Page 68 - Meeting with Children Manual

Section 5 P a ge | 66

decode the child’s signals and to provide an appropriate response” (p.115).
Furthermore, Claussen and Crittenden define parent sensitivity as a dynamic
relationship where parents decide when their child needs protection and comfort.
Children’s behaviors signal many possible things and parents need to engage in a
number of roles in response such as teacher, protector or playmate or physical care
provider. Parents who score low in sensitivity do not easily identify their child’s cues
and they do not engage promptly in the various role responses.

Parents with low sensitivity may present in the following ways:
• He doesn’t need a “blankie”, he’s 8 years old!
• No, I did not have time to go back and pick up the home work – she needs to
remember these things. She can get the book when she goes back to her mother’s
house
• Yes, she was crying at the transition, but she got over it fast enough
• She needs to go to school. I have to work you know; and these stomachaches are
simply for attention. She is just like her father
• There is no need to re-paint his room… it is perfectly fine the way that it is. His
idea of “color” is dark blue and there is no way that’s going to happen. It’s a new
house!
• He is so needy and clingy. I think that his mother is overprotective and coddling
him too much. I am going to have to toughen him up
• She is just fine. Her mother says she needs to do individual things with me, you
know, to spend time, but I think it’s her mother trying to control my time. She was
always a control freak
• We have a new family now and they need to call Frank “daddy” because he is the
only decent father they will ever have. They said their father said not to, but he is
vicious and controlling anyway and does not know what a family is
• They can read at their mother’s house. I don’t have much time with them and I’m
not wasting it reading books
• I have stopped the naps for Jason – he’s going to school in September anyway and
he needs to wean off. No, I don’t care if he’s still napping at his father’s house

ITEM 4. Level of Disengagement

Parent/Parent relationship factor
Parents go through a long process of disengagement after separation. It is a very big
task to re-organize a relationship from partners and parents to just parents. When
people are at first uncoupling, they need to find a way to re-negotiate who they are
individually. Vaughan (1986) notes: “When people have truly uncoupled – established
a life confirming their independent identity – they will again be free to see both the
positive and negative qualities of the former partner and the relationship” (p. 177). At
the very time that parties are seeking to separate and find their individuality,
mediators, Lawyers, Counselors and Parenting Coordinators ask them to collaborate
and focus on their parenting (and separating) relationship. Legal struggles tend to
consume people’s time and attention and some parents end up writing and re-writing
parenting plans and financial agreements. These actions cause people to continue to

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