Share
13th January 2019
07:55am GMT
However, skip ahead a few years to your child being 11-years-old and emotional trauma will start to become evident.
At this time, kids will already know and are familiar with their parents' behaviour - and will have grown an attachment to the both of them being around most of the time.
When this changes, it can quite literally put their heads into a spin.
But, the worst thing you could do is fight in front of them, as this has been proven to make the biggest traumatic impact to their lives.
“The divorce itself is not the hardest part. The hardest part is the conflict. If there was a lot of conflicts, sometimes the divorce is like a relief,” Dr Carroll explains.
However, even worse than fighting in front of them is abandoning them.
“The absolute worst thing for a kid is if after a divorce a parent just isn’t involved. If you want to see a depressed kid, look at what happens when a parent doesn’t show up.”
If a parent is absent, the child will often wonder, “What’s wrong with me that you don’t love me?”
But it's not all bad news, as Scott says that once a child has reached puberty, they'll be better able to understand what is going on.
“There’s more potential to accept and understand a parent’s divorce. I’ve had teenagers advocate for their parent’s divorce. Sometimes they’re the smartest in the room," he added.
