Disclaimer: This article does not refer to situations involving substantiated abuse, serious addiction, or safety risks. In those cases, protection is paramount.
What follows applies to common high-conflicted post-separation scenarios where children are caught between two parenting styles and emotional tensions—not danger.
The Emotional Aftermath of High-Conflict Separation
In high-conflict separations—where emotions run high and co-parenting is strained—it’s easy for parents to become consumed by their own pain, anger, or fear. But amid the storm, one question is too often overlooked:
What are our children learning from this conflict?
Because the lessons they absorb now are the templates they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives.
Avoidance Isn’t Resilience—Even If It Looks Like Relief
Many of us grew up in homes where both parents lived under the same roof—even when things weren’t always peaceful. We witnessed tension, arguments, awkward silences, and eventually, resolution.
When things got heated, our instinct as children was often to retreat: hide in our room, go for a walk, or escape to a friend’s house. But avoidance never lasted long. Eventually, we had to face the people and the emotions involved. And through that experience, many of us learned to cope.
That’s how we developed resilience: the ability to confront discomfort, speak up, stay connected, and repair relationships without shutting people out.
A Growing Pattern: “I Don’t Want to See / Go to Mum/Dad”
Today, many children in separated families are given more autonomy in their care arrangements. And increasingly, children—especially older ones—are saying, “I don’t want to go to Dad’s” or “Mum’s too strict.”
Sometimes, they’re allowed (or even encouraged) to opt out of seeing one parent. While this may seem compassionate or child-led, it often reinforces avoidance, not empowerment.
Understanding Parent–Child Contact Disruptions
Psychological research shows that children in high-conflict families often experience disruptions in their relationship with one parent. This doesn’t always result from neglect or abuse. More often, it emerges from emotional overload, anxiety, or a deep loyalty conflict or cry for stability.
Children in this situation often develop anticipatory anxiety—a pattern noted by Fidler, Deutsch, and Polak—where they fear future distress, even without recent adverse experiences. This anxiety is reinforced each time the child avoids the parent, as the short-term relief strengthens the long-term fear. Over time, the child develops a phobic-like response not only to the parent, but even to professionals who represent the parental conflict.
This cycle of avoidance can become entrenched—one of the most “intractable” challenges in family law, according to Garber (2024) and Greenberg et al. (2019).
When the Family Court Makes It Worse
While the Family Court exists to protect children and resolve disputes, it is rarely a healing space for children or families. In many cases, the adversarial nature of the court process intensifies conflict and places children in the crossfire.
Children may begin to associate court-appointed professionals—lawyers, psychologists, social workers—with emotional stress and family tension. Psychological research confirms that the court process can become a source of trauma in itself, compounding the child’s anxiety and increasing avoidance behaviours.
Instead of resolving the problem, litigation often entrenches polarisation, escalates distrust, and delays timely therapeutic intervention. Greenberg, Fidler, and Saini (2019) argue that these cases require a systemic, family-wide intervention, not a legal contest that divides the family further.
What Gets Lost in Avoidance
Avoidance may feel like protection in the moment, but it undermines long-term emotional health. It teaches children:
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That their emotions are too big to manage
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That discomfort equals danger
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That relationships aren’t worth working through
Psychologists call this experiential avoidance—the tendency to avoid distressing thoughts, emotions, and relationships—which is strongly linked to poor mental health outcomes over time.
Eventually, this mindset spreads:
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Disagree with a friend? End the friendship.
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Partner sets a boundary? Walk away.
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Boss gives feedback? Quit the job.
- Teacher is assertive? Quit school ?
Avoidance becomes a habit—not a strategy for resilience, but a barrier to growth.
What Children Actually Need to Learn
For healthy development, children need to master a range of skills: emotional regulation, stress tolerance, autonomy, and the ability to sustain relationships through difficulty. Greenberg (2019) emphasises that these capacities cannot be learned in isolation—they are developed in the context of emotionally supportive, appropriately challenging experiences.
Resilience doesn’t come from eliminating distress. It comes from helping children navigate it—in safe, supported, and manageable steps. These “bite-sized” challenges help children build emotional strength, confidence, and trust in themselves and others.
The Role of Parents: Colluding With or Coaching Through?
As parents, how we respond matters. When a child expresses distress, our instinct may be to protect. But if we allow them to avoid emotionally challenging situations altogether—especially when safety isn’t the issue—we may be reinforcing fragility rather than strength.
Fidler and Bala (2020) caution that a preferred parent’s well-meaning efforts to comfort or validate the child can inadvertently escalate the problem. The more protective the parent becomes, the more entrenched the child’s reaction may grow. It’s a feedback loop that sustains—not resolves—fear and resistance.
Our role is to coach them through, not collude with avoidance.
This Isn’t Just About Now—It’s About the Future
Every response we model becomes a relationship template our children internalise. The way we respond to discomfort and conflict in this chapter of their life teaches them how to navigate all future relationships.
Do we want to raise children who walk away when things get hard?
Or children who face difficulty with emotional courage and relational wisdom?
Before You Say Yes to “I Don’t Want to See Mum/Dad”… Pause.
Ask:
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What is my child really feeling?
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Am I supporting their long-term growth—or their short-term relief?
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What tools can I give them to handle this more effectively?
Let’s Teach Our Children to Stay Connected
We can’t remove every wave from their lives. But we can teach them how to surf.
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Let’s raise children who don’t run from conflict, instead on how to manage it – because sometimes it is envitable, when they transit into adulthood.
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Resillient children who know how to feel, express, and regulate and overcome difficulties in their lives.
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Resillient children who understand that tension is part of life—and that connection is worth preserving.
Choose Connection Over Litigation
If you’re facing these challenges in your family, don’t try to navigate them alone.
Seek therapeutic support—early. Not just for the child, but for the entire family system.
Choose an experienced, evidence-based family therapist who understands high-conflict dynamics and parent–child contact disruptions. A professional who can bring both parents and the child to the table, in a safe, structured environment.
Research shows that with the right support, families can disrupt unhealthy patterns, rebuild trust, and help children regain emotional safety—without avoiding the people who love them.
Because if we don’t teach our children how to stay—
We may be teaching them that leaving is the only way.
Selected References
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Greenberg, L., Fidler, B. J., & Saini, M. A. (2019). Evidence-Informed Interventions for Court-Involved Families: Promoting Healthy Coping and Development.
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Fidler, B. J., Deutsch, R., & Polak, S. (2019). Working with families struggling with entrenched parent–child contact problems.
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Garber, B. D. (2024). A structured rubric for evaluating systemic variables in parent–child contact problems.
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Fidler, B. J. & Bala, N. (2020). Parent–Child Contact Problems: Concepts, Controversies and Conundrums.
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Greenberg, L. R. (2016). Catching Them Before Too Much Damage Is Done: Early Intervention with Resistance–Refusal Dynamics.
- Haviaras, Angelica C. Art Therapy & the Reduction of Anticipatory Anxiety for Children Integrated in Legal Proceedings. Hofstra University, 2016.
