Love languages worksheet
Navigating change in family structure, such as divorce, can be disruptive to children's lives and lead to adjustment difficulties.
This article provides an overview of the impact of changing family structures and essential considerations for children when coping with these changes.
We’ve included a free downloadable changing family worksheet, which includes divorce sentence completion prompts, to save in your electronic health record (EHR) and use in your practice.
How does divorce or separation impact children?
Research shows that changes to family structure, such as a divorce or separation, are associated with adjustment-related problems, including:
Disruptive behaviors, such as substance use or conduct problems, and an increased risk of engaging in risky sexual behavior
Academic challenges, such as lower student achievement and reading test scores
Higher likelihood of experiencing depressed mood
Studies also show that these negative impacts often begin before the divorce itself, as children are affected by ongoing marital conflict, and may persist or escalate afterward.
Helping families navigate divorce
Navigating a divorce involves a dual track for families: managing the intense logistical changes required of the parents, and supporting the emotional adjustment required of the children.
The divorce process is complex, involving numerous decisions and various divorce-related activities, as well as the potential involvement of third parties, such as mediators, lawyers, and financial institutions.
The process is further complicated when divorce or separation involves children, as couples have to navigate making important decisions about childcare, custody, shared decision-making, and supporting their child through the change in family structure.
Some of these divorce activities include:
Separation plans: This may involve deciding on separation or divorce, whether or not to involve an attorney, setting clear boundaries regarding contact and communication, and determining how they’ll navigate making decisions about shared responsibilities.
Financial decisions: Couples may need to close joint bank accounts and open individual accounts, divide assets, decide how to handle debts, and make changes to retirement accounts.
Administrative tasks: These include changing online passwords, maintaining a record of income and expenses, redirecting mail, and updating address and/or billing information.
Emotional support: The family may want to consider engaging in family or couples counseling to navigate the divorce in a neutral setting or to strengthen their coping skills through individual therapy.
Co-parenting decisions and agreements: The parents will need to come to a shared agreement regarding co-parenting strategies, shared decision-making about the school and health of their children, and visitation agreements.
Helping kids come to terms with changing family structure: This may involve therapy, talking to their children together, providing reassurance, communicating how things will change, and engaging children in the process.
Divorce sentence completion for kids
The changing family worksheet uses sentence completion activities, including divorce sentence completion prompts, as a helpful strategy to support children in coming to terms with changes in their family structure.
The prompts help kids process their feelings, find hope amidst change, explore new ways to view divorce, identify their needs, and discover meaning in the separation.
Examples of divorce sentence completion prompts include:
My family is changing in these ways __________
My parents' divorce makes me feel __________
I am worried about __________
Some things that might be okay or better about this change are __________
I wish I could tell my parents __________
I am hopeful about __________
How to use the changing family worksheet
You can download and use the changing family worksheet in several ways:
Use the worksheet to provide psychoeducation to families about the process of divorce.
Ask the clients to reflect on the changing family worksheet, complete the divorce sentence completion prompts between sessions, and report their findings at their next therapy appointment.
Use the divorce sentence completion prompts in family therapy sessions to encourage children to share more about their feelings and help them process the changes in their family.
Combine this worksheet with other family, relationship, and divorce-related worksheets and articles, including our divorce therapy worksheets, fair fighting rules worksheet, article on the impact of parental conflict and divorce on kids, and conflict resolution worksheets.
Share the changing family worksheet with coworkers.
Use the free printable divorce activities worksheets to provide training to interns or supervisees.
Sources
Arkes J. (2015). The Temporal Effects of Divorces and Separations on Children's Academic Achievement and Problem Behavior. Journal of divorce & remarriage.
Birch, J. (n.d.). Counseling Families to Facilitate a Healthier Divorce. National Board for Certified Counselors.
Crosnoe, R., Prickett, K. C., Smith, C., & Cavanagh, S. (2014). Changes in young children's family structures and child care arrangements. Demography.
D'Onofrio, B., & Emery, R. (2019). Parental divorce or separation and children's mental health. World Psychiatry: Official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA).
Doel, A, M. (2022). The Divorce Therapy Workbook. Between Sessions Resources.
Emerson, A. J., Harris, S. M., & Ahmed, F. A. (2021). The impact of discernment counseling on individuals who decide to divorce: experiences of post-divorce communication and coparenting. Journal of marital and family therapy.
Trussell, J. (2016). Activities for Helping Children Deal With Divorce. University of Missouri.
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