Many teens learn how to manipulate their divorced or separated parents to their own advantage, according to a Ball State University study.

“There is a perception that after a divorce or separation parents are active and children passive in their relationships. We found the opposite to be true. Adolescents are not passive,” study author and sociology professor Chad Menning said in a prepared statement.

“Adolescents after divorce or separation do no simply absorb parental resources as sponges absorb water. Rather, they gather and interpret information about their parents, dodge questions, engineer images of themselves, parry parents’ probes, maneuver between households, and cut ties with parents in efforts to exert their own authority and to secure their individual identities,” Menning said.

The researchers interviewed 50 teens whose parents were separated or divorced. They discovered strategies that include:

A. Withholding information from one parent to avoid punishment or to solidify a relationship with another parent. Children can gain an upper hand by controlling information flow because, following a separation or divorce, there is often reduced communication between parents.

B. Moving from one home to another. Children often move into the home of the parent who is less controlling. They do this to punish the other parent or to escape a situation they don’t like.

C. Cutting one parent completely out of the teen’s life. This allows the child to control when and where they have contact with that parent.

“None of these options would be open to a child in a single household with two parents,” Menning said. “Parents talk and form a team to raise a child. Separate the two parents and the child can use the situation to play one off the other.”

The above article was originally titled, “You’re Divorcing: Do You Know Where Your Teen Is?” published June 23, 2004 in HealthDayNews.

You may wonder why we would put the above article on a web site devoted to marriage. The reason is because we want to give married couples as much information as possible to help them interact with each other as a team.

When you remarry you already have reasons for the children of your past marriage to try to put a wedge between you. They usually want their mom’s and dad’s to be together. That’s only natural of course. But you also have to be aware of other problems that come from the dissolution of your first marriage where children are involved.

Your awareness will help you to “be on the alert” as the Bible talks about. The enemy of our faith is trying to work through every means he can (including our children) to put a wedge between our having healthy family relationships in Christ.

As your new family is forming you will need to be aware of the divisiveness that you may very well encounter. Ask the Lord to help you to work as a team in the marriage you are in so you will not to be divided in your resolve to be loving, responsible care-takers of the children God has entrusted to your care. And also ask the Lord to help you not to allow your children to pit you against their other parent.

The circumstances that divided you in marriage and brought about your divorce does not mean that you shouldn’t work to parent your children as allies in that endeavor. They need for you to be united in giving them love and in giving each other the grace of forgiveness in not treating each other with hostility. There’s nothing in the Bible that condones disrespectful, unloving behavior—even towards an ex-spouse—no matter how they’ve behaved.

You will need to set up boundaries with each other for the sake of your present marital relationship but you still need to treat each other respectfully for the children’s sake and for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray the above article helps you to be aware of some of the problems that you may encounter so you can treat the situation with the wisdom God will give you as you ask for it.