Season when rifts hurt most

No one can deny that separation and divorce are difficult for children, but just how difficult depends on how committed the parents are to being a successful co-parenting team even though they are living apart. Children are most damaged when their warring parents use them as a means to expressing their rage towards each other. And this is the time of year for it.

Christmas is so emotionally loaded that many parents cannot see past their own anger and sadness to consider what it is best for their children. They use their children as pawns in their private war. "If a couple are fighting over everything, they tend to be fighting over the custody of the children as well. The children become just another tool to use," says Claire Missen, counsellor with Teen Between, a support service run by the Marriage and Relationships Counselling Service (MRCS) for children aged 12 and older whose parents are splitting up.

She believes that even though the spousal relationship has ended, a couple can be just as good as parents as they were before, as long as they both feel able to put their children first. "Many separating parents become friends and a lot of them say they have gotten to know the other person better after the separation than they did before," Missen says.

Blinded by resentment, however, other separating couples cannot put their children first, with the consequence that their children suffer chronic feelings of powerlessness because they cannot influence the painful rows happening in the home. These children become depressed and stressed because they have no voice - and the effects can be long-lasting.

Too often, parents cannot see their children's suffering and convince themselves that, by remaining in conflict with the other parent, they are doing what is best for their children. When a maintenance cheque doesn't arrive, for example, the mother might say to the children: "Your father is a waster. What do you want to have anything to do with him for? This man who call himself your father cannot even send the cheque in time. How are we going to pay for food?" . . . and so on.

The first Christmas after a separation is "the worst ever", says Claire Missen. The children are wondering what's going to happen as family traditions are upset. In talking with children, she stresses that this will be a "new" Christmas and that the children need to consider what they want to get out of it.

"We talk to them about how they may get more presents because their parents are giving them separately. We try to give a view of a future that will be different, but will be okay," she says.

Children need honest explanations, appropriate to their age, and they need to see their parents following through on their promises. This includes discussing arrangements for children to spend a part of Christmas with each parent and to see aunts, uncles and grandparents. As long as there is a plan and the children know about it, and that the plan is in their best interest, they will survive.And it's not beyond the bounds of possibility for both parents to spend the day with their children jointly, if the parents have a friendly relationship. Extended family also need to be supportive and flexible and not add to the tension by making demands.

Christmas may be most painful when international marriages break down, since one of the parents may have returned to his or her home country. Under the Hague Convention, one parent cannot remove children from the country of their birth without the other parent's permission. Otherwise it is considered "abduction", - and there are 100 reported cases of child abduction in the Republic each year.

Usually what happens is that a child is sent, in trust, to visit a parent in another country, with the promise that the child will be returned. The parent in the foreign country then breaks the promise and tries to use local laws to gain custody of the child. One Irish-Italian child, abducted to Italy five years ago, will spend her first Christmas with her Irish family this year, says Mary Banotti, MEP, who has a special interest in the area.

Earlier this month, Banotti was rapporteur for French-initiated legislation aimed at stopping such legal manipulations within the EU. The legislation gained the unanimous approval of the European Parliament and established that the prompt return of children at the end of a period of access cannot be challenged or delayed by the parent with the right of access, reassuring the other parent that a holiday or Christmas abroad cannot be used as a ploy to gain full custody of the children.

"From my experience of working on cases where parents have abducted children to other countries I have seen the heartbreak of these situations," Banotti says. This regulation will help in many ways by ensuring children have the right to know both parents and to reassure the non-custodial parents that they do not run the risk of losing contact with their children in the event of marital breakdown."

Counselling is available. Contact MRCS and Teen Between at (01) 4932002.