Family dissolution - an issue for the schools: an elementary school program and group sessions in a middle school

Children Today, July-August, 1984 by Mary Beth Williams, Carol Elaine Hoffman

FAMILY DISSOLUTION

An Issue for the Schools

An Elementary School Program

Programs for children involved in separation or divorce often utilize a group format. Indeed, the group process is excellent for this population because it provides children an opportunity to share questions and experiences with peers and to realize the universality of their experiences. One result of such teacher-led classroom groups can be seen in The Kid's Book of Divorce (Random House, 1982), written by 20 students of the Fayerweather Street School in Cambridge, Mass.

Many children's groups have evolved in the school setting.1 The school system is an ideal place to identify children who are experiencing difficulty in dealing with family dissolution--in a given elementary or middle school classroom of 30 children, six to eight may be going through that experience.2

According to S. Hammer, children aged five to six or under are "particularly vulnerable to the loss of a father.'3 When the father is absent, he frequently becomes a "non-real' person and the child may create fantasies about him. If the child lives with the mother and she is very hostile, angry or hurt, the child may then, too, feel that he or she should not love daddy. When this is the case, the mother needs to be encouraged to give the child permission to continue to love daddy and to grieve and mourn his loss.

A child in kindergarten or first grade has many behavioral manifestations of his or her pain and loss--severe nightmares, for example, and frequent complaints about aches and pains. One little girl I counsel constantly told me that her brain hurt when we discussed her father's absence. She added that her brain "no longer worked right' and caused her to do things she could not explain, including biting and hitting weaker, vulnerable children, especially effeminate boys. Some young children regress--wet their pants, suck a thumb or curl under a desk at rest time in the fetal position. Others cry frequently or have poor appetities. Because many of these young children have bonded to both parents from birth on (since in many cases both parents participated in their births), the separation may be even harder than normal. The effects of early bonding and latter trauma if and when family breakup occurs is an area for future research.

The child in kindergarten or first grade is still working through or just completing the Oedipal/Electra phase, which focuses on sexual differences and role behaviors. If one parent is missing, the child may later have problems with sexual identity. Little girls without a father may eventually find it hard to break their symbiotic relationships to mother, or they may so strongly crave male attention that they later may turn to promiscuity and use sex to find closeness.4 Little boys who lack male role models and male authority may never be forced to give up a desire for mother, leading to an overdependent, symbiotic relationship with the mother that can hinder the male's separation from the mother in adulthood.

Children of this age still lack advanced reasoning skills. The normal conflict of this stage of development, according to Erikson, is "initiative vs. guilt.'5 I have encountered a young boy so sure that he caused his parents' marital breakup by desire for his mother and anger toward his father (telling his father to "go away so I can have my mother to myself') that five years after the divorce he is still attempting to reunite his parents and atone for earlier feeling. His misplaced sense of power (that he controls his parents) is still a major problem for him.

Divorce may also interfere with a positive identification with the same-sex parent. A mother who constantly presents her former spouse negatively to her son does not foster his male image and may cause him to see male status as undesirable. A female who sees her mother as unhappy, depressed and angry has less of a positive female model than if her mother had higher self-esteem.

There are no official rites to end a marriage, especially for children, who see divorce as an expression of parental anger. However, they have been taught by parents that anger can be forgiven. In this case the anger does not end; the divorce is a finality. In the group setting, children are helped to face their losses and to realize that it is safe for them to mourn, cry or act out.

With this in mind, I have worked, with an intern social work student as co-leader, with several groups of four to six kindergarten- and first-grade-age children from single-parent families. In 40-minute sessions, held weekly over six to eight weeks, we discuss, deal with and act out issues relating to their families and family dissolution.

Initial referrals for the group come from classroom teachers. I then talk with each custodial parent by phone or in person to explain the group, get permission for the child's participation and gather some information about family circumstances. Since I have been with the school system for 11 years, I frequently have had previous contact with these families.