Facing family change Children’s circumstances, strategies and resources Amanda Wade and Carol Smart The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has supported this project as part of its programme of research and innovative development projects, which it hopes will be of value to policy makers, practitioners and service users. The facts presented and views expressed in this report are, however, those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation. Amanda Wade is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, and Carol Smart is Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Centre for Research on Family, Kinship and Childhood, University of Leeds © Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2002 All rights reserved. Published for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by YPS ISBN 1 84263 077 6 (paperback) ISBN 1 84263 084 9 (pdf: available at www.jrf.org.uk) Cover design by Adkins Design Prepared and printed by: York Publishing Services Ltd 64 Hallfield Road Layerthorpe York YO31 7ZQ Tel: 01904 430033; Fax: 01904 430868; E-mail: [email protected] Contents Page Acknowledgements iv 1 Introduction 1 Aims, objectives and design of the study 1 The study findings 3 2 The children and their families 4 Aggregated families 4 Divorced families 6 Meshed families 7 Diasporic families 8 Conclusion 9 3 Relationships that matter 11 Committed relationships with both parents 11 Diminished commitment 12 Absent parents 14 Commitment and contact 16 4Emotional coping 18 Can children manage their own feelings? 18 Coping strategies 19 Active or unaware? 22 5Managing with the help of friends 24 Help from parents 24 Help from friends 25 Defusing tension with practical help 28 6 The role of schools 30 Privacy and primary schools 30 Talking to teachers 31 Whole-class activities and support 33 Supporting children at school 34 7 Participation and support 36 Extending participation 37 Counselling 38 8 Issues for policy and practice 42 Notes 45 References 46 Appendix: Research methods and sampling procedure 49 Acknowledgements We should like to thank everyone who contributed have been invaluable. Susan Taylor of the Joseph to this study. In particular, our thanks go to all the Rowntree Foundation has offered us unobtrusive children who took part, especially those who guidance throughout, and we have especially shared their own experiences with us, and who appreciated her thoughtful comments during the were sometimes interviewed in circumstances that production of this report. Thanks, also, to the were not ideal. Their enthusiasm for the project, Joseph Rowntree Foundation which, by providing and determination to express their views, proved a the funding, made the whole enterprise possible. powerful incentive to us. Thanks, too, to the head All the names given to the children in the report and class teachers who welcomed us into their are inventions. To protect their anonymity, each schools, the parents who gave permission for their child chose a fictitious name. As children opted for children to take part and the practitioners who so names that appealed to them, they do not always readily discussed their work with us. reflect ethnicity (although in most instances they We would also like to mention the members of do). our Advisory Group, whose expertise and support iv 1 Introduction Increases in the rate of family ‘breakdown’ have means of support during times of family change. generated widespread concern about the ‘harm’ We focused on children aged between five and ten which this does to children. Until recently, research years as they are under-represented in what has focused almost exclusively on investigating the research there is on children’s perspectives on effects of parental separation on children’s social, divorce. The study was carried out in four stages, emotional and behavioural development, and its the first two of which were conducted in four implications for their future well-being (Rodgers primary schools, where our main sample and Pryor, 1998). Although large-scale studies now population was recruited. indicate that a majority of children cope reasonably • In the first stage of the study, we explored the well with family reordering and continue to views of all the children in Year 2 (aged six to function in the normal range (Joshi, 2000; seven years) and Year 5 (aged nine to ten Hetherington and Kelly, 2002), there has remained years) of the four schools, irrespective of considerable anxiety about the upset and distress their family circumstances. Our objective was which might be caused by talking about this issue to familiarise ourselves with their ideas with children themselves. Researchers have about what it would be like to live through a preferred to collect their data indirectly, relying on parental separation; in particular, what its reports from parents, teachers and clinicians, or challenges might be and how these might be administering standardised tests. Parents, too, have dealt with. The children were interviewed in been reluctant to see their children involved small focus groups where issues were directly in research (Smart et al., 2001). As a result, explored from a generalised or hypothetical there have been few studies which have looked at perspective. No attempt was made to explore family reordering from children’s own perspectives children’s personal experiences during this (Pryor and Rodgers, 2001). Moreover, children have stage. remained locked in a construction of family change which situates them as passive victims who neither •We then moved on, during the second stage, to act upon nor influence their circumstances. Current conduct individual interviews with children developments in the social study of childhood are, with some experience of a separation. We however, challenging these ideas (James and Prout, deliberately did not say that we wanted to 1997; Smart et al., 2001). By showing that children talk to children whose parents had divorced are active social agents, capable of thinking for because we wanted to find out how relevant themselves, sociology is making it possible for us to ‘divorce’ is in terms of the reality of look at children in new ways and is opening up children’s lives. By defining separation as research into children’s views of their lives, meaning parents who have ‘split up’ or who including their experiences of separation and live apart, we hoped to capture a divorce. As a contribution to these developments, representative range of experiences. The this study explores the perspectives of five- to ten- objective of this second stage was to explore year-old children on managing the family changes the children’s perceptions of the family which accompany a parental separation. transitions which they had lived through, and to discover whether they had wanted, or received, any help in adjusting to the Aims, objectives and design of the study changes which they experienced. Among Our aim was to listen to children’s views on other things, we sought their views on parental separation and to discover their preferred formal and informal support, notably the 1 Facing family change parts which can be played by other family different life chances, or what might be called members and friends, by schools, and by differential access to cultural capital (Coleman, organisations such as Family Mediation or 1988). Thus Elm Hill was located in a small thriving the Family Court Welfare Service (now part market town which was closely bordered by fields of CAFCASS – the Children and Family and farms. This was the largest of our schools with Court Advisory and Support Service). 368 pupils on roll. The area was one of low density of minority ethnic families (99 per cent white) and • The third stage of the study was designed to with low divorce rates compared with more urban supplement Stage Two. We anticipated that regions in Yorkshire. Housing composition in the many parents of children interviewed in area was almost exclusively owner-occupied (80 school would have negotiated the terms of per cent) with hardly any social housing (15 per their separation informally without recourse cent) and virtually no private rented sector. It could to mediation, or there being any necessity for be called middle England – except that it was in the a welfare report. As we wanted to ensure North. We hypothesised that relatively few children that we spoke to some children whose views from this school would have experienced divorce. on their parents’ separation had been sought In such a situation, children might find it hard to for legal purposes, or who had been referred come from what might be perceived as a ‘broken for professional help in adjusting to them home’ and they might find that few of their friends living apart, we recruited (with the help of had similar experiences. We were interested outside organisations) a small community- therefore to discover how the children managed the based sub-sample of eight children. transition their family was going through and what • The fourth stage of the study was designed to resources they could draw upon in the cultural enable us to contextualise the study findings. milieu of their school. We visited 12 projects set up by the Family We selected Woodforde school with the same Court Welfare Service, Family Mediation and principles in mind but in this instance we sought a voluntary organisations. These were all school with a clear sense of community and innovative schemes but differed considerably religious adherence. We chose a Jewish school in a in their emphasis and focus, allowing us to pleasant suburb of a large city. Here, too, we were review child mediation schemes, information interested in the cultural milieu of the school and workshops, support groups and individual the extent to which it might (or might not) provide counselling, and to discuss a range of a supportive context in which divorce and other working practices.