Family issues

Family relationships can be an important source of security, support and belonging for a child. Because of this, when there is stress or a major change within the family, children often sense it. This impact can run deep, affecting them even if they cannot explain what is wrong or if the adults are trying hard to protect them from it.

This guide is for parents navigating family difficulty of any kind: separation or divorce, conflict at home, the particular challenges of a blended family, sibling relationships that have become hard, a parent who is unwell, or any of the other changes and pressures that family life can bring. It covers how these things affect children, what helps, what doesn't, and how counselling fits in. Where we mention something briefly that has its own deeper article on our site, you'll find a link to read more.

Families change, strain, reshape, and recover. How a hard time is handled can make a real difference to children, and this guide can help with that.

What do we mean by family issues?

"Family issues" is a broad term, and deliberately so. It covers the wide range of changes, strains, and difficulties that can affect the family system a child lives within, including:

• Parental separation and divorce.
• Ongoing conflict between parents, whether or not they separate.
• The particular challenges of blended and step-families.
• Difficult sibling relationships, including rivalry and sibling bullying.
• A parent who is unwell, whether physically or mentally, or who is struggling with addiction.
• Children taking on caring roles or emotional responsibility beyond their years.
• Financial stress, housing instability, or other pressure on the household.
• Bereavement within the family.
• Estrangement, or the loss of contact with a parent or relative.
• Changes in who is caring for a child, including kinship care.
• The arrival of a new baby, or other shifts in the shape of the family.

What these have in common is that they change the emotional environment a child depends on. And because many children read that environment closely, a change in it often registers, even when nobody has explained it to them.

Why family issues affect children so much

Children can be very observant of changes in adults’ behaviour and mood. Long before they can articulate it, they are often sensing the emotional temperature of the household: whether the adults are calm or tense, whether the home feels safe or uncertain, whether the people they depend on are okay.

This is sometimes described as children acting like an emotional thermometer. Many children pick up on tension, unspoken worry, and strain, often more than parents realise, and their own bodies can respond. A child in a household carrying stress may carry stress themselves, even if no one has told them anything is wrong.

Two other things make family issues land hard. First, some children blame themselves. A young child whose parents are separating, arguing, or struggling may privately conclude that they are somehow the cause, or that they should be able to fix it. Second, children usually have less power than adults to change or escape the situation, which can leave them feeling stuck and helpless. Knowing that children often sense more than they are told, may blame themselves, and can feel powerless helps explain how family difficulty affects them. Every child is different, and some cope with family change more easily than others.

How common are family difficulties?

Family change is part of a great many childhoods, and families themselves come in many shapes.

Across the UK, around a third of families are cohabiting couples or lone parent families, rather than married or civil partner couples. Whatever shape a family takes, the warmth and stability within it matter a great deal to a child.

And separation is only one form of family difficulty. Add in family conflict, blended-family transitions, sibling difficulties, parental illness, bereavement, and financial strain, and it becomes clear that some form of significant family difficulty is part of a great many childhoods. If your family is going through something hard, your child is far from the only one in their class navigating something similar.

Parental separation and divorce

Separation or divorce can be a significant change in a child's life. The family as they have known it changes shape. There may be two homes, new routines, less time with one parent, a house move, a change of school, and a great deal of uncertainty. They are also common: in one large UK study, around one in five children saw their parents separate between the ages of three and fourteen^[2].

Divorce statistics do not capture all parental separations, including separations between unmarried couples.

Children can respond to separation differently at different ages, though not every child of a particular age reacts in the same way. Younger children may regress, become clingy, or struggle with the transitions between homes. Some primary-age children worry intensely, blame themselves, and try to be "good" in the hope of holding things together. Teenagers may withdraw, become angry, take sides, or appear to cope on the surface while struggling underneath. Some children show their distress loudly; others go quiet and seem fine, which can be its own kind of signal.

There is also something reassuring for parents to know about separation, and it is covered next.

Why conflict matters, whether parents are together or apart

This is one of the best-evidenced points in this guide. A major review of the research found:

This research describes the difficulties as sitting on a continuum from silence to violence. The practical implications are significant and, for many parents, a genuine relief:

• Children can come through a separation well when the conflict around it is managed, when both parents stay warm and available, and when the child is kept out of any arguments.
• High or destructive conflict between parents can affect children, whether the parents live together or apart.
• How parents handle conflict can affect children whether the family lives together or apart.

So if you are separating, one of the most helpful things you can do for your child is to manage conflict well: to keep disagreements away from the child, to stay civil and child-focused in front of them, and to protect them from being used as a messenger, a confidant, or a weapon.

A serious note: conflict at the most severe end of that continuum, where there is violence, intimidation, or abuse, is not "family conflict" but domestic abuse, and it is a safeguarding matter. If that is your situation, specialist support exists. In England, the freephone, 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247. Men can call the Men's Advice Line on 0808 801 0327. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own 24-hour helplines: 0800 027 1234 (Scotland), 0808 80 10 800 (Wales) and 0808 802 1414 (Northern Ireland). In an emergency, call 999.

Blended and step-families

When families come together after separation, a great deal of adjustment follows. Blended and step-families can thrive, but research and clinical experience, including the work of stepfamily specialist Patricia Papernow, suggest they often take time, sometimes several years, to settle, and that early struggles are not a sign of failure.^[5] Blended families are common, too: around 1.1 million dependent children in England and Wales live in a step-family.^[6]

Common challenges include:

• Loyalty binds: Some children can feel caught between parents or worried about appearing disloyal, for example if they start to warm to a step-parent. This can be painful, and it is not something to push against.
• The step-parent relationship cannot be rushed: Bonds form at the child's pace, not the adults' timetable. Families may need to agree clear and consistent approaches to boundaries and discipline.
• Insider and outsider positions: Birth parents are often in the "insider" position with their own children; step-parents and step-siblings can feel like "outsiders". These positions are felt keenly and need patience and acknowledgement.
• Different rules, different homes: Children often move between households with different routines and expectations. Some children adapt to this well, particularly when each home is reasonably consistent within itself. Where rules are highly inconsistent, frightening or unsafe, that deserves attention and support.
• Step-sibling relationships: these take their own time, and benefit from not being forced into closeness.

Some adjustment difficulties are common after major family changes, but persistent or severe distress deserves attention. With realistic expectations, patience, and time, supportive family relationships can become an important source of stability and belonging.

Sibling relationships and rivalry

Sibling relationships are among the longest a person ever has, and they matter a great deal for a child's development. They are also, normally, a mix of closeness and friction.

Some sibling rivalry is normal. Through squabbles over fairness, attention, and territory, children can practise negotiation, conflict, sharing, and repair. Much sibling conflict, however wearing for parents, is a normal part of growing up and does not need fixing so much as fair, calm refereeing.

There are, however, times when sibling difficulty needs more attention:

• Sibling bullying or abuse: Repeated intimidation, threats, coercion, humiliation or violence between siblings is not simply rivalry and may require professional or safeguarding support. Sibling bullying is a serious issue that deserves to be taken as seriously as bullying by anyone else. If you are ever worried about a child's safety at home, you can contact the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000 (10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday) or your local council's children's services, and in an emergency call 999.
• A sibling with significant additional needs or illness: When one child needs a great deal of parental time and energy, their brothers and sisters can quietly feel overlooked, or feel they must not add to the load. These siblings can benefit from dedicated attention and a space of their own.
• Sibling relationships strained by wider family difficulty: Separation, conflict, or loss can pull siblings together or push them apart, and either can need support.

When a parent is unwell or struggling

When a parent is dealing with a physical illness, a mental health condition, or an addiction, children are often affected, even when the parent is doing everything they can to protect them.

Children in this situation often take on roles beyond their years. Some become young carers, taking on practical caring tasks; the 2021 Census recorded around 120,000 young carers aged 5 to 17 in England^[7], and some may not be counted. Others take on an emotional version of the same thing, sometimes called parentification, where the child becomes the worrier, the peacekeeper, the emotional support, or the one who holds everything together. These children can look "mature" and "no trouble", which is one reason their own needs can be missed.

If this is your family, it’s worth knowing two things. First, living alongside a parent's illness or struggle does not on its own decide how a child will do. Factors that can influence how children respond include whether they are supported, informed in an age-appropriate way, and allowed to still be children. Second, support exists, both for the parent and specifically for young carers, and it can make a really positive impact.

Other family changes

Family difficulty takes many other forms: financial stress and housing instability, bereavement within the family, estrangement or lost contact with a relative, a change in who is caring for the child, or the arrival of a new baby. Each of these reshapes the family environment, and can register with a child.

Two are worth specifically signposting. Where there has been a death in the family, our bereavement and loss page covers childhood grief in depth. And where family difficulty is shading into school avoidance, our EBSA page covers that pattern.

How children show they are struggling with family issues

Children rarely announce that they are struggling with what is happening at home. More often, the distress shows up sideways:

• Changes in behaviour: more anger and irritability, or more withdrawal and quietness.
• Regression in younger children: clinginess, bedwetting, a return to earlier behaviours.
• Anxiety, low mood, or difficulty separating from a parent.
• Physical complaints, such as stomach aches and headaches, with no clear medical cause.
• Difficulties at school: concentration, attendance, friendships.
• Sleep and appetite changes.
• Taking on a role: becoming the household's peacekeeper, the "perfect" child, or the one who acts out and absorbs the blame.
• Testing behaviour, which can sometimes be a child checking, without words, whether they are still loved and safe while everything else shifts.

These are prompts, not a checklist. A child can be struggling without showing any of them, and some of these changes can have other causes. If you are worried, ask your child how they are and talk to your GP or school.

Our pages on anxiety, anger, depression, and low self-esteem cover the wider mental health difficulties that family problems can feed into.

What it's like for parents

Supporting a child through family difficulty is uniquely hard, because you are very often living through the same difficulty yourself. You may be grieving the end of a relationship, managing your own stress, illness, or loss, navigating a co-parenting relationship that is far from easy, and trying to hold a household together, all while attempting to be a steady, reassuring presence for your child.

Guilt is understandable, particularly around separation. Many parents carry a quiet fear that they’ve made things worse for their child, or failed to give them the family they deserved. However, family difficulty is part of a vast number of childhoods, and what helps children is not a perfect family but a supported one. Children are not looking for parents who never hit hard times. They are looking for parents who stay warm, stay honest, and keep them out of any disputes.

What to say and what not to say

A few things that tend to help:

• Tell children, age-appropriately, what is happening: Children often fill silence with their own explanations, and these can be more frightening and more self-blaming than the truth. They do not need every detail, but they do need honest, simple information.
• Say clearly that it is not their fault: Some children, especially younger ones, believe family difficulty is somehow caused by them.
• Reassure them about what stays the same: They are still loved; they will still be cared for; the things that anchor their daily life will continue.
• Let them have their feelings: Anger, sadness, worry, and even relief are all allowed. They do not need to protect you by hiding them.

A few things that tend not to help:

• Putting children in the middle: Do not use them as messengers, confidants, or sources of information about the other parent. Being caught in the middle is hard on children, and it is one of the more avoidable pressures.
• Criticising the other parent in front of them: Many children feel connected to both parents, so hearing one criticise the other can be painful for them.
• Pretending nothing is happening: Children often sense the truth, and denying it can teach them not to trust their own perceptions.
• Leaning on them emotionally: Your child should not become your support system, however tempting it is when you’re struggling. That is what other adults, and counselling, are for.

What you can do as a parent

Several things can help.

Protect the child from conflict: Keep disagreements away from your child, and stay child-focused and civil in front of them.

Keep routines as steady as you can: Predictability, mealtimes, bedtimes, familiar people and places, can help a child feel that the ground is still there, even while other things change.

Make one-on-one time: A small, regular pocket of unpressured time with each child, with your attention genuinely on them, can be very reassuring to them.

Communicate honestly and consistently: Age-appropriate honesty, and the same messages from both parents where possible, help a child feel secure.

Have realistic expectations of yourself and the timeline: Family transitions take time to settle, particularly blended-family ones. Some difficulty in the early stages is common.

Get your own support. Looking after your own wellbeing, through friends, your GP, your own counselling, or organisations like Relate and Family Lives, is not separate from looking after your child. Being as calm, predictable and emotionally available as you can be can help give your child a sense of security.

When to seek professional help

Many children move through family difficulty with the support of their parents, wider family, and school. It’s worth seeking additional professional support when your child's distress is significant and not easing, when it is affecting their school, friendships, sleep, eating, or daily life, when they seem stuck in anger, anxiety, or withdrawal, when they are carrying a level of responsibility or worry beyond their years, or when you feel out of your depth.

As a broad guide, it’s worth acting if difficulties seem to be settling in rather than passing, or if your child seems overwhelmed. The same goes if family change is getting in the way of their daily life. You don’t have to wait for any of that, though: if you’re worried, that is reason enough to ask for help now. If you are ever worried about your child's safety, or they talk about self-harm or suicide, get help straight away. Contact your GP and ask for an urgent appointment, or call NHS 111. If you believe your child is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E. You can also reach the Samaritans on 116 123, Childline on 0800 1111, or text SHOUT to 85258. Finding Therapy is not a crisis or emergency service.

How counselling helps with family issues

At Finding Therapy our work is integrative talking therapy. Our counsellors work relationally, building a trusting space with the young person, and drawing on the approaches that suit them as an individual.

Counselling can offer something a child may not have during family difficulty: a space that is entirely their own. Within the family, a child may be managing everyone else's feelings, choosing their words carefully, and trying not to add to the load. A counsellor is outside the family system, which means the child doesn’t have to protect them, take sides, or perform. They can simply be honest.

A 2022 three-level meta-analysis by Roest and colleagues found that the therapeutic relationship is consistently associated with better outcomes in child and adolescent therapy.^[8] For a child whose family relationships feel uncertain, a steady, reliable relationship with a calm adult can itself be part of the help.

In practice, integrative talking therapy for family issues typically involves:

• A private space where the young person can express what they cannot easily say at home, including feelings they are protecting their parents from.
• Help making sense of the change, in age-appropriate ways, and lifting the self-blame that can sit underneath.
• Building coping strategies for the worry, anger, sadness, or uncertainty the family difficulty has stirred up.
• Creative approaches for younger children, who often process family change more easily through drawing, play, and stories than through direct conversation.
• Work on the secondary difficulties, such as anxiety, low mood, anger, or school avoidance, that family stress can feed.
• Working with parents where appropriate, so the support around the child is joined-up.

Counselling does not take sides, allocate blame, or try to fix the family. It supports the child within whatever their family is becoming. It does not replace help from your GP, children's services or specialist domestic abuse services where those are needed.

A clinical perspective from one of our counsellors

Vanessa Crutchlow, MBACP, a Finding Therapy counsellor with experience in supporting children and young people through family change, shares how she works in her sessions:

"I've worked with children and young people going through family difficulty for many years, across schools, clinics, and online practice. Separation, conflict at home, blended families, sibling struggles, a parent who is unwell. By the time most of them come to me, they have been carrying a great deal quietly, often working very hard to protect the adults around them. My first job is usually to let them know that this space is different. They don't have to look after me, choose their words, or take a side here."

"When a young person comes to therapy with me, my very first priority is to create a calm, steady, private space. Children living through family change are often surrounded by uncertainty, so a session that is reliably the same, with an adult who is reliably calm, is itself settling. I move at their pace and follow their lead. Some children want to talk; others want to draw, play, or use the platform's creative tools, and the family difficulty comes out sideways through that. Both are completely fine."

"A lot of the work is gently lifting the self-blame. Some children may blame themselves or worry that they have caused the problem, or feel they should be able to fix it. Helping them understand that adult difficulties are not theirs to cause or to solve can ease a heavy load."

"Sessions from home can work well for this. The young person has a space of their own, away from the family dynamics, where they can be completely honest. The Finding Therapy platform's creative canvases give younger children, in particular, ways to express things they don't yet have words for. Every child moves at their own pace, and families may notice changes along the way: a child who is less angry or less withdrawn, sleeping better, or simply able to say more of what they feel."

"Work on family issues is sometimes short and sometimes longer, depending on what the young person is carrying. I always let them know they can come back if they need to. Family life keeps changing, and it can help to have a familiar space to return to when it does."

"If I could give one piece of encouragement to parents, it would be this: your child does not need a perfect family. They need to know they are loved, that the difficulty is not their fault, and that the adults are holding things. With that, and the right support, many children are able to come through family change and be okay."

Why online therapy can suit this work

Online therapy can be a particularly good fit for family-issues work. A young person living through family change benefits from a space that is genuinely their own, and being able to access therapy from a private spot at home, rather than an unfamiliar clinic, can support that. For families managing two households, complicated logistics, or a parent's illness, the flexibility of online sessions can also be the thing that makes consistent support possible at all.

For anxiety and depression in children and young people, research suggests therapy delivered through a screen can work about as well as meeting in person.^[9] That research was not about family difficulties specifically, so treat it as general reassurance about online therapy for young people rather than proof for this. Online counselling isn't right for every situation: where there is a significant risk to safety, a safeguarding concern, or a need for more intensive or specialist assessment, other support may be better. It helps if your child has a private space at home for sessions.

Recovery: what it can look like

Many children are resilient, and research on divorce suggests most go on to do well over time, though every child's path is different. Recovery does not mean the family difficulty never happened, or that the family returns to exactly how it was. Often it cannot, and does not need to. Recovery looks different for everyone. For some children, recovery may involve making sense of the change, setting down the self-blame, having support for the feelings it stirred up, and engaging with their life, their friendships, and their learning again. Progress is rarely a straight line, and new changes in the family can bring feelings back for a while.

Family difficulty handled with honesty, warmth, and low conflict can, for some children, even become a source of emotional understanding in time. What helps children is not an unbroken family. It’s being loved, being kept out of the middle, and being supported through the change.

A final word

If your family is going through something hard, it may help to remember that family difficulty is part of countless childhoods and many children come through it well. Much of what helps is within your influence: keeping your child out of adult conflict, staying warm and honest, reassuring them it is not their fault, and getting support, for them and for you, when it’s needed.

At Finding Therapy, we have counsellors experienced in supporting children and young people through family difficulty. If you'd like to talk to someone experienced in this, browse our directory of children's and young people's counsellors, or book a free consultation and you'll speak to our Head of Counselling, who can help with a recommendation.