FAMILY RESOLUTIONS
CHILDREN
Children of Parents in Chronic Conflict:
(adapted from In the Name of the Child by Janet R. Johnston & Vivienne Rosebv)
School-Age Children in High Conflict Families
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Lack basic trust in themselves and other people
Do not feel particularly viable or important in relationships
Have a fragile and fragmented (good-bad split) sense of self
Have a set of rules and expectations about relationships that protect and isolate
Tend to ignore and avoid intense or complex feelings (such as anger)
Oversimplify their own and other people’s ideas to the point of distortion
Spend significant psychological energy being hypervigilant
Basic trust and the capacity to feel lovable: Basic trust allows children to hold on to a positive
sense of self and to turn to others without fear of being shamed or disappointed when feeling mad,
sad, and disappointed. Children trust that adults (teachers, coaches, troop leaders, other parents)
will provide empathic support. These very expectations tend to engage support from adults which
reinforces children’s original trust.
Children gradually develop the ability to see themselves from the point of view of another
person. Children learn to see themselves more objectively and realistically which fuels their
desires to master their own feelings and behaviors. Children understand more and more how their
actions affect other people and shape others’ perceptions of them. Naturally, school-age children
are more self-conscious than ever before.
The new self- awareness results in a shift in focus from the need to be lovable to the need to be
competent in the eyes of peers. In the face of self-conscious fears, successful experiences allow
children to discover abilities that preserve their sense of being lovable and competent. Failure
provides opportunity to learn that being lovable does not depend on being competent. Ideally,
these kinds of realizations deepen trust in relationships and diminish fears of future failure.
When basic trust fails and the capacity to feel lovable is weak: School age children have little
capacity to tolerate ups and downs in their friend’s attitudes or behaviors. For younger children
in embattled families, developmental progress through grade school years may be blocked by
current conflicts and by lack of achievements in earlier stages of development. Parents who are not
consistently and empathically responsive, seem entirely unpredictable to children. These children
are preoccupied with figuring out how to control the parent’s response because their survival and a
sense of self depend on it. Children confuse being lovable with being good when a parent is
contingently responsive to the child being good in a particular way. These children associate being
bad with abandonment.
Children of Parents in Chronic Conflict
Family Resolutions © 2002
Page 4 - 5
(Revised 12-8-02)
School-Age Children in High Conflict Families continued
Without basic trust, children remain focused on the parents and whether they are lovable in the
parent’s eyes. Children develop an unconscious script to predict their own part in the drama
between the parents. The unconscious script contains rules for how to remain lovable and good and
how to avoid being unlovable and bad. This results in a fragile and fragmented (good-bad split)
sense of self. Children with a good-bad split cannot tolerate slights and disappointments. This
interferes with relationships and robs them of the chance to learn new ways of relating.
When children do not have a constant sense that they are lovable, they are always dependent on the
reassurance and support of others to feel good about themselves. Whenever that support is gone,
children are left feeling unbearably unlovable, bad and even nonexistent. This makes it impossible
for some children to acknowledge any error because even the slightest human fault is means
they are completely unlovable and bad with no hope of redemption. These children panic and flee
into denial at confrontation or correction.
The capacity to feel like a good child: During school age years, motives for being good move from
a wish to avoid punishment, toward a wish to preserve relationships. It is difficult for children to
follow any moral standard when the need to feel loved, on any terms, is paramount, so moral
growth is sacrificed to the need for connection. In extreme cases, where children split off from
consciousness all possible vulnerability or neediness, empathy cannot develop.
Children without empathy feel powerful and “perfectly good” because they need nothing. Because
they are unable to identify feelings of vulnerability or neediness in themselves, they are unable to
empathize with these feelings in other people. This stands as stark contrast to the empathic powers
of typically developing school-age children who are able to be kind because they don’t have to
disown their vulnerable and needy parts to feel powerful.
The child’s capacity to feel competent: Children with family support and the inner confidence that
they are lovable and good, learn from life’s challenges without becoming overwhelmed. Although
life’s ups and downs cause fear and discomfort, they learn mastery and develop competence.
When parents in conflict share details of their conflict with their children, it is usually justified by
wanting to teach the children appropriate standards of right and wrong. One parent is all right and
the other is all wrong. This causes children intense distress and they decide they can believe no
one, including themselves. For some of these children, any progress towards competence results
in overwhelming anxiety about loss and abandonment. They sabotage their successes. Some
children, girls in particular, manage their distress by achieving competencies. These achievements
provide children control and safety rather than vitality and joy. They learn how to work, but not to
love.
School-Age Children in High Conflict Families continued
Children of Parents in Chronic Conflict
Family Resolutions © 2002
Page 4 - 6
(Revised 12-8-02)
Parents locked in battle have difficulty focusing on the concerns of their child in any realistic way.
Any setback of the child is blamed on the other parent while the child’s needs are ignored.
Children become embarrassed when they realize other children’s parents do not behave this way.
A self-destructive pattern emerges as these children become isolated to appear in control, which
undermines their ability to relate with others, which results in fewer positive relationships.
To feel ‘valued and safe’, yet avoid shame and loss…
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…some children try to be perfect and pleasing and entertaining
…some children refuse to be drawn into interactions which might jar their self-control
…some children (more boys) use intermittent explosiveness to mask underlying pain and to
keep others at a distance
…some older school-age children are perfectly good with one (good) parent and perfectly bad
with the other (bad) parent
Early Adolescents in High Conflict Families
Developmental tasks during adolescence are
(1) Separating from a primary parent;
(2) Forming a positive and stable sense of self;
(3) Affirming one’s gender and sexuality;
(4) Feeling capable, autonomous, and trusting in with peers; and
(5) Establishing an internal sense of right and wrong.
Adolescents from families with chronic conflict
(1) Have difficulties separating from a primary parent;
(2) Have a fragmented sense of self;
(3) Are unable to move beyond the imaginary audience and personal uniqueness phases; and
(4) Have a diminished capacity to relate to peers.
Precisely because the adolescent phase of development usually revisits earlier psychological
conflicts, it provides young people with the opportunity to achieve a new level of resolution, as
well as psychological and physical emancipation from their enmeshed, conflicted families.
In highly conflictual families, there is divided parental authority and competition for the
youngster’s affection and allegiance. Teens in these families can easily dismiss one or both of their
parents or manipulate them both to obtain special privileges and avoid responsibility.
Separating from a primary parent: The costs of separating from a primary parent are too great for
teens who have lived with chronic conflict for many years or teens who have assumed the burden
of taking care of an angry and emotionally dependent parent.
Early Adolescents in High Conflict Families continued
Children of Parents in Chronic Conflict
Family Resolutions © 2002
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(Revised 12-8-02)
Forming a positive and stable sense of self: Young teens “try on” personalities or personality traits
and need tolerance and consistent responsiveness from their families during this experimentation
phase. Parents locked in chronic conflict are hypersensitive and overreactive to their young teen’s
posturing. They feel threatened by how their child’s behavior may reflect on them and blame the
other parent. Children of entrenched parental conflict are likely to enter adolescence with a
fragmented sense of self and likely to retain their fragmented sense of self.
Perceptual and judgmental deficits: Young teens are usually self-absorbed and believe that they
are the primary object of other people’s critical attention. This imaginary audience phenomenon
helps explain why they are so acutely self-conscious and easily mortified. Young teens also make
up stories that stress their personal uniqueness, omnipotence, and invulnerability. They believe
that “No one else feels the way I do.” “I’m never allowed to do anything!” “It won’t happen to
me.” These beliefs allow some teens to take risks and act in unsafe ways.
In the ordinary course of events a teen shares his thoughts and feelings with trusted others especially friends. Through this sharing, a more realistic view of the world gradually emerges.
Children from families in chronic conflict have difficulty forming trusting, genuine connections
with their peers, and they feel increasingly like aliens during the acutely self-conscious phase of
adolescence. Because they do not turn to others for help in solving problems, their distorted
perceptions become permanent ways of understanding themselves and the interpersonal world.
Diminished capacity to relate to peers: Peers typically provide social support, protection, and
anonymity within a crowd. During middle-school years, friendships tend to be shallow and lacking
in constancy. Normally friendships deepen, and mutuality and intimacy become possible, in the
middle or later teenage years.
Teens who live with chronic family conflict do not have basic interpersonal tools. During junior
high years, some of these teens withdraw. Isolated from relationships that could repair their
distrust and shame, they can be lonely and depressed. Some, especially girls, throw themselves
into studies to avoid feelings and relating to others. They seem to be doing well and no one notices
they eat lunch alone, escape to the library, or hang at the edge of groups so they are not seen nor
avoided.
More likely to be noticed are those more “out of control” youngsters. This subgroup seems to
exaggerate all aspects of early adolescence by being rowdy, unruly, gross, sadistic, exhibitionistic,
and volatile. During earlier years, these children may have been scapegoated or ignored by
classmates. Now they are highly gratified by the amused envy of their peers for their cool and
daring escapades. This might even insure them a negative leadership role.
During mid-adolescence, teens learn to think and reason in abstract ways. Introspection becomes
more common as teens are able to think and reason about relationships from a third-person view.
Being able to recognize multiple views, they better understand more complex social interactions.
Early Adolescents in High Conflict Families continued
Children of Parents in Chronic Conflict
Family Resolutions © 2002
Page 4 - 8
(Revised 12-8-02)
Teens from conflicted families can draw upon these thinking abilities to help them gain more
perspective and independence, which in turn can provide considerable emotional relief. For this
reason, the older intellectually advanced teen may benefit more from counseling than do younger
teens. Older teens are better able to separate out the good and bad parts of parents. This allows
them to be more tolerant of the shortcomings of others, and ultimately their own.
A significant number of teens in highly conflictual families can not make a realistic distinction
between the strengths and weaknesses of each of their parents. Instead, they get caught up in the
battle, viewing one parent as all good and perfect, and the other as having no redeemable qualities.
Teens with a fragmented sense of self from earlier years are likely to develop this extreme stance.
Mavis Hetherington followed 124 children from high conflict families for six years. These
children are now adolescents or young adults. She found three different coping strategies:
1. Coping in an aggressive and insecure manner. (Three times as many boys as girls) 70% had no
close friends: grades were almost uniformly poor; behavior at home was disruptive and
impulsive; self-esteem was very low; they were unhappy, angry, anxious and insecure.
2. Coping in an opportunistic and competent manner. (As many girls as boys) These maintained
good self-esteem; had friends; were doing at least average academic work; used their parent’s
disagreements for their own gain; typically had a fairly good relationship with one parent, but a
poor one with the other; high level of social skill; humorous and charming; successful at
building relationships with powerful adults and peers, but not good at maintaining them.
3. Coping in a caring-competent manner. (More likely to be girls than boys) These maintained
good self-esteem; had friends; were doing at least average academic work; less manipulative
than the second group; likely to be helpful; unusually capable of sharing with others:
friendships were much more enduring; many had assumed a caretaking role at a very early age
for siblings or for a physically or emotionally incapable parent.
Children of Parents in Chronic Conflict
Family Resolutions © 2002
Page 4 - 9
(Revised 12-8-02)