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Children don't see things in terms of custody or parental responsibilities when their parents' relationship ends. All they know is that something has gone wrong. Mom and dad are yelling at each other a lot, and then, one day, mom or dad isn't there anymore. Young children won't understand these adult problems. Children who are in primary school will have a better idea, since they'll have friends whose parents have separated. Pre-teens and teens may seem to have a much more grown-up grasp of things as they'll have lost relationships of their own, and may be able to appreciate the idea that their parents' relationship has ended. How children cope with their parents' separation changes as they grow older and more mature.
Things are a lot different for parents. A significant relationship has ended, and in the midst of all of the emotions that go along with that — grief, anger, jealousy, love , and loss — they might find themselves also having to deal with some extremely difficult legal issues. It's even worse where the parents wind up fighting about things in court.
Litigation can have a very profound impact on people. At its core, litigation is an adversarial process: each parent is fighting the other in <span class="noglossary">order</span> to "win," and where there's a winner there's always a loser. This sort of approach to a dispute often polarizes parents and encourages them to take extreme positions. What makes this so much worse is that the parents are both fighting about something they cherish dearly, their children, and they are also fighting against someone whom they used to deeply love.
In circumstances like these, it can be easy to forget how important it is that the children maintain a positive, loving relationship with the other parent. It can also be easy to overlook the importance of managing the children's exposure to and perception of their parents' conflict. One parent's view of the other becomes clouded by hatred, malice , and spite, and nothing the other parent can do is ever right. This attitude is almost impossible to shield from the children. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the children are inevitably exposed to these negative views which, without interference, can come to colour the children's own views of the other parent.
===Children's experiences of separation===
*missing and feeling sad for the parent that they see less often.
These feelings may have nothing at all to do with any blameworthy conduct on the part of either parent, but they can cause a child to feel closer to one parent than the other. Further, there are a number of normal reasons why a child might feel closer to one parent , even in families that haven't separated, such as:
*similarities in the temperament of the child and one of the parents,