Separation & Divorce
Support For Your Family During Separation & Divorce
Separation and divorce are significant life stressors for children, but outcomes improve substantially when families receive early, structured, child-focused support. At Calgary Psychological Services, our services are grounded in decades of research on child adjustment, attachment security, and interparental conflict.
1) Individual Counseling for Children
Research consistently shows that children’s adjustment following separation is influenced less by the divorce itself and more by exposure to ongoing parental conflict and emotional insecurity (Cummings & Davies, 2010; Kelly & Emery, 2003). Individual counselling provides children with a developmentally appropriate, confidential space to process grief, anger, loyalty conflicts, and anxiety while strengthening emotional regulation and resilience. Evidence-based approaches such as CBT, attachment-informed interventions, and emotion coaching have been shown to reduce internalizing and externalizing symptoms during family transition (Sandler et al., 2012).
Group interventions for children of divorce demonstrate measurable benefits in coping skills, emotional adjustment, and long-term resilience (Sandler et al., 2012). Participating in a structured peer group reduces isolation, normalizes children’s experiences, and strengthens protective factors such as problem-solving skills and adaptive beliefs about family change. Steady Steps is led by a provisional psychologist and is structured to integrate psychoeducation, skill-building, and guided peer connection—key elements identified in the research as protective for children navigating parental separation.
Decades of longitudinal research show that exposure to chronic, unresolved interparental conflict is one of the strongest predictors of poor child outcomes following separation (Amato, 2010; Cummings & Davies, 2010). Structured, skills-based co-parenting interventions reduce conflict intensity and help parents shift from a marital lens to a child-focused lens. Our 10-session program is delivered by a Registered Psychologist and is designed to reduce reactivity, improve communication, and create predictable, child-centred parenting structures. When parents reduce conflict and increase cooperative co-parenting, children demonstrate improved emotional security, behavioural regulation, and academic functioning.
Questions?
Contact Us:
clientcare@calgarypsychservices.com
(587) 880-1345
