Children prefer rowing parents to split up

CHILDREN from a broken home prefer if their parents split up rather than stay together, a study has found.

Most children whose parents had separated within the last five years felt it was the best solution for their family, according to a study of those aged between eight and 17.

While the children were very sad not to be living with both parents anymore, some were relieved that the rowing was over.

The study, Children’s Experiences of Parental Separation, concentrated on 60 children, aged between eight and 17, and described how separation had affected their lives.

The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan, who launched the report, said it showed that while children want to be kept informed, they did not want to be drawn into their parents’ difficulties.

The study also underlines the need for children to be reassured that they won’t lose contact with their non-resident parent and that contact will be maintained as much as possible between parents. Most importantly, children should know that both parents will continue to love and support them.

Parents separating was a very private issue for children. They did not want to stand out as being different from other children.

Many children worried about the implications of the separation, both immediate and long-term. Some were worried about their parents’ well-being.

The two-year study found that 90% of children lived with their mothers after the separation, while 7% lived with their fathers and 3% with relatives.

All children had to adjust to living with one parent instead of two and this caused a lot of difficulty for most children. One of the co-authors of the study, Diane Hogan, said it was always hard for children to cope with separation, even if their parents handled it very well. Ms Hogan said many children were quite shocked when they found out that their parents were separating, even if they were aware that they were experiencing problems.

While the study found that many of the children did experience a sense of relief when their parents separated this seemed to be connected with removing them from the conflict between the parents and ending the uncertainty about what was going to happen.

Ms Hogan said children continued to adjust to the separation even after both parents decided to live apart. Younger children tended to accept the situation at first but, as they grew older, tended to question it more.

“A few of the teenagers in the study went on to choose to reduce the amount of contact they had with a non-resident parent,” she said. “They still wanted to maintain contact but they also wanted to play an active role in deciding how it should continue into the future.” Ms Hogan said the contact with a non-resident parent was hugely important for all of the children.