Supporting children when working with separating parents – part two

Each year many Australian children experience the separation or divorce of their parents or primary caregivers. Many parents navigate separation in ways that take care of children’s mental health and wellbeing, without assistance from family dispute resolution services or specialist counselling services.

However, separating families commonly come into contact with a range of practitioners during separation, so it’s important that all practitioners have the understanding and skills to support parents and children during this time.

In this second episode of our three-part series, we discuss ideas and practices for supporting parents to be child-focused in their approach to parenting through relationship separation.

Experienced post-separation practitioners Alesha Akintoye, Clare Daly, Helen McMullan and Roxanne Nathan share how they support parents to take a child-focused approach to parenting. You’ll also hear from Alan, Jocelyn and Vanya, three of Emerging Minds’ Family Partners, who share insights from their lived experience of navigating relationship separation.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• what it means to take a child- and future-focused approach to parenting through separation [03:17]
• the importance of exploring and elevating parents’ strengths and values to support children’s wellbeing [11:26]
• some distinctions between co-parenting and parallel parenting [16:55]
• practices for exploring the different possibilities for child-focused post-separation parenting with parents [23:01]

Further information and resources from Emerging Minds:

Supporting children when working with separating parents – part one podcast episode

Supporting children’s mental health when working with separating parents online course

Positive post-separation parenting podcast episode

How to speak with separating parents about their children’s wellbeing practice paper

Working with separating parents to support children’s wellbeing: What can we learn from evidence-based programs? practice paper