A Child-Centered Approach to Separation and Divorce

Most separating and divorcing parents maintain safe, healthy, and positive relationships with their children.This is also true in families where parents have never resided together. However, this is not the case for a small percentage of families. There is a risk to children when parents have polarized perspectives on parenting, particularly when polarized perspectives lead to parent-child contact problems.

Children are at greater risk when family law professionals and others echo and intensify the polarization within the family.

Children also respond in a very different ways to animosity between parents. When considering the child's behavior when assessing conflict between parents, their behavior should be considered in the context of what is normal for a child’s age, developmental stage, and the family socio-cultural-religious norms.

Very often children act out and their behavior is an expectable, adaptive reaction to stress or change.

Children should have the opportunity to express their views in family justice matters that concern them.  While their views may not necessarily be determinative of their best interests, giving children a voice is important.

It is important that professionals who work with families experiencing high-conflict receive regular training on the factors related coparenting problems including, but not limited to intimate partner violence, substance misuse, high conflict, denigration, parental alienating behaviors, and healthy parenting.

The many factors that contribute to problems for children are expressed uniquely in each family. Each family situation must be examined uniquely to understand how families can move forward in an effective child-focused manner.

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