RISK FACTORS IN DIVORCE

Perceptions by the children involved

KARI MOXNES The article analyses how children cope with their
Norwegian University of Science
and Technology parents’ divorce. By focusing on children’s divorce
stories, we can better understand how they
Key words:
change, children, divorce, risk experienced the risk, the changes and the continu-
ities that they endured during the divorce process. It
Mailing address:
Kari Moxnes is argued that even if divorce is a stressful process
Department of Sociology and Political
that causes loss of capital for most children, what is
Science, Norwegian University
of Science and Technology, crucial for the children’s well-being is whether they
Trondheim, Norway.
[email: kari.moxnes@svt.ntnu.no] get to retain a close relationship to the family
members and to keep their family.
Childhood Copyright © 2003
SAGE Publications. London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi, Vol 10(2): 131–146.
www.sagepublications.com
[0907-5682 (200305)10:2; 131–146;032716]

In this article I examine how children cope with their parents’ divorce.
Through analysing children’s divorce stories, I explore the changes as well
as the continuities the children endured during the divorce process. Using
earlier studies of parent’s reports on how children cope with divorce as a ref-
erence point, I ask whether children share the same view concerning the risk
factors of divorce. I then move on to consider whether theories that are com-
monly used to explain why divorce is a risk to children’s well-being can be
applied to these children’s stories.
Most studies on the consequences of divorce for children have used
large quantitative samples comparing children from nuclear families with
children of divorced parents or parental reports on how their children have
coped during the divorce process. One of the key aims of these studies has
been to identify the risk factors that can increase a child’s post-divorce
development in a negative manner. A number of studies have shown that
changes concerning the loss of economic and social capital and impaired or
damaged parent–child relations are major risks (McLanahan and Sandefur,
1994; Pryor and Rodgers, 2001; Thompson and Amato, 1999).
There are, however, problems with such studies. While this research
has provided valuable knowledge, these studies lack the ‘voice of the chil-
dren’ and tend to view children as objects of research and as passive victims
of their parents’ divorce (Alanen, 1992). In order to understand the conse-
quences of divorce for children, children must also be the subjects of
research and be viewed as social actors who participate in their parents’

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divorce (Frønes, 1998; James and Prout, 1997). The following discussion
focuses on whether adults’ understandings of the major risks from divorce
for children’s development are shared by the children themselves.
The first question we need to raise is whether changes in families that
are widely seen – from an adult perspective – as major risks for children’s
development, are also seen as such by children themselves. Second, we need
to consider whether the tendency to measure outcomes by comparing aver-
age differences between groups of children means that we tend to ignore
similarities between these groups as well as variations within groups. Third,
we need to realize that, even if a factor like the decline in household income
is a risk to children’s well-being, we do not understand the process through
which children are actually harmed. I therefore suggest that to get a better
understanding of why these risks are a threat to children’s well-being it is
necessary to speak to the children themselves. Finally, it is also necessary to
ask whether the theories that are commonly used to explain why divorce is a
risk to children’s well-being also make sense when applied to the children’s
own accounts.

Theories
Three theories dominate the field of divorce research as explanations for
why divorce is a risk for the well-being of the child. First, divorce is seen as
a risk to children since changes such as loss of household income, residential
mobility and loss of contact with the non-residential parent, result in a loss
of social and economic capital (McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994). Second,
divorce brings about changes that are understood to cause significant social
stress for the child. Pryor and Rogers (2001) note that the quantity and
severity of those changes will determine how negative the effect of the
divorce will be for the child. Third, divorce is seen as a risk to children
because the family structure is altered or changed. From this perspective, the
traditional nuclear family is usually seen as best and therefore as superior to
all kinds of post-divorce families. McLanahan and Sandefur are proponents
of this view:
Even in cases where the parents share physical as well as legal custody, the
child is not living with both parents at the same time. In our opinion, this is the
critical point. (McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994: 6)

While I understand that family structure is important for children, I have

serious reservations about McLanahan and Sandefur’s viewpoint. I suggest
that the critical issue is whether the children get to keep their family – that
is, whether the pre-divorce nuclear family is transformed into a post-divorce
binuclear family (Ahrons, 1979). There is evidence that children who contin-
ue to experience shared parenting after divorce have a reduced risk of nega-
tive developments (Hetherington and Kelly, 2002; Maccoby and Mnookin,

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1992; Moxnes, 1990; Smart, 1999). Thus, the first two theories noted earlier
are based on the assumption that divorce leads to change and discontinuity
and that change is automatically negative because it produces social stress
and/or loss of capital. However, the third theory is no longer automatically
wedded to this negative perspective because it suggests that divorce leads to
both change and continuity and that this can be both positive and negative
but that the most important continuity for the children is that they get to keep
their family.
This article is based on findings from the study, ‘Families after
Divorce’ (Moxnes et al., 1999, 2000, 2001). This study consists of a sample
of 473 divorced parents (divorced in Trondheim and Orkdal counties in 1992
and 1995) who answered questionnaires and reported on how their 910 chil-
dren had coped with divorce. The parents were asked if they had observed
any changes in their child’s behaviour that they considered to be a result of
the divorce process. The parents were presented with 16 statements of
change (eight positive and eight negative) to which they could agree or dis-
agree. Based on the parents’ answers, two scales of the effects of divorce,
one positive and one negative, were constructed and used to measure the dif-
ferences in effects for groups of children (Moxnes et al., 1999).
According to the parents, a large majority of children experienced the
divorce process in a healthy way and were doing fine. A large group of chil-
dren showed neither positive nor negative effects but, when effects were
noted, they tended to be described as positive. However, approximately one
in every three children did show one or more negative effects of divorce.
As a further aspect to this study, 114 of the parents and 96 of their chil-
dren were interviewed in depth. This article focuses on interviews with 52 of
the 96 children. I selected those children who had experienced the most
change and who, in terms of theory, should be the most troubled by divorce.
Most of these children lived with their mother and only a few with their
father. None of the children had parents who shared physical custody and, on
average, they had less contact with their non-custodial parent than was com-
mon in Norway at the end of the 1990s (Jensen and Clausen, 1997). The
children’s age varied from 8 to 18 years. Most citations used in the following
are from the older children since they were the most articulate.
The children were asked to tell their divorce story. Among the topics
they were asked to elaborate on were the experiences with and consequences
of the following: the decline in the household’s level of income; the change
of residence; the lack of daily contact with one of the parents; and acquiring
stepparents. The following sections attempt to unravel the relationships
between these four aspects of change and the effect divorce has upon chil-
dren. Later sections consider the effect of continued parental cooperation,
of parental conflict and/or of a distant relationship between the child and a
parent.

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Results
Financial change in the child’s household
The Norwegian welfare state has developed systems that are intended to pro-
vide economic security to children and parents who experience divorce.
According to Norwegian law, parents must support their children financially
until they are 18 years old. If a parent is temporarily unable to pay child sup-
port, the state will pay a minimum amount and later claim that money back
from the parent. Single parents, both mothers and fathers alike, who want to
stay at home to care for their small children, have the right to a 3-year care-
giver pension.
The parents were asked if they considered their household income to
be better, unchanged or worse after the divorce. It is unsurprising that most
newly divorced parents noted that their household income was lower.
According to parents, 67 percent of the children lived in households that had
experienced a decline in income, while the rest lived in households with an
unchanged (15 percent) or better (17 percent) income. We found a signifi-
cant difference between the two groups of children on both the positive and
the negative scale. On average, the children who experienced income decline
showed more signs of negative effects and fewer signs of positive effects
than those who had not experienced that change. Income decline in the
child’s household is a major risk to the child’s well-being.
The majority of the children we interviewed lived in households with
lower income, but many of them also lived in households with low incomes
before divorce. Therefore, the financial situation for a large minority of chil-
dren had been one of relative poverty both before and after divorce.
The children were asked about the nature of their family’s economy,
how they understood it to be, and if they ever had felt that the family’s
income had been a problem for them. They were also asked about their
workload at home, if they received pocket money, and if they took part in
after-school activities that cost money.
Most of the children acknowledged that the household income was
low, and that it was worse after the parents’ separation. Some children said
openly ‘we are poor’ and expressed worries about the household’s financial
present and future. The older children knew why the income was low. In
most cases, this was because their mothers did not earn much money. The
mothers tended to have little work experience, or to have unskilled, part-
time and therefore low-paid jobs. Some had returned to college while others
were dependent on disability pensions or single-parent allowances. Other
causes for the low income included the father not paying child support, pay-
ing too late, or paying less than he was legally obliged to pay.
The majority of the children said that their family’s low income never
had direct consequences for them. None of the 52 children reported that they
could not participate in activities because of lack of money, but many said

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that they did not get pocket money and many told of a heavy workload at
home. These children’s stories can be understood as expressions of solidarity
with their residential parent. Instead of saying that they could not take part
in, for example, snowboard skiing or continue playing in the school band
because it was too expensive, they said they did not want to or that they had
lost interest. Instead of saying that they had to take responsibility for house-
hold chores because the mother had to work long hours, they said it was
only fair that all family members shared the work. Instead of complaining
about not getting a weekly allowance, they said they did not need one and
that they got the money they needed if they asked. They expressed solidarity
with their parent and took responsibility for the financial situation.
Furthermore, they developed ways of coping. Among those children who
were old enough, many earned their own money. They delivered newspa-
pers, mowed lawns, took on babysitting duties or did paid housework in
their grandparent’s home or their own home. They showed much initiative
and creativity, and were proud of it. Nonetheless, some of the children talked
about the difficulties of being poor:
It is awful, not to have money, my mother worries, and we all fight, not about
money, but because everything is so difficult. . . . I don’t know any way to make
it better. (Berit, 17 years old)

Low household income was also a problem for children whose parents
fought over money and especially for children with fathers who failed to pay
legally arranged child support. These children expressed more anger and/or
sadness and little, if any, of the solidarity towards their parents as mentioned
earlier:
My father often doesn’t pay [child support], he delays the payments, or pays
less than he should. My mother thinks this is so because he wants to punish her,
but he is punishing us at the same time. . . . It isn’t fair, a few times we have not
had money for food, and twice my mother has had to go to the social security
office to ask for money. . . . I have seen the way my father and his new family
lives, they have plenty, we have nothing. . . . He has said many times that if I
lived with him I would get more. (Tom, 14 years old)

Tom was hurt, so was Janne:

All the fights and worries about money makes me feel that I am the problem, I
should not cost anything . . . if I did not exist they would not have anything to
fight about. (Janne, 15 years old)

According to the children for whom low household income was a

problem, it caused stress and living in poverty was hard. Thus the children
supported findings from the study of the parents’ reports that decline in the
household income was a risk for the children’s well-being. However, the
extent to which lack of money was a problem varied considerably and so too
did the ways in which the children dealt with it. The children’s stories must
be understood within the context of the household’s income level. The

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stories of children living in households which usually had some money left –
often very little – after the bills were paid differed considerably from those
told by children who lived in households that had no money left and only
piles of bills they were unable to pay. The first group of children were usual-
ly well informed and understood the financial situation. They presented the
lack of money as a shared family problem. The second group of children,
living in families where there was no money about which to negotiate and
where parents often fought about money, had no way of influencing the use
of money and felt powerless. Some were ashamed of being poor, withdrew
socially, or felt rejected and unloved by one of the parents. For these chil-
dren the lack of money was a practical problem, but more importantly, it had
become a personal problem. This became damaging to family relations,
socially devastating and threatened their self-esteem. It was the fights
between their parents, the father’s rejections, or lack of responsibility
towards them, together with the unfairness they observed in the differences
in the standard of living between the mother’s and father’s household, that
pained them the most. In other words, their main problems were parental
conflict, incompetent parenting and/or lack of parental involvement.

Change of residence
According to the parents, most of them moved to another home at the time
of separation or divorce. Fathers moved more often than mothers, but when
the father had physical custody of one or more of his children he kept the
pre-divorce home more often than custodial mothers. Since most of the par-
ents moved, one would expect most children to do the same, but that was not
the case. More than half of the children (54 percent) continued to live in the
pre-divorce home. Another 9 percent of the children continued to live in that
home half of the time and in a new home the rest of the time. Only 37 per-
cent of the children had to leave their old home. There were significant dif-
ferences between the children who moved and those who did not move. On
average, the children who changed residence showed signs of negative
development more often and signs of positive development less often than
those who continued to live in their pre-divorce home. Residential mobility,
then, is a major risk to children’s well-being.
With few exceptions, the children we interviewed had changed resi-
dence when their parents separated or divorced, and some of them had
moved more than once. They had moved two or three times usually for one
of two reasons. Their mother was dependent on the county for housing and
had to take what she was offered, or the residential parent had found a new
partner, and together they had moved to a new home that better suited the
needs of the extended household. Many of these families lived in an apart-
ment that they rented.
Even if most of the children did not move far from the pre-divorce
home, they said that it had been hard to leave. For some, it was difficult

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because the original home had been nicer and bigger than the new home
and/or because the new home was in a less attractive neighbourhood. For
others, it was difficult because they moved so far from their old home that
they could no longer have frequent contact with friends:
From the time my mother said that we had to sell the house, I have worried, first
that we would not find something in the neighbourhood, then because the house
and my room was small . . . now I am afraid that we have to move again
because of my mother’s new friend. (Bente, 15 years old)

If leaving the pre-divorce home was difficult, finding new friends and
becoming included in the new community was much more problematic. It
was worse for those who did not know anyone who could facilitate their
integration into the new community:
I never wanted to move, that was what my mother and her boyfriend wanted.
But they do not live here, I mean they are away working, and when they come
home, they never leave the apartment. I am the one living here . . . I have to go
to that stupid school and take all the shit. (Britt, 13 years old)

The stories of Anna and Lisa, who both moved twice, illustrate the dif-
ficulties that changing residence can lead to and the different ways in which
children cope with such changes. Thirteen-year-old Anna lived in East-town
until she was 9. Her mother could not afford to keep the pre-divorce home so
they first moved to an apartment in another part of the town where they lived
for 2 years. The mother then met a new partner and together they moved to a
third place in town:
I have no friends here, but that does not matter, I do not like them, they only
talk about boys. . . . No, I do not go to the youth-club . . . nobody talks to me
there. . . . I used to play football at East-town, but not here. Here the team is
bad.

According to Anna, absolutely everyone and everything was positive and

fun in East-town, while everything was ‘stupid’ and negative at the place
where she had been living for the last 2 years. Twelve-year-old Lisa’s story
is similar. The first time she moved, Lisa changed school, but after the sec-
ond move she refused to change school. Her mother wanted her to change
school because of the time and cost it took to travel across town. Lisa was
fighting to keep her friends and threatened her mother by saying she would
move to her grandparents, or ask for a foster-home if she was forced to
change school:
It was terrible to move from The Hill. I lost all my friends. It took a long time
before I got to know anybody . . . not before I started playing in the band. . . .
Most of my friends play in the band, but we do a lot of other things too.

Neither Anna nor Lisa could do anything about the relocation of their home,
but their ways of coping with the second residential move were different.
Anna, as I understood her, felt it was too painful to actively seek new friends
and became an unhappy and isolated child. Lisa stood up to her mother, and

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spent a lot of time and energy on maintaining her friends. She was satisfied
and proud that she had managed to take charge of her own social life.
Changing residence at the time of divorce is considered a major risk
factor for children’s well-being and the children’s stories supported this find-
ing. How great a loss and how much sorrow changing residence had caused
depended on the distance between the old and new home and to what degree
the parents were willing and able to help during the transition. There were
striking differences in the stories of children who belonged to a family
where they had taken part in the negotiations as to when and where they
should move and those who did not participate in such processes. The first
group of children were usually well informed and well prepared when they
moved, and they had often made a deal with one or both parents that they
would be helped to keep in contact with old friends. For these children,
moving was a shared family problem. For children who moved far, or who
had parents who were unable or unwilling to help them keep in contact with
old friends, changing residence was more difficult. Many of these children’s
stories were about months, even years, of being excluded from other chil-
dren’s activities, and of being treated either as invisible, or of being pestered
by the other children. Difficulties finding new friends had been the main
problem and this often led to social isolation which developed into a person-
al problem since it forced the child to question his or her own attractiveness
as a friend.
Few of these children mentioned the parents as facilitators. The par-
ents usually were away at work most of the day. They had friends in another
part of the town and had no time nor need to acquire new friends in their
new neighbourhoods. Getting integrated was something the children had to
cope with alone. Some children were angry with their parents and felt that
she or he had failed them by moving and/or by not helping them to stay in
contact with old friends and getting integrated into the new community.
They presented their problem as one of insufficient parenting and/or lack of
parental involvement.

Change in the relation with the non-residential parent

According to Norwegian law, every child and biological parent has the right
to maintain contact with each other regardless of what kind of relationship
the parents have or have had in the past. Increasing the contact between chil-
dren and non-residential parents has been a political goal in Norwegian fam-
ily policy in the past decade. It appears to be working – it is no longer con-
sidered socially acceptable for parents to have little or no contact with their
children after separation.
What has been called ‘common visitation’ has been, until recently,
what most parents have chosen. ‘Common visitation’ is approximately 18
percent of the child’s time, ‘extended visitation’ is more, and ‘reduced visita-
tion’ is less than common visitation. According to the parents, 63 percent of

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the children had common visitation or a more extensive visitation arrange-

ment. Among these, 11 percent had two homes and spent an equal amount of
time with both parents. Only 6 percent of the children had no visitation and
no contact with their father.
No large quantitative study has been able to show a relationship
between the amount of contact children have with the non-residential parent
and the children’s well being (Emery, 1999). Using the data from the par-
ent’s reports, we did not find a correlation either. However, this does not
necessarily indicate that the amount of contact with the non-residential par-
ent is without importance for the child’s well-being.
Most of the children who had frequent contact with their father were
satisfied. Most of the children who had little or no contact with their father
were not satisfied, but their emotions with regard to their father’s absence
and their way of coping with that absence differed considerably. A few of the
children who had infrequent contact were satisfied because they were used
to not seeing their father much – that is, he had worked away from home, or
he had never taken much part in their life:
It’s OK, I never saw my father much. . . . He works in Africa, for the UN, he
helps poor and sick children. . . . Next year I will go and see him. He has
promised me that as a present for my confirmation. (Ben, 12 years old)

Others were relieved when their contact with their father was minimal
since his behaviour had too often made them feel ashamed or frightened:
I am afraid when I have to go and see my father. I never know if he or my
grandmother is drunk. When they are I try to leave, but that is difficult, they will
not let me. . . . My brother never goes to see my father [he refuses to] that is
unfair. . . . But if I do not go to see him he comes here to fetch me, and every-
body in the building will see how awful and drunk he is. (Anna, 13 years old)

Not living in the same household as their father (or, in a few cases,
their mother) had been a difficult change for most of the children. Without
doubt, losing daily contact with one of the parents had been stressful and
many children saw this as a great loss. How much of a loss and how painful
the reduced contact was depended on the amount of contact and the reason
for the reduced contact. Children living in households where parents and
children normally discussed family issues usually had the necessary infor-
mation as to why they had a certain visitation schedule. Visitation was flexi-
ble and the children felt free to argue for more or less contact with the non-
residential parent. These children felt that they had both responsibility for,
and control over, the relationships with their parents (Schultz-Jørgensen,
1999). The majority of children presented the lack of contact as an unfortu-
nate but necessary consequence of the divorce, the parents’ work situation,
lack of money and/or the distance between the parental homes. The children
did not present the reduced contact with the non-residential parent as a per-
sonal problem, but rather as a shared family issue and as nobody’s fault. It
was those children who seldom had contact with the non-residential parent

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who seemed most hurt and disturbed when they talked about that relation-
ship. These children often had one or two parents who were unwilling or
unable to negotiate a schedule for the child’s contact with the non-residential
parent and therefore the child could do little to influence the relationship
with the father. Regardless of whether the children wanted more or less con-
tact, it was those children who could not understand why they rarely had
contact with the father who were most unhappy. These children were unable
to provide a personal and/or socially acceptable explanation as to why, and
that failure to explain this lack of contact with their father troubled them
(Dahlhaug, 2001). For these children the relationship with the non-residen-
tial parent had become a personal problem – they wondered if they were no
longer lovable since the absent parent treated them in this way. They talked
of incompetent parenting and/or lack of parental involvement.

Extension of the family with stepparents

The majority of divorced parents find a new partner soon after divorce
(Jensen and Clausen, 1997; Moxnes and Haugen, 1998). According to the
parents in this study, the majority of children (72 percent) have had their bin-
uclear family extended, with 54 percent gaining one stepparent and 18 per-
cent gaining two stepparents. Thirty-five percent of these children reside
with a stepparent, while 56 percent have stepparents in their non-residential
parent’s household. The study found that there were no significant differ-
ences in well-being between children with and without stepparents.
However, this does not imply that stepparents have no effect on the child’s
well-being. There were important differences in well-being among children
with a residential stepparent, who – on average – did better than those with a
non-residential stepparent.
The children noted that the introduction of a stepparent was a stressful
period in their lives. They were worried about what the stepparent would be
like and whether this new person would make their lives more difficult.
Thirteen-year-old Per expressed what most of the children were afraid of at
that time: ‘You know what is said about stepparents, they are awful towards
stepchildren.’
However, with time, the children recognized the importance of step-
parents and the economic and social resources they brought to the house-
hold. Stepparents, especially residential stepparents, were considered to be a
gain.
There were differences in the stories of children with residential and
non-residential stepparents and the most important difference was the
process through which households were extended. Acquiring a residential
stepparent was usually the result of a long process of negotiation where the
child had time to get to know the stepparent and the child’s opinions as to
when and under what conditions she or he could share their home was cru-
cial. Getting a non-residential stepparent was often a different kind of

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process. Few children had a say in that acquisition and many did not meet
the stepparent before she or he was actually living with the non-residential
parent.
Among the children we interviewed who lived permanently with a
stepparent, all but two lived in their mother’s household. The children’s rela-
tionships with these new stepfathers were discussed in positive terms.
Stepfathers were seen as someone who belonged in the family, a friend who
often was of help, and many children stressed the financial importance of the
stepfather’s presence in the household: ‘If he had not earned that much
money we could not have kept the house’ (Per, 13 years old).
The stepfather’s status in the family was dependent upon his relation-
ship with the mother. As long as the children could see that their mother was
happy, that the stepfather contributed to the household tasks and did not
interfere too much in the children’s own lives, they accepted him and/or
were happy that he was there. However, some children openly expressed
their dissatisfaction with their resident stepfather or distanced themselves
from him. In the five years that had passed since Lisa’s mother separated
from her father, four men had lived with them. Lisa had learned to distance
herself from her mother’s boyfriends:
Women have to have a man, it is natural, but he has nothing to do with me. He
is not my stepfather, he is not a father; he is only my mother’s boyfriend. . . .
Luckily he is gone a lot, because he is a truck driver. . . . If he is here and my
mother is away I stay in my room until she is back. I have promised my grand-
father, I shall not be alone with her men. (Lisa, 12 years old)

Among the children who had non-residential stepparents, all but three
had a stepmother. The stories about the stepparents in the non-residential
parent’s home were more differentiated. Some children expressed happiness
that their father had a new partner. They talked about how their father had
become happier and more fun to be with since she came into his life. Others,
however, disliked their father’s new partner usually because she made them
feel like an unwelcome outsider or because they rarely got to spend time
alone with their father. Some children disliked the stepmother so much that
they refused to visit their father:
Sometimes I have to be together with her [stepmother] and her kids, but if I
have been with them one weekend, I can force him to go away with me alone.
(Eva, 14 years old)

Other studies have noted that it is more difficult to be a stepmother

than a stepfather and that the children were often more satisfied with their
stepfathers than with their stepmothers (Robinson and Smith, 1993). This
may be explained by the perceived higher expectations towards stepmothers
than stepfathers. However, according to the children, it is also a question of
gains and losses. Since most of the children spent little time with the non-
residential stepmother, they did not really know her. They thus had difficul-
ties seeing that she had anything to offer them. Instead, they felt that she

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(and, if present, any stepsiblings) took the attention, time and money that
their father used to give to them. For these children, the stepparent represent-
ed no gains, only losses.
According to the children, the introduction of stepparents had been a
very stressful process. However, having parents who, from the child’s point
of view, gave priority to the new spouse and to stepsiblings was a significant
problem. It was damaging to the biological parent–child relationship and
painful to the children, who often wondered why the stepparent and/or
stepsiblings seemed to be more worthy of the parent’s love than themselves.
Their stories about the relationship with the non-residential parent spoke of
incompetent or insufficient parenting and/or a lack of parental involvement.

Continuity and change in the family structure

As noted earlier, most children talked about having good relationships with
their divorced parents and they also noted that their relationship with their
non-residential parent was, in many ways, the same as before the divorce.
Most children had frequent contact with their non-residential parent, yet
some children told of a distant but satisfying relationship with their father
since he had always played a minor part in their life. Children who were
unsatisfied or unhappy with the relationship with their father were those who
did have a close relationship with him pre-divorce, but who had experienced
a dramatic decline in the contact with their father without understanding
why this had happened. Being the child of a parent that is unable or unwill-
ing to behave as a good, involved parent makes day-to-day life difficult for
the child. More importantly, this can be devastating for the child’s self-iden-
tity, as 14-year-old David makes clear: ‘He always has so much to do, has no
time. . . . He never calls and I have not seen him since Christmas.’
The majority of children talked about an improved relationship with
the residential parent after divorce. They said that since their parents’ separa-
tion they had got to know their mother better, that their respect for her had
increased and that, in turn, she was treating them more respectfully. Only a
few children told a different story about the residential parent. These chil-
dren noted that their mother had not coped well with the divorce and that she
had been unable to reorganize either her or her children’s life since. Some of
these children felt they were abandoned by their mother because they knew
that they would not get the support they needed from her. Others felt that
they had to ‘mother’ their own mother:
Nobody can respect her, she picks out the worst men, and they all treat her
badly. She has never been able to help herself, she expects others to do that.
(Linn, 17 years old)

A good parent–child relationship that continued to be good or better

after the divorce strengthened the children and made them happy, whereas a
former good relationship that had deteriorated was painful and damaging to
the child’s identity.

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A large minority of the children we interviewed could not remember

ever witnessing their parents fighting either before or after divorce. Most of
the children also said that their parents behaved in a friendly manner towards
each other and that the whole pre-divorce family could spend time together.
These children had regular contact with both parents and felt free to continue
and strengthen their relationships with them.
The majority of the children said that they had heard or witnessed
fights or arguments between the parents in the years or months before the
separation. About one in every three children said that the parents had fre-
quent arguments or fights before, during and after the divorce. Every child
who told us that their parents were arguing, fighting or were violent, also
said that the parental conflict was a painful problem that made them sad or
angry:
They promised me that they would stop fighting when they got divorced, that
never happened, at times it is worse, especially after my mother’s new friend
moved in. My father does not pay child support, or pays too little too late, he
said that he would not pay as long as that man lived with us. He wants us to
come and live with him. (Tor, 14 years old)
My mother and father hate each other, I am not allowed to be alone with him.
My mother is afraid of my father, I do not know what he has done, but he has
been in jail. (Ruth, 10 years old)

Those children who told of a continuing high level or increasing high level
of conflict were all unhappy with their situation post-divorce. It was the pain
of having parents who were fighting or who refused to see and talk to each
other that came across as the most difficult theme within the children’s sto-
ries about the divorce. These children felt caught in the middle of the
parental conflict. Some felt that they were not allowed to love the ‘guilty’
parent, while others felt guilty themselves when they ‘hated’ that parent.
However, parental conflict and/or incompetent or insufficient parent-
ing is not always, not even in most of these cases, a result of divorce. Often
it was a reason for divorce. According to the majority of the children who
told of such experiences, these problems had existed long before the divorce.
The children noted that these problems had been a characteristic of the par-
ents’ relationship or parental style before, during and after divorce.
The main difference between the children who had parents who were
fighting or who were unable or unwilling to be ‘good’ parents and children
with competent and cooperating parents was that the former seemed to be
less happy and less able to cope with the changes that divorce had caused. It
is difficult to cope with such change if the child lacks the support from the
parents and is left to cope on their own. It is hard to live with one or two par-
ents who are so weak or so self-centred that they do not recognize or
acknowledge the child’s need for love and caring. Likewise, it is very
painful for the children to live with parents who are constantly fighting,
often for their own parental rights, and who pay little attention to the child’s

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needs and desires. For the children, it is easier to cope with change when
those changes are shared and defined as a family problem and an unfortunate,
but necessary result of divorce. Another important difference is that children
with cooperating parents got to keep their family relationships and their fami-
ly, while those with non-cooperating parents were unable to
preserve these pre-divorce relationships. Children with parents that were
not cooperating often experienced a dramatic family change and they told of
disintegrated, damaged or lost family relationships and of having a broken
family.

Explaining divorce as a risk for children’s well-being

According to the ‘loss of capital’ theory, separation and divorce bring about
both necessary and unnecessary changes and that the ultimate consequence of
this is that children lose significant financial and social resources. The study
of the parents’ reports showed that children who lived in households that had
experienced a financial decline and who had changed residence did, on aver-
age, less well than those who had not experienced such changes. According to
the children, income decline and moving residence were changes that were
difficult to cope with. However, most children presented such problems as a
shared family problem that they could deal with either alone or together with
their parents.
The study of the parents’ reports showed no significant differences
between children with frequent and infrequent contact with their non-residen-
tial parent, and children with and without stepparents. However, the children’s
accounts told otherwise. No longer living in the same household as one of
their parents had been a difficult and stressful change for the majority of the
children. Likewise, acquiring a stepparent had been difficult for most children
regardless of whether this stepparent lived in their household or in the non-
residential parent’s home. With time, most children who lived permanently
with a stepparent learned to see them as a gain. However, many children with
a stepparent in the non-residential parent’s home considered this person to be
responsible for their loss and that they (and, if present, their stepsiblings)
‘stole’ the attention, time and money their father used to give to them.
Even if none of the children used words like ‘loss of social and eco-
nomic capital’, what they said can be understood as stories of loss. However,
because most children stressed that it was not change as such that had caused
the most trouble but the lack of understanding and help from one or both par-
ents, I consider ‘loss of capital’ to be only part of the explanation as to why
divorce is a risk to the development of children.
Most of the changes that we have analysed so far can also be explained
as resulting from social stress. According to the theory of social stress, all
changes that the child experiences during the divorce process causes social
stress and the more changes the child has to endure, the more negative the

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effects. The study of the parents’ reports showed significant differences

between the children who experienced all four changes that we studied –
financial changes in the child’s household; change of residence; change in
relation to the non-resident parent; and change through the introduction of
stepparents – and those who had experienced only one type of change. Twelve
percent of the children who experienced one of these changes showed signs of
two or more negative effects of divorce, while 39 percent of those who expe-
rienced four changes showed similar effects (Moxnes et al., 1999). All the
children we interviewed talked about their worries and fears, their angst, sad-
ness and/or depression when describing the changes they had experienced
when their parents separated. Every change they had to adjust to caused
stress, even though most children learned to live with and often appreciated
the changes in time. According to the children, how much stress they had to
endure depended on the number of changes and the support they received
from their parents and their wider kin. Nonetheless, ‘social stress’ is only part
of the explanation as to why divorce is a risk to children’s well-being.
To understand the effects of social stress and loss of capital, these fac-
tors have to be considered within the context of the family structure. It is the
extent and quality of parental cooperation that determines how difficult the
divorce will be for children and the effects it will have upon them. The theory
of ‘family structure’ states that the children who get to keep their family and
who have parents who continue to share the parental duties and responsibili-
ties will be less negatively affected by divorce than those children who have
parents that do not cooperate. The study of the parents’ reports showed that
children who had parents satisfied with the parental cooperation, compared
with those who did not, experienced less change and showed fewer negative
and more positive effects of divorce. The children’s stories confirmed this –
having parents who cooperated and behaved in a friendly manner towards
each other was important. When parents were friends and cooperated with
one another, the children adjusted to the changes that were forced upon them
with less difficulty and in more healthy ways than they did when parents were
angry at, and un-cooperative with, each other. Good parental cooperation
facilitates the divorce process for the children and reduces the risk that
divorce will negatively effect the well-being of children.
The three theories considered in this article – loss of capital, social
stress and family structure – cannot, alone, explain why divorce is a risk to
the well-being of children. Yet, taken together, these theories can better
explain this issue. Divorce is a process of change. The changes the children
have to adjust to always cause social stress, and often, but not always, carry
with them loss of social and economic capital. The amount of social stress
and capital loss the children have to endure depends on the parents. Parental
cooperation is the key to understanding the effect of divorce on children.
Parents who cooperate seem to be able to reduce the number of changes their
children have to adjust to and also the amount of social stress and loss of cap-

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ital their children would have to endure should they choose not to cooperate.
Extensive parental cooperation is therefore the most important means by
which to reduce the negative effects of divorce for children.

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