Elizabeth Marquardt, writing on the Family Scholars Blog, mentions an article in the Wall Street entitled “The Child Focused Divorce” in which a couple agree that they “wanted to minimize the damage the split would do to their daughters”.

This all sounds very fine, but as Elizabeth (whose mother divorced twice when Elizabeth was young) points out, it is very hard for a divorce to be genuinely child-focused in any inherent sense.

Taking her cue from the notion of a ‘child-focused divorce’, Marquardt wryly comments: “I can imagine the follow ups: The Child Focused Way to Have Your New Boyfriend Spend the Night…The Child Focused Way to Move Your Kid to a Worse Neighborhood Because You Can’t Afford the Family Home as a Single Parent…The Child Focused Way to Tell Your Child That You Have More Time to Sleep In/Excercise/Socialize/Fill in the Blank When He/She is With Your Ex”.

She cites a national study she conducted on the children of divorce which found that “63 percent of those who grew up with married parents strongly agreed, ‘Children were at the center of my family,’ compared to 34 percent of those from divorced families.”

In her book, ‘Between Two Worlds: The inner lives of children of divorce’, Elizabeth (who has previously addressed The Iona Institute), convincingly argues that the notion of the child-centered divorce is really an invention designed to comfort the adults.

Obviously, a ‘child-centered’ divorce is better than one that isn’t, but that is rarely of comfort to the children going through the divorce of their parents.

A document produced some years ago by Barnardos gives us some insight as to the real impact of divorce on children.

The document is entitled How Children react to Divorce and Separation.

Its purpose is to give parents an idea of what to expect from their children in the event of the break up of a marriage, according to age.

Under two years, we are told. “the child might temporarily become clingy, subdued, withdrawn, stubborn, and may try to search for the absent parent”.

From two to five, children “do not have a fully developed sense of time. Therefore, they may constantly ask the same question (when will Daddy be home? Where is Mummy?) repeatedly”. Children at this age may feel a sense of guilt, feeling that they did something to make one parent go away.

The Family Support Agency produced a document with the same title describes the effects of divorce on children aged three to six.

Among the possible reactions of the child, it suggests they may maintain “fantasies of non-custodial parent’s return”, “regression in behaviour: bed wetting, thumbsucking” and “aggression and hostility”.

The document makes a number of suggestions as to how to deal with these symptoms; “attention – time together and cuddling; explain changes that are occurring; teach appropriate ways to release hostility, aggression; reassure parents’ love”.

Presumably these are of some help. But it is very hard to imagine how one could ever describe something as devastating to a child’s emotional well-being as divorce as being “child-focused”, unless perhaps the relationship between the child’s parents was very high-conflict.