"You have to let go of the fantasy that you can erase your children's pain during what may be the hardest time in their lives.
And you have to support and care for these children while they experience a wide range of feelings, which may or may not include hating you.
You do all of this while rebuilding your own life.
" - D.
Merilee Clunis, Ph.
D and G.
Dorsey Green, Ph.
D, The Lesbian Parenting Book: A Guide to Creating Families and Raising Children This article is the second of a four-part series addressing the impact of divorce on lesbian families.
In the first article, the focus was on the difficulties parents face when they divorce or break-up.
Parents must come to terms with the loss of the relationship, the change in their circumstances if they have less or no access to children they helped to raise, with who they are now that they are no longer part of a couple, with being on their own and what that might mean financially and with the pain of their children who must also grieve the loss.
Here, the focus is on what children need and what they experience as they try to come to terms with the divorce of their parents.
Short-Term Impact: The main thing to remember is that divorce can provoke an intense period of grief and loss for children, no matter what the age or circumstances are of the children involved.
But Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, in a book called Second Chances, summarized a follow-up study they did after ten years to identify the impact of divorce.
And they found that there were some predictable differences in the way children responded to or coped with divorce based on their ages.
Preschool: For children young enough to be in preschool, they found that the primary issue was fear of abandonment.
It was hard for them to understand that if one parent could suddenly leave, that the other one wasn't going to leave them, too, one day.
Kindergarten through about 3rd grade: Kids at this age may feel personally rejected by the parent who leaves or guilty and torn as if being pulled back and forth by both parents.
They often begin to have difficulty in school.
Preteen (3rd grade to adolescence): By this age, kids are likely to have more anxiety in response to their parents' divorce.
Here is where physical complaints surface, like stomach aches or headaches.
But they often take on the role of comforter to the parent who is visibly grieving.
Their grief is stronger, too, and sometimes they are lonely.
Adolescence: In adolescence, children may feel insecure about how life will be after all the changes divorce brings.
They don't want to lose the family structure that made them feel secure.
They may blame one parent in particular, deciding that this parent is the one at fault for the divorce.
They may worry about their own future relationships as they see their most important role models breaking up.
Though there are differences in the way they respond based on age, all children keenly feel the loss when their parents divorce.
The next article in this series will address the long-term impact of divorce and suggest ways to help children heal.