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In a recent television programme entitled ‘For the Sake of the Children’, a nursery-school head teacher talked of the increase in divorce in families with very young children. One in three of her nursery children now comes from a divorced family whereas, not all that long ago, it was one in four. As the divorce rate goes up, children are suffering the experience of a broken home at an increasingly young age.
The programme showed a disturbing clip of a weeping boy being interviewed by a child psychotherapist. In the interview he gave expression to feelings common among these children:
A longing for the parents’ reconciliation, even though, in his case, it had been six years since they had separated.
The feeling that he was to blame: ‘If I hadn't been born, they wouldn't be arguing now.’
A conflict over loyalties: ‘If I talked to Dad, Mum would be upset, and if I told Mum, Dad would be upset, so I bottle it up inside.’
Two surprising findings emerged:
A study for the Health Advisory Service found that three-quarters of the children in psychiatric or psychological treatment were from divorced families; and
A regional in-depth study on Divorce or Reordered Families found that notwithstanding conventional wisdom regarding the