Children of Divorce

Many of our clients are desperately concerned about the impact of relationship breakdown upon their children and want to read child centred approaches to minimise the impact and ensure that their children still thrive. There are so many reference sources but one we particularly like is Family Breakdown by Penelope Leach who speaks at The Family Mediators Association Conference and provides valuable insights and recent research.

We find her interesting because not only is she a theorist but she also experienced divorce as a small child herself so has personal experience to draw on. Additionally, she projects a real heart for children. She has written "Family Breakdown. Helping children hang on to both their parents." In mediation we see heart warming and heart rending situations for children. We believe that conflict not divorce hurts children and that co-parenting can be very successful, the important thing is how does this feel for your child? The following is a quote from her book:

​Boy, aged 10 "All my school sports things are on Saturday and now I'm in year 5 I'm in the teams. Football now, cricket in the summer. When they said about going to my dad at weekends I did try to say about it but they didn't really take much notice. Dad said he would drive me to school on Saturdays but we only did it once cause he said it was too far. I asked mum if I could just go to dads on Saturday afternoon after the matches are over but she said that wouldn't be fair as dad would only have me for one night. I think this way is not very fair on me."