Teenagers find it hard to cope with parents at the best of times, but particularly during their separation, writes Sheila Wayman
MORE THAN 100 families separate every week in the Republic and that rate is on the increase. For the children involved, it is the end of family life as they know it.
Suddenly everything at home changes and the future is uncertain. They are often traumatised, feeling shocked, powerless and confused.
There is never a good time for children to hear their parents are separating, but for teenagers there are particular challenges. Just as they are going out into the world to forge their own identities, the secure backdrop to their lives is ripped away.
No longer a child but not yet an adult, a teenager struggles to find the "right way" to cope. At a time when privacy is important, s/he is likely to bottle feelings up, carrying the tension around like a timebomb.
For years, Glynis Good, a marriage and relationships counsellor who works with teenagers of separated parents, looked for a helpful book she could give them. A practical one they could dip into, providing information as well as affirmation of what they were feeling.
Not all children of separated parents need counselling, she says, "but they need information, support and encouragement". She was also conscious that for every teenager who came for counselling at Teen Between, run by the Marriage and Relationship Counselling Service (MRCS), there were thousands more who were trying to cope with similar issues.
Finally, Good decided to write the book herself. When Parents Split: Support, information and encouragement for teenagers may be aimed at teenagers, but she hopes their parents will read it too.
Separating parents can be so overwhelmed by their own pain, anger and fear that they are unable to see that teenagers have their own perspective on what is happening. Good's book is laced with real-life quotes from teenagers she has met, some of which are an indictment of the way even the best-intentioned parents handle the situation.
"I got a text message in school telling me they were separating - they thought it would be best for me to know before I got home from school and saw that dad had moved out," says 14-year-old Sam (names have been changed to protect privacy). "I could hardly breathe when I read it in school. I was so angry they were separating, but I think I was angrier about getting the text."
Good says: "It's horrific. You couldn't make it up."
A comment from 12-year-old Alice also makes you flinch: "Mum kept saying that we would all have been better off if Dad had died. She said it would have made everything simpler and that we could have just got on with our lives more easily. I used to cry at night whenever I thought of this. It would never have been better if he had died. I know he doesn't live with us anymore, but he is still here and I still have my dad."
Good is at pains to stress that she understands the intense distress parents are in when their relationship breaks up and how difficult it is, but that they need to be aware of their children's perspective.
"They see the teenager go out in their school uniform and they know they are struggling but they kind of think they're okay and the teenagers, even though it is an experience loads of people are going through, don't necessarily talk about it."
As Joanna (14) says: "Everyone thinks I am coping really well - but inside I know I'm not."
Good recalls another teenager telling her: "Both my parents assume that I trust them and believe what they say. But when they tell me something different, I don't trust either of them."
A mother of four children, ranging in age now from 27 to 17, Good found that her counselling work made her change the way she was parenting her own teenage children. Instead of being preoccupied with domestic trivia, such as have you got your lunch, have you got your rugby stuff, have you cleaned your room, have you done your homework, "I became more aware of what deep-thinking individuals young people are today".
It's not hard to see how teenagers would open up to her at Teen Between. Serene and quietly spoken, she is an interested listener but with no trace of off-putting intensity.
Parental separation is not an event but a process, Good points out. "Teenagers are confused as to what is expected of them in the whole process, because they are not an adult and they are not a child.
"They love their parents but they haven't had to think about spending time with their parents. They are just getting on with their lives and beginning to become more independent and suddenly they're scheduling time with a parent when they used to all just live together."
They can also find themselves playing the unwanted roles of messenger, private detective or confidante. "A young person I met in the last few weeks said to me: 'I can't wait to go back to my parents being my parents'," says Good. "I said 'what do you mean?' She said: "They're both treating me like their friend and telling me everything'."
When parents split, the needs of the adults and the teenagers can conflict. One parent may be trying to detach emotionally from the other and keep a distance, while the teenager is trying to stay emotionally attached to both. The parents need time to readjust to the changes and decide what to do next, while the teenager needs a new routine and structure as soon as possible.
She tells teenagers that their family life has not ended, it has just changed. "Your parents will always be your parents."
She quotes a comment from the chief executive of MRCS, Kevin Smyth, at the launch of her book: "There may be many ex-wives and many ex-husbands but there is no such thing as an ex-child."
While teenagers of separating parents can't change the situation they find themselves in, they can learn to cope with it better. "We are trying to help them see what issues are important to them and, more than anything, to find a way to talk and to help them negotiate a new relationship with their parents."
To parents she would say that if teenagers can feel they are being understood and their views acknowledged, that changes a situation. "A parent saying, 'this is really difficult and it must be really difficult for you' can make such a difference."
The most important thing for teenagers, if they are to emerge relatively unscathed from parental separation, is a continuing good relationship with both parents. "A good relationship with both parents is more important than the amount of time in one house or the other. Having the freedom and being encouraged to have the best possible relationship with both parents is what is going to help," says Good. "It's best if parents can manage the parenting issues respectfully, and leave the other issues aside."
Traditional family occasions, such as birthdays, confirmation, graduation and, of course, Christmas can cause huge tension in advance, especially if children don't know what is going to happen. "Make a plan for Christmas," she advises parents. "But don't put that plan in place before discussing it with your teenagers." And if one parent is going to be away from the children for the big day, it's important that parent tells them s/he will be fine. "Kids can feel so guilty for leaving a parent on their own," she says.
One recent trend she has seen is the speed with which parents form new relationships now after they separate. "I think there used to be more of a gap before children were involved with the next relationship. The children are dealing with that sooner. It might be wonderful for the parent but for the teenagers they are having to deal with a huge amount very quickly."
Any hopes teenagers have that their parents will get back to together are dashed when they see them with new partners. Then before long a baby may arrive, leaving older children wondering where they fit in now.
If that sounds like a lot to deal with, Good is now seeing teenagers coming in for counselling when their second families are separating. "It's so complicated. Teenagers are left coping with the crisis yet again, which compounds the grief."
However, no matter what's going on, she adds: "Parents should not forget they are the most important people in their children's lives, even if teenagers don't always let them think that."
• When Parents Split: Support, information and encouragement for teenagersby Glynis Good is published by Blackhall, €14.99
Between the teens: a place to dump the stress
Visitors to the new website of Teen Between, the counselling service for teenagers of separated parents, are invited to "dump some stress" there.
They can type their thoughts on to a blank "post-it" and then put a lighted match to it by clicking the "dump" button. It's a virtual off-loading which is bound to appeal to its audience.
The site includes tips on various topics, such as coping with parents, surviving school and how to talk, taken from Glynis Good's new book, as well as information on the service, which is run by the Marriage and Relationship Counselling Service (MRCS).
Teen Between was set up 13 years ago in response to a need that was identified by parents attending MRCS.
It aims to support children aged 12-18 of separated parents, helping them to maintain a healthy relationship with both parents while they are also coping with the additional struggles of entering adulthood.
Log on to: teenbetween.ie
Teenagers' advice to parents
During counselling at Teen Between, teenagers are asked what they wish their parents understood about separation from their point of view. Here are a few of their comments:
• Don't assume that we are okay, even if we say that we are. How can we be okay when everything has changed and is a mess and nothing is actually okay any more?
• Sometimes it is like you are competing against each other to be the best and most responsible parent. There's no fun being in a family like this.
• Please don't criticise my other parent in front of me. I hate it when you both do that.
• Genetically, I am 50 per cent of each of you. When you rubbish each other, it feels like you are rubbishing part of me.
• Time with your parent is what you need to build a relationship. Time is what is valuable. Looking back, that is what was missing and now it is so much harder.
• Be careful of and more aware of not dumping all your 'emotional stuff' on us at home. Find support somewhere else and let us be neutral.
• Sometimes you need to put what you want on hold and find out what your children want, especially about things that are happening in our lives, like school.
• As parents, you were always just there . . . now I have to plan my life and diary around seeing you and trying to keep you both happy by balancing my time. I love you both, but it's a pain.
- Taken from When Parents Splitby Glynis Good