Divorce and Separation Issues

If you're struggling with mental health, social and/or family issues, consider whether counseling can help. Many times, emotional and/or behavioral difficulties stem from unresolved childhood and adolescent conflicts -- and they can be resolved with some careful and objective handling by a professional. Don't wait until you're at a crisis situation. Get help now.

 

Are you in a crisis situation? Go to the Safer Child Families in Crisis Page

Warning Signs of an Abusive Partner or Situation

Requiring Divorcing Parents to Obtain Counseling

It's hard to divorce well

Children need their parents

Tips on Divorcing Well -- From Our Readers

Tips on Divorcing Well -- From Safer Child

Safer Child Communication Page

What Were You Taught as A Child?

Our Thoughts on What Children Need to Grow Up Happy and Confident

Self-Assessment Survey -- Do You Need to Make a Change?

Safer Child's What Makes for a Great Parent?

Safer Child's What Makes for a Great Spouse?

Go Straight to Divorce and Separation Helpful Links

Colorado Debated Bill Requiring Divorcing Parents to Get Year-Long Counseling (March 2001): The Colorado legislature debated a bill that would require divorcing parents to obtain a full year of counseling before a divorce is granted. The bill's sponsor, Rep. David Schultheis, said he wanted the counseling to focus on the negative effects of divorce on children, saying, "It's easier to get out of a marriage than a Tupperware contract." The bill was designed to make exceptions for physically or psychologically abused spouses, but critics worried that the counseling might inhibit an abused spouse's efforts to escape, and also that a year of counseling could produce great negativity that would ultimately be harmful to both parents and children.

Other legislatures have considered or are considering bills requiring couples to undergo counseling before getting married. In July, 2001, Minnesota passed a law giving couples a break on their marriage license fee if they take a premarital education course. What do you think? Is this a good idea? Please give us your thoughts.

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It's hard to divorce well. By "divorce well," we mean well for the children. For a time, it was thought that children weren't affected too harshly by divorce. Parents wanted to believe that their children might initially be upset, but that they were naturally resilient and would eventually recover. And they do recover -- to a degree.  But new research says that divorce is very hard on children, often unbearably so. Even those rare "good" or "nice" or "friendly" divorces are hard on children. And sometimes, divorce is unbearably hard on a child for the rest of the child's life.

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Children need their parents. We might as well just come out and say it: Children need their parents. All of them. However many there are. It's a well-known statistic that children of absent or inattentive fathers are at higher risk for eating disorders. Recent studies show that 70 percent of teens who attempt suicide have divorced parents. It's accepted that children in single-parent homes are at much greater risk of all sorts of behavioral problems. And it's understood by anyone who deals with children that when there are problems at home, there are inevitably problems at school or at daycare.

Children need their parents. And that's why it's so desperately important for those parents who need to divorce, to divorce well -- for their own sake and especially for the sake of their children. See Safer Child Suggestions for Parents for more.

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