COMMENT & REVIEW: Splintered kids

Every day children are torn as their parents split up. New initiatives to involve them in relationship counselling could begin to ease that pain, writes Jenny Macintyre.

Lucy's dilemma threatened her life.

She was 13 when she had to choose between living with dad in Auckland or with mum in Rotorua. For 12 years Lucy* had lived happily enough between their two homes.

But her life began to spiral out of control when her mother made plans to move cities to live with her new partner.

Lucy also hated the arguments between her parents.

"I thought I would be happier if I lost weight." Eating was one thing she could control and pretty soon anorexia had mastery over her.

"I would not eat all day and try not to eat dinner. Then I didn't eat at all one day, and didn't the next either, until I was really sick and had no energy. I couldn't do anything."

Desperate for help, Lucy's parents approached Jill Goldson, an Auckland Family Court counsellor who was involving children in separation counselling for a research project funded by the Families Commission.

"Parents in conflict are in crisis it's difficult in that state to attend fully to the children they both love," Goldson says. "And their children fear creating more distress, so they hold on to their worries and the trouble compounds."

Goldson's research involved 34 adults and 26 children. It gave families opportunities to hear each other and work toward their own solutions.

On average, children attended two counselling sessions and Goldson says in every case, the intervention eased communication and reduced conflict.

The research findings are being included in a submission to the Family Matters Bill to be considered at the end of the month.

The government provides six hours of tax-funded counselling for couples considering separating, but there is no legal provision for children to be involved. This is an anomaly, given the requirement under the Care of Children Act to listen to children's views.

Chief Family Court judge Peter Boshier is advocating "therapeutic counselling to help children through the difficult time of separation".

Following Goldson's research and international evidence which says children adjust better to parents separating if they are involved in decisions about their future, Boshier says: "A child's own views should be central to ensuring the result is workable and acceptable to the children themselves."

Goldson asked parents to focus on solutions for their children.

"If children's views are sought, they need to see them used, otherwise they can end up feeling betrayed. Mostly children want to be heard within their families."

She says people used to think children didn't need counselling because they benefited from the "trickle down" effect of parents attending counselling. In many cases this does not happen.

James, 48, father of two young boys, agrees.

"The Family Court says they are there for the children they are not. There was nothing there for the children."

He says the focus was always on "patching up" his relationship with wife Millie, never on how they could both be part of the children's lives, although separated.

"I have been to seven counsellors, I don't know how many psychologists and even a psychiatrist.

"I'm not a rapist; I'm not a paedophile. I love my children and I have fought for five years to be with them. There was no reason for me to be alienated, apart from the bitterness between me and my wife."

Distressed by the impact their conflict was having on the boys, James moved to Tauranga and had minimal contact with his children.

Today, between jobs, he is able to share in his sons' care. He says Goldson was "strong-minded, always asking, `What about the children? How are Dylan and Ryan coping?"'

In fact, Dylan, eight, was suffering serious anxiety. He couldn't sleep, couldn't concentrate, and had difficulty stringing words together. When Goldson asked him what was one of his main worries he immediately said he didn't know what colour to paint his bedroom. Blue was his mum's colour, green his dad's, how could he keep them both happy? For him the task was impossible.

"This `double bind'... is typical for children with parents in conflict. They are damned if they do, damned if they don't," says Goldson. "They want to love two people who seem to hate each other and it leaves children feeling disturbed."

Dylan's mother Millie says knowing how her children were feeling shifted her focus from the "hurt and fractiousness" of the past to "what is happening now and in the future.

"You can see where the children are struggling. It gives you a reason not to argue with each other because you can see the pain drops down into your kids' lives."

For the children, the success of this intervention is being heard by both parents, and hearing their mum and dad are committed to their well-being. This process also reduces parental conflict.

Millie and James's point-scoring relationship had them at loggerheads all the time, but Millie says Dylan's relief was palpable when, for the first time, his parents agreed: "We said `Mummy and daddy both like blue and green."'

"Mummy and daddy have agreed that this is how we do things," Dylan tells his little brother.

"Parents almost always try to protect children from adult problems," says Goldson. "But at the same time, they are going through one of the biggest crises in their lives.

"It is very hard to know how to talk to children when you are in grief and confusion yourself. It can be difficult to realise children want to be involved in discussions with their parents, but including them can help so much."

Eight-year-old Aria travelled the world with her dancing parents and the company was her extended family. When her parents separated, her world collapsed.

"I feel like I'm in a dark room in my head and I'm all alone," she told her mother, Jasmine.

But Jasmine says she felt out of her depth and had no idea how to respond.

Aria's dad Dave also felt helpless: "I didn't know how much she was holding in."

Jasmine wanted Aria to talk to a counsellor but Dave did not.

"Kids need simple loving," he said. "I don't like people mucking around with them."

But Goldson reassured them: "It's not separation that traumatises children they can deal with their parents going in different directions but they cannot cope with animosity."

For Aria, being able to tell someone how she was feeling made a big difference. She liked Goldson being "beside" her and not a member of the family.

"It wasn't a secret. I was allowed to say what was happening for me and how awful it felt."

It worked for teenaged Lucy too.

"It was nerve-wracking spilling out my life story to someone I didn't know. It was hell of a hard." She was scared about her parents hearing her "whole truth. I knew there were things they weren't going to agree on and wondered how they were going to react".

The eating disorder was a wake-up call for everybody, says her mother Liz. "If we hadn't listened to Lucy that last time, I don't know where she would be today.

"For the first time Geoff and I were speaking with a united voice."

But the last word comes from Dylan. Excited to see Goldson when the Sunday Star-Times met him, he answered all the questions patiently before saying:

"But Jill, now I have a new problem. Smoking. Cigarettes. Mummy and daddy are smoking and I don't like it. Can you tell them that?"

* Names have been changed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the Family Court.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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