Holidays & Fairs

Due to holidays, weddings, BBQs, Festivals etc and a get fit campaign I have neglected my blog and emails for the last 6 weeks or so. Sorry, it's a bit late now for this year but Nick Woodall of the Centre For Separated Families sent me a link to a mailing offering separated parents tips on coping with the summer holidays. It's worth a read and bearing in mind for the next school holiday.

Also Suzy Miller of the Starting Over Show has left a comment on this post and the next Starting Over Show which focuses on starting over and rebuilding healthy lives after divorce will be in London on 7 March and Brighton 28 March 2010. This will provide an opportunity to get free legal, financial and life coaching advice.

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Couples Who Cohabit Before Engagement Are More Likely to Divorce

Research from Denver University appearing in the Journal of Family Psychology has found that couples who live together before they are married have a higher chance of getting divorced than those who wait until they are married to live together, or at least wait until they are engaged. In addition, couples who lived together before engagement and then married, reported a lower satisfaction in their marriages.

Participants in the study were aged 18 to 34 and had been married ten years or less.

Of those who cohabited before getting engaged, around 20 per cent had since suggested divorce, compared with 12 per cent who moved in after getting engaged and 10 per cent who did not cohabit before marriage.

About 40 per cent reported they did not live together before marriage; 43 per cent did before engagement; and about 16 per cent cohabited only after getting engaged.

Article Source The Scotsman 16 July 2009

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Relationships Scotland

It is over a year now since Relate Scotland and Family Mediation Scotland merged to become Relationships Scotland so I thought it would be interesting to have a look at their website to see what services are now on offer. Apart from Relationship Counselling and Family Mediation, Relationships Scotland currently supports a variety of other family support services: Child Contact Centres, Groups for adults and Groups for children.

Child Contact Centres offer supervision at the venue, supporting the exchange of the child from one parent to the other and supporting the contact when necessary. Alternatively Child Contact Centres may be used as a venue to “pick up” and “drop off” children for contact.


Family mediation services offer support groups for adults. These may be in the form of a series of workshops exploring the emotional and practical difficulties of divorce and separation. These groups are called Surviving the Break Up. Also on offer are a one off, 3 hour parent education workshop called Parenting Apart where parents can find out how best to support their children through separation – covering the emotional process of separation, children’s different needs at different stages, and what children need to hear.

Groups for children in which they are supported to express their thoughts and feelings in a safe environment re run by family mediation services. They meet with other children experiencing their parents divorce or separation and they are able to support one another through that. In some services these groups are called Time to Talk
Some local services provide a children and young persons’ counselling service to give children and young people time to explore their thoughts and feelings about changes they may be experiencing in their life due to parental separation, divorce or moving into a step-family situation.

Not all the services are available in all locations, unfortunately, but there is a useful search facility for finding specific services offered at different locations.

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What About the Children?

Recently I came across this excellent new book by well known psychotherapist, Julie Lynn Evans. "What About the Children?" features a foreword by Professor Peter Hill, Consultant Child Psychiatrist, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Many adults tell themselves that children are resilient, while others feel they are hurting the people they love the most. Julie Lynn Evans describes children's artwork when one depressed mother appears as a sagging black balloon; a dissolute absent father is scrunched up into a clay ball and hurled around the garden.

The book explains how to interpret a child's symptoms and reactions and provides parents with practical tools to overcome their problems. Remedies are simple and common sense - rules and diversions. Don't argue in front of the children and don't denigrate the other parent. If the child lives with one parent some contact with the other parent however inadequate they may be is usually better than none at all.

There is advice for outsiders too. Broken homes can be healed from the outside. Non judgmental grandparents, neighbours and others can help. The last thing a distressed parent needs to hear is criticism even though it might be well intended.

"What About the Children?" is essential reading for parents going through separation. It is a snip at £8.44 available here from Amazon.

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Mental Health Focus

The Guardian has today published several articles focusing on mental health. "As a society" the introduction says, "we should we doing all we can to avoid and alleviate preventable suffering; as an economy, investment in our mental capital guarantees increased returns." One article, Vital first steps, considers the importance of the early years in a child's life in relation to long-term mental health.

It is now well accepted that the emotional attachments children form during the early years are a crucial part in laying down the foundations for their future mental health. "Babies who receive sensitive, emotionally responsive care during their first years are more likely to become securely attached. Babies receiving insensitive, inconsistent or unresponsive care are likely to become insecurely attached." says Jane Barlow, professor of public health in the early years at Warwick University. (This is an issue in determining care for very young children of separated parents)

Despite some success of the Sure Start programme which attempts to bring together child health and family services, early education and childcare, and employment support to tackle the consequences of poor attachments it is extremely difficult to get funding for infant mental health services, even though they are hugely beneficial for adult mental health trusts because they will not be picking up the pieces later on.

Another article Off the scale: Measuring wellbeing looks at a survey of wellbeing across Europe that found countries which have traditionally invested more in their social infrastructure have the highest levels of overall wellbeing. Levels of trust and belonging are "strikingly" low among young people in the UK, the report says. One in ten children between five and 16 has clinically significant mental health difficulties.

Relating to the mental health of children and parental separation the Joseph Rowntree Foundation today also published a study Ending child poverty in a changing economy by Donald Hirsch which suggests that, under existing policies, about 1.1 million fewer children will be in poverty by 2010 than in 1998 when the target was set. This will still be 600,000 short of the government target of halving child poverty by the and it will make it more difficult to meet the more ambitious goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020. Without any new policies to help low-income families the report says , child poverty could rise again to 3.1 million by 2020.

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Common Ground

In the Common Ground tradition of exploring the diversity of different cultures and finding what we have in common with one another across the Atlantic that outweighs our differences I thought I would mention two recent posts from Sam Hasler of the Indiana Divorce & Family Law Blog.

The first, Parenting Time Alternate Means, looks at the way the internet can be used to facilitate indirect contact, in particular an interactive, safe and secure web-based meeting place developed for non-resident parents or parents in shared care situations, grandparents, military families, or the heavy business traveler to keep in touch with family members. Features include live video phone calling, shared spaces for photos, videos and documents, personal notes, an interactive white board, and a shared calendar.

Say the right thing:10 ways to defuse conflict and promote harmony| Domestic Diversions lists 10 diplomatic things to say from a CNN article which are worth repeating.

1. “Thank you for your opinion. I’ll think about it.”
2. “Is this a good time for you?”
3. “Would you like my thoughts?”
4. “Why don’t we get the facts?”
5. “I need your help. Can you please…?”
6. “Let’s wait on this until we have more information.”
7. “What did you mean by that?”
8. “I don’t like that, so why don’t we do this instead?”
9. “I’m sorry you’re upset.”
10. “Let me get back to you.

”

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Instability & Attachments

I've been reading the excellent Family Affair blog of Jay Belsky, Director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues and Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck University of London, for sometime and his post The Timing of Family Instability persuaded me it was appropriate to add the blog to my blogroll. In his post Jay Belsky considers research into the timing of changes in family structures. it was found there is a 'sleeper' effect of early family instability that isn't apparent early in life, but results in children developing less well across the primary school years.

In his latest blog, Attachment Security: Born or Made? Jay looks at the extent that secure childhood attachments are influenced by the care given and genetics. The scientific explanation is worth a read but it seems to support the notion we all vary in our susceptibility to environmental influences.

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