Introduction

In Chapter Three I summarised a number of studies which have highlighted factors concerning risk and resilience in children when parental conflict results in parental separation. Very few of these largely statistical quantitative outcome studies say much about the emotional impact of parental separation on individual children's lives, or about how they learn to live with the consequences. So in what follows I have selected a number of verbatim extracts taken from the book Divorcing children. These illustrate the way children cope with the crisis of parental separation and what it feels like to be faced not only with warring parents who distrust each other, but with the changes and uncertainties children encounter as a result of their parents’ separation.

In this chapter I do not go into the details of the research methodology, which is fully explained in the book Divorcing children. Suffice to say this produced a representative sample of 104 children aged 7–15 with recent experience of divorce drawn from six county courts across South West England and South Wales. Taken together, the sample gave a demographic and geographical mix of city, town and country. Great care was taken, with the collaboration of the court authorities, to ensure that participating parents and children understood the nature of the research so that their consent was freely given. We promised confidentiality would be respected and their identities concealed in any publications. Full details of the research methodology are given in an appendix in the original book.

The challenge of communicating effectively with children was central to all aspects of the research design. We wanted the children to talk freely to us in their own way using their own words. In this respect, the research team were greatly helped by the previous childhood research experience of Ian Butler, a social work teacher, and Lesley Scanlan, a psychologist who conducted the interviews. Considerable thought was put into the design of the research procedures and tools, which included an activity book for children to complete. This helped them to feel in control of the interview, which they could stop at any time. This also helped them establish rapport with the researcher.