Divorced Parents and Adolescent Girls: the Bouncing Ball

In clinical work with divorced families and children, the continuing unfolding of developmental and familial issues has been observed over the spectrum of many years. While custody disputes soon after a divorce often reflect a playing out of control battles and ambivalence between the parents, changes in residence that occur during adolescence, years after a divorce, are seen as reflecting ongoing parental conflicts as well as phase specific adolescent developmental and divorce-related factors. Theoretical issues that deal with the resolution of adolescent developmental tasks in divorced families are explored and clinical experiences with these adolescent girls whose parents divorced during their earlier years are presented. In our clinical work with divorced families and children, we have observed the continuing unfolding of developmental and familial issues in a myriad of ways. Many authors, including Wallerstein and Kelly (1977), have noted that divorce is not a circumscribed event, but a process that spans several years. External and internal changes evolve over the course of many years that involve fluctuating external realities combined with internal developmental issues. One of the most poignant of these concerns is where and with whom the child of divorce will reside. Custody disputes soon after a divorce often reflect a playing out of control battles and ambivalence between the parents. Different issues emerge as children whose parents divorced early in their lives become adolescents. The adolescent phase presents challenges in all families, whether intact or divorced. We will explore a particular facet of the adolescent struggle, that of the conscious and unconscious motivations and forces at work in divorced parents and in adolescents who move from one parental home to the other. Wallerstein (1985) reported in a tenyear follow-up study of 40 young adults currently 19 to 29 years of age that 20% of them had gone to live with the departed parent for a period 9 1988 Human Sciences Press 180