Page 46 - Meeting with Children Book

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further manipulate each parent to gain his/her needs.
Alignments with one parent or the other and rejection
of rules and structure is likely when parents are in
conflict. In order to be the “chosen” parent many high
conflict parents undermine this developmental phase
by aligning with their adolescent and “saving “him/her
from the other parent.

Related to sexual anxiety and development,
adolescents make use of parent figures to learn about
who they are as males/females. Reasonable
separation from each parent is necessary. Parents in
turmoil or lonely parents often partner with their
adolescents leading to role confusion and stress.
Adolescents in this situation are often interrupted in
their normative sexual exploration.

During adolescence, the young person begins to work
out a self-image through trying on many different
personas emanating various mentors and role models.
High conflict parents can interrupt this
experimentation of self-concept and self-image by
negatively responding to the youth and making
inferences about how the youth is the way he is
because of his other parent. Both children and youth
may have a more fragmented sense of self based on
division of expectations at two houses and needing to
modify the self and be different people at each
parent’s house. A loss of sense of self is a risk.

Self-perceptions are typically tested by reaching out
to others. Many adolescents in high conflict families
do not reach out to friends or others to sort out faulty