Kids in Crisis 81
divorce per se that affects children, but the quality of their lives
after the divorce. This, in turn, depends upon the parents’ adjust-
ment to the breakup and upon the degree to which the child man-
ages to maintain a good and ongoing relationship with both par-
ents. So the moral of the story is that when parents focus on a
rapid, intelligent, and positive resumption of their own lives and
their communication with one another, they can vastly lessen the
negative impact of their divorce upon their children.
Boys
The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he is a baby.
—Natalie Wood
Boys seem to have a more difficult time handling and recovering
from a divorce than do girls. This seems to be especially true dur-
ing the initial period right after their parents separate. Boys tend to
be unhappy and somewhat lonely during the years immediately
following their parents’ divorce. Also, during these years, they
seem to have fewer lasting relationships with young girls. Their
socialization process seems to get shelved or a bit sidetracked.
Preschool-age boys in particular have to deal with another
spin on the divorce situation, stemming from the fact that they
are quite understandably in love with their mothers and often
tend to feel rivalry with their fathers. This of course is a totally
normal psychological phenomenon for young boys at this devel-
opmental stage—but imagine how badly it gets compounded by
a divorce.
It’s not easy being a boy. Many of my clients tell me that boys
who are in the six- to eight-year-old range at the time when their
parents divorce have an especially tough time adjusting. A dis-
proportionately high number of these young boys seem to have
trouble concentrating in school. They seem to withdraw from
their peers, get into fights, and just generally start to lose ground
rapidly, both socially and academically, during the post-divorce
period.
Psychologists suspect that much of this behavior is related to
the boy’s anxiety at being left in the custody of his mother, just