, researchers have most commonly studied aspects of children’s psychological and social development, educational attainment, or health. Studies consistently show that children’s well-being suffers after parental separation.
But is parental separation always harmful to children, or can some factors mitigate the negative consequences? Are there factors that parents can influence to make the separation as painless as possible for their children?
The role of parental conflict for children experiencing parental separation
The amount of parental conflict in families going through a separation can influence how the children do.
The dissolution of a high-conflict family, in which children witness a great deal of dispute between parents, may be a relief for children and beneficial to their well-being, whereas the dissolution of a low-conflict family may be unexpected for the child, leading to more stress and feelings of loss, which in turn can harm children’s well-being.
In addition, after the separation has occurred, children who are exposed to more interparental conflict are at greater risk for mental health problems. In this vein, the degree of parental conflict after the separation or divorce may be even more important for the well-being of the children than the degree of contact with the departed parent.
But what about the quality of the parent-child relationship? Can a good relationship between a parent and their child buffer the negative effects of parental separation on children’s well-being? In our recent study, that was the main question we sought to answer.
The role of parent-child relationship quality
In our study, we examined whether children with a good relationship with the resident parent had fewer emotional and behavioral problems after parental separation than did children with a poor relationship with the resident parent. We defined relationship quality based on children’s perceptions of two key aspects of their relationship with the resident parent:
- Conflict behavior: How often the resident parent and the child were angry with each other and how often they disagreed and argued, and
- Intimate disclosure: How often the child shared secrets and private feelings with the resident parent and how often the child told the resident parent what was bothering them.
How might parent-child relationships with less conflict and more intimacy help children through parental separation?
Children who perceived that their relationship with their resident parent was more positive reported less frequent parental conflict and more intimacy with that parent. In those families, resident parents might continue to have thoughtful and honest conversations with their child even after the parents’ relationship dissolves.
Parents can also make it clear that the separation does not change their love for their child. In addition, parents can involve their child in decisions about how family routines will be re-established after separation, which may help the child accept the new family structure and may reduce the negative consequences of the separation.
Our study
To empirically test our ideas about the protective influence of higher-quality parent-child relationships, we used data from the German Family Panel “pairfam,” a multi-disciplinary, longitudinal study on partnership and family dynamics. The children in our sample were between seven and 15 years old during the multi-year study and were born to heterosexual couples (ages 26 to 50) who separated during the study.
Parents can also make it clear that the separation does not affect their love for their child.
Each child subsequently lived with one self-declared biological parent who was identified as the residential parent for our study. We did not know further details about the children’s living arrangements, such as the amount of time they spent with the non-resident parent or whether the parents had joint or sole custody of the children.
In the years before and the year after the parents separated, children answered a series of questions about their relationship with the resident parent. Response options ranged from (1) never to (5) always.
For questions about conflict behavior, (1) indicated low levels of conflict with the resident parent and (5) indicated high levels of conflict. Similarly, for questions about intimate disclosure, (1) indicated low levels of intimacy and (5) indicated high levels of intimacy.
To explore the links between these aspects of parent-child relationship quality and children’s well-being, we also examined children’s answers to questions about their emotional symptoms and behavioral problems.
Questions about emotional symptoms addressed whether children easily lost self-confidence; experienced a lot of headaches, stomachaches, or sickness; had a lot of fears; and were often unhappy or worried a lot.
Questions about behavioral problems asked whether children usually did what adults requested, took things that did not belong to them, could make other people do what they want, often lost their temper, or cheated.
The children answered these questions each year from 2009-2010 to 2020-2021, before and after parents separated.
Changes in children’s emotional and behavioral problems following parental separation
Having information about children’s well-being before and after their parents separated allowed us to compare children’s emotional and behavioral well-being before parental separation with children’s well-being in the year after parental separation.
Overall, children had more emotional and behavioral problems after their parents separated than in the years before the separation. This pattern reflects the general trend of parental separation harming children’s well-being.
However, diving deeper, we analyzed whether good parent-child relationship quality buffered these negative consequences and discovered differences depending on the quality of the child’s relationship with the resident parent.
Children who had frequent conflicts with the resident parent had significantly more emotional problems after parental separation than they had beforehand, whereas children who had few conflicts with the resident parent had significantly fewer emotional problems after separation than they did before.
Similarly, only children with low levels of intimate disclosure to their resident parent – that is, children who did not share personal information with their parent – had more behavioral problems after parental separation than before.
High-quality parent-child relationships reduce negative impacts of parental separation on children’s well-being
Our study supports the notion that not all children respond identically to their parents’ separation. When it comes to analyzing the consequences of parental separation for children’s well-being, our findings emphasize the importance of considering buffering family factors and children’s resilience to stress.
Only children who did not share personal information with their parent had more behavioral problems after parental separation than before.
Having an intimate and low-conflict relationship with their resident-parent helps children adjust better to a new family situation following parental separation. In our study, this was the case for children’s emotional symptoms and behavioral problems, specifically, and there may be similar results for other aspects of children’s well-being.
Therefore, as families navigate parental separation, one way to support children’s well-being is to support their relationships with their resident parents. Building skills in emotion regulation, conflict management, trust, and communication might help children and their parents get through the separation together and emerge stronger.
