Children and Divorce

Children navigating divorce and separation often carry emotional, developmental, and relational burdens they did not choose and cannot control. Changes in homes, schedules, family rituals, school routines, relationships, finances, and parent availability can affect how children experience safety, stability, loyalty, and belonging.

For clinicians, supporting children in divorced or separating families requires more than understanding the two adults involved. Divorce affects the whole family system, including children, parents, stepparents, siblings, extended family, schools, communities, and future relationships. This training helps clinicians slow down, assess the child’s experience, and respond with developmentally appropriate support.

"Children and Divorce: Understanding Clinical Implications and Techniques" is one of three courses that comprise the Clinical Divorce Specialist Certificate (CDSC). Enroll in the full program and earn 9 total CEs and the CDSC.

Alyse November, Ph.D., LCSW, ACSW, CST, and Stephanie Newberg, MEd, MSW, LCSW, bring extensive clinical experience working with divorce, co-parenting, high-conflict family dynamics, family therapy, child and adolescent concerns, and divorce mediation. Their professional experience, along with their personal understanding of divorce and blended family life, allows them to teach this topic with clinical depth, practical insight, and sensitivity to the realities children and families face.

Together, the instructors guide you through the emotional and developmental impacts of divorce before, during, and after the process. You will examine common responses from infancy through adolescence—including anxiety, behavioral changes, school challenges, loyalty conflicts, parentification, and attachment shifts. To address these issues, you will learn developmentally appropriate interventions to support children’s emotional expression, strengthen their self-advocacy, and help them identify what they can and cannot control.

Beyond the child's internal world, you will explore the practical realities shaping their daily life, such as custody exchanges, holiday schedules, special needs considerations, and navigating the differences between two households. The training tackles complex family dynamics including healthy co-parenting, parental alienation, blended family adjustments, and high-conflict communication. Crucially, you will receive guidance on managing your own countertransference and maintaining strong therapeutic boundaries, ensuring you can effectively support the family system without overstepping into custody decision-making.

Key Takeaways

• A child-centered understanding of divorce and separation: Gain a clearer understanding of how divorce affects children emotionally, developmentally, relationally, academically, and behaviorally, while recognizing that each child’s experience is shaped by age, temperament, family dynamics, and level of conflict.
• Practical clinical tools for complex family systems: Learn ways to assess children’s experiences, support transitions between homes, address loyalty conflicts and self-blame, strengthen communication, and use interventions such as CBT, play-based approaches, drawing, sand tray, and other developmentally responsive strategies.
• Greater clarity around co-parenting, boundaries, and clinician role: Explore parenting plans, co-parent communication, parental alienation concerns, blended family issues, special needs considerations, and the importance of maintaining therapeutic boundaries, neutrality, and child trust.

Why This Course?

• Clinically relevant for many practice settings: Divorce and separation may appear as a primary concern or as a secondary issue affecting children, adolescents, adults, parents, and families already presenting for other clinical concerns.
• Focused on the child and family system: Rather than treating divorce as only an adult relationship issue, this training highlights the child’s experience within the broader family, school, and community system.
• Practical guidance for difficult clinical moments: Clinicians will gain language, concepts, and intervention ideas for supporting children, communicating with parents, assessing family dynamics, and staying grounded when cases become emotionally charged or high conflict.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the effects of divorce on children.
• Assess how the specific components of co-parenting affect the whole family system.
• Apply clinical skills and interventions to address the needs of children in divorced families.
• Recognize challenges within family dynamics, including parental conflict and blended family complexities.
• Apply conflict resolution, de-escalation, and effective communication skills specific to the issues of co-parenting.
• Develop collaborative strategies with parents to address the needs of the child to create a supportive environment pre, post, and during the divorce process.

Children and families experiencing divorce need clinicians who can recognize the practical and emotional complexity of what is changing. This course offers a clinically grounded framework for helping children feel heard, supported, and less alone while assisting parents in creating more stable, responsive, and child-centered environments.