Psychological Tasks of a Child of a Divorce

A Synopsis of Wallerstein's 1982 paper.

In the summer of 2003, I won a Miss America local pageant in upstate New York. I thought it was an unlikely win, because I had taken a huge risk on a new platform. I had changed my platform from arts education (which had been my platform for years) to advocacy for children of divorce after writing a research paper on the effects of divorce on children for my English composition class. As a child of divorce, the paper affected me profoundly. When the excitement of the new title had settled, my director Greg asked me, "What do you want to accomplish with this platform? What can you do about it as Miss America?" It was an excellent question. If truth be told, at the beginning I just wanted to be heard. I wanted to increase awareness of the fact that children of divorce need help, much more help than they (we) were receiving. I thought long and hard about this. I asked myself, "What kind of help do children of divorce need?" In addition to simply being heard, I found more information through research. Here is some of what I found.

In her 1982 article, The Psychological Tasks of the Child, Judith Wallerstein identifies six tasks, in addition to the usual tasks of childhood, that must be mastered by children of divorce in order for them to achieve closure.

1. Acknowledging reality of the split. Children must understand that their parents are getting divorced and they must understand the reasons for it.

• Timeline: It usually takes one year from the time of the announcement of the divorce for children to master this.
• How Adults Can Help: Begin a dicussion to find out why the child thinks that the parents are getting divorced. Address the child's fantasties of why his or her parents are splitting up. Make it clear that it is not the fault of the child and that (if it is true), that the child was born into a loving family. Continue to be available to the child to discuss this as their feelings change and they reevaluate what happened to their family.

2. Disengaging from parent conflict and distress and resuming age-appropriate activities. Parental conflict drains children of the energy necessary to focus on the typical tasks of childhood, emotionally and outwardly. When children are comforting their parents, parenting their siblings, attempting to reunite their parents or acting out to get attention, they don't have the time and energy to study, socialize and play.

• Timeline: It is usually mastered within the first year when post-divorce co-parenting is handled well. With high levels of post-divorce conflict, children will likely be affected by parental conflict until the conflict ceases or the adult child leaves their custodial parents' home. In this case, the child may struggle to master this task indefinitely.
  
• How Adults Can Help: Protect your children from parent-to-parent conflict. Teach children and youth from high conflict post-divorce families to communicate wishes to their parents concerning this, to accept the reality of their parents' behavior, and learn to cope positively by focusing on what they can do to help themselves. Guide children and youth toward focusing on age-appropriate activities.
  

3. Resolution of multiple losses associated with divorce. Children of divorce experience the loss of the daily presence of a parent, familiar routines, traditions, and more. Many children feel victimized & powerless or rejected & unworthy.

• Timeline: According to Wallerstein, this task takes longer to achieve than the first two. It is more difficult to achieve when the children are continually disappointed by an unreliable, disinterested or absent parent.
• How Adults Can Help: Be a reliable, interested, available person in the life of a child of divorce. Help the children recognize that their parents are not perfect, and that that parental imperfections are not reflected in the child. (Many children of divorce wonder, "If mom says dad is a dead-beat, what does that make me?") Help the child establish traditions in the new family, recognize their own value, and gain a sense of control. Teach children that it is how they handle adversity that matters.

4. Resolving Anger. Since people are responsible for a divorce, children tend to get angry at someone (a parent, both parents, or possibly themselves) for causing it.

• Timeline: This usually passes with time.
  
• How Adults Can Help: Tell children that the divorce is not their fault. Teaching coping skills to help children to express anger and other negative emotions well. Help children to understand their feelings and where they are coming from through journalling. Help the child to understand the reasons for the divorce. Teach children about forgiveness.

5. Acceptance of the permanence of the parental split.

• Timeline: This happens over time but can be lengthened if one parent continues to hope to get back together and involved the children.
• How Adults Can Help: Parents can make it clear that divorce is permanent. Teachers and other adults in the lives of children can make it clear that divorce is usually permanent. Do not encourage the fantasy.

6. Establishing hope for romantic relationships as adults.

• How We Can Help: Parents and other adults can show their children and teens that new relationship skills can be learned and that healthy relationships are possible. This is best done by example. Take a relationship enrichment Forever. For Real. course as offered for free by the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. Talk about some of the concepts discussed with your children.

In reading this list, it is clear that parents make a huge difference in how well their children will adjust after divorce. In my experience, I have seen many parents try to make it clear that the divorce is going to happen and that the divorce is not the child's fault (helping the child with tasks 1, 4, 5). However, when it comes to tasks 2, 3, and 7, the child feels isolated and is left to create coping mechanisms to handle these tasks on their own. The coping mechanisms created by these children are not always healthy. Far too often, parents are unable or unwilling to help their children with the tasks above. Meanwhile teachers are trying to teach math and reading to students that are distracted, distraught, and/or acting out because of their experience of what is happening in their homes.

As caring adults, there is so much we can do! Peer support groups for children of divorce and training for professionals in our religious organizations and schools can be built around these six tasks. I am biased toward supporting children through school-based programs for the sake of practicality. As a former child of divorce, I know that transportation is often an issue for single parents. The best way to help children and families is to meet them where they are: in the public schools. I will write more about how Banana Splits, Blended Love, and similar programs, help children master these six tasks in the near future.