{"id":401155,"date":"2026-03-24T10:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401155\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T10:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:02:08","slug":"i-had-so-much-fear-of-people-seeing-inside-our-snow-globe-of-doom-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401155\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I had so much fear of people seeing inside our snow globe of doom\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Acrimonious parental separation negatively affects about one in 10 children in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\">State<\/a>, according to a new report published today by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/barnardos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/barnardos\/\">Barnardos<\/a> Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The children\u2019s charity commissioned a nationally representative survey of parents that found almost one in five (19 per cent) have separated from their children\u2019s other parent. More than half of these experienced significant conflict when separating, while a third reported that communication had become either extremely difficult or impossible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The survey conducted by Am\u00e1rach Research among almost 650 parents shows that of those who had separated: <\/p>\n<ul class=\"c-unordered-list paywall\">\n<li class=\"c-list-item paywall\">One third (35 per cent) said it affected their ability to provide practical care. <\/li>\n<li class=\"c-list-item paywall\">About half (49 per cent) said it affected their child\u2019s emotional wellbeing, anxiety and behaviour.<\/li>\n<li class=\"c-list-item paywall\">Forty per cent said it negatively impacted on children\u2019s routines and stability. <\/li>\n<li class=\"c-list-item paywall\">Nearly half (48 per cent) said it affected the child\u2019s relationship with them or their other parent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The report, entitled, Acrimonious Separation: The Impact on Children, warns that youngsters caught up in parental conflict are at risk of trauma and having poorer health, wellbeing and developmental outcomes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe longer that a child is exposed to it, the greater the likelihood that it will cause them harm, because childhood lasts a lifetime,\u201d says Suzanne Connolly, <a href=\"https:\/\/barnardos.ie\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/barnardos.ie\">Barnardos<\/a> chief executive. The charity is calling on the Government to increase support for families struggling with separation. More funding is needed \u201cto help parents de-escalate conflict earlier, develop coping mechanisms and keep focused on children\u2019s best interests\u201d, it states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The report commends the Department of Justice and the Courts Services for significant policy improvements around parental separation. But it says more work needs to be done to reduce the number of families going to court and to prevent parents\u2019 conflicts becoming entrenched and prolonged within the home, before and after separation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It is not the act of separation but how it is handled that can have a \u201cprofound\u201d impact on children, lasting into adult life, says Deirdre Cahir, who manages Barnardos family support services across Co Offaly and Co Laois. \u201cIt impacts every aspect of their life, from school to not being able to sleep, to, if there\u2019s two houses, the going between two homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, the \u201cdetrimental norm\u201d amid the housing shortage is that separated parents remain under the same roof, she says, adding that demand for services around separation has noticeably increased since the Covid-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cBy the time they get to us, it can be extremely acrimonious and parents are so entrenched in anger and emotion that the children are nearly sidelined at that stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Suzanne Connolly is the chief executive of Barnardos\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ATJAQUE4HVGX5AKQXJF42RPJG4.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"439\"\/>Suzanne Connolly is the chief executive of Barnardos <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">People separate all the time, \u201cbut there are very few that I\u2019ve seen have done it graciously\u201d, says Cahir.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As soon as parents realise their relationship has broken down, they should seek support for managing the separation. This would help focus their minds, she suggests, on facts and questions such as: \u201cWe don\u2019t like each other any more; we\u2019re separated. How do we manage our children, who we both love? How do we put our emotions towards each other to the side to focus on our children?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Barnardos has developed a specialised entrenched inter-parental conflict parenting programme, to add to a separated and parenting course that has been running for many years. The charity encourages both parents to do it, initially meeting with the same project worker, but at different times, and then completing the programme within separate peer support groups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Staff often ask parents to bring a photograph of their children to sessions, as a visual reminder of who is at the centre of their behaviour and planning for the future. The programme includes a look at how they are parenting post-separation, the impact of conflict on children and how to spare them from it, and self-care that will enable somebody to be the best parent they can be in the circumstances. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe all have strengths as parents, but we all have areas that we need to work on as well,\u201d says Cahir. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/life-and-style\/health-family\/parenting\/my-wife-and-i-are-separating-what-can-we-do-to-help-our-young-children-cope-1.4801906\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018My wife and I are separating. What can we do to help our young children cope?\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Another crucial topic is communication: \u201cI could tell you horror stories of people living in the same home. They\u2019ve had to use a notebook that\u2019s left on a [kitchen] island to communicate. Children have access to this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Children can also be used as messengers. Barnardos reports a recent example of a girl who had been told by her mother to tell staff that her father wasn\u2019t doing certain things. The service is developing a programme for children to support them in having their voice heard. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWhen we\u2019re talking about the impact on a child, we really can\u2019t overestimate that. What we think as an adult is innately different to what a child is thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In these situations, \u201cthey\u2019re big emotions when you\u2019re an adult, they\u2019re even bigger when you\u2019re a child\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Children often think it is their fault. Uncertainty and the unknown is, says Cahir, \u201ca very unsafe place for a small person to live in, in their head\u201d. Parental calmness, reassurance and consistency are needed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Power and control, as well as finances, are the usual flashpoints. People\u2019s feelings are hurt, something is ending and they don\u2019t want to come out on the worst side of it, Cahir says. \u201cWe had one couple who were shift working, trying not to be in the same house at the same time. But the fallout was that when they crossed each other, the arguments were significant even in those moments. The children were in a constant state of fear and stress as to what was going to happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"'[Our children] were seeing sides of us that we had hidden behind the bedroom door'\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/L46YZ3V6QRDLZPB7UHQRCMSSUA.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>&#8216;[Our children] were seeing sides of us that we had hidden behind the bedroom door&#8217; <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She has heard of scenarios where children arrive at one parent\u2019s house with clothes to be told they can\u2019t wear them there because the other parent bought them. \u201cIt just gets unbelievably ridiculous \u2013 but heart-wrenching and heartbreaking for a child to try and negotiate something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Parental separation can happen in any family, and Barnardos, which operates across 56 locations in the State, makes its services available to the whole community. But there is no denying that poverty compounds the challenges for fractured families. Cahir recalls how \u201cwe had a little guy at one stage who was telling his mum he wasn\u2019t hungry, because he felt she didn\u2019t have money for food\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I feared people seeing inside our snow globe of doom\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Niamh and her husband continued to live in the same house with their three children when they separated three years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It was a very volatile time and she has huge regrets about not looking for support then for her children who were exposed to so much anger. Their eldest son, a teenager, had to intervene on occasions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThey were seeing sides of us that we had hidden behind the bedroom door,\u201d says Niamh. She was hugely concerned about the impact of the ongoing conflict on the children but, with none of her own family living near their Co Laois home, she had no one to talk to, as she tried to keep up the pretence that all was well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI had so much fear of people seeing inside our snow globe of doom. I was afraid of judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/your-family\/2024\/07\/29\/a-guide-to-helping-teenage-children-cope-with-an-upcoming-divorce\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018We will be going through divorce very soon and have not told our children\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She cannot recall how she heard about Barnardos but, out of desperation, rang its crisis line. She was seen within about a week and later enrolled on the inter-parental conflict programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI found it invaluable in building my confidence. It helped me recognise how well I was doing in the circumstances and to lean into the things that were working well.\u201d She also learnt to make peace with what was outside her control. By that stage her husband had had to leave the home, after a neighbour reported an altercation between him and Niamh and their daughter outside the house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She and her ex went through the family court system. Although Barnardos, Tusla and the family courts all talk about doing what\u2019s best for children, she criticises the lack of co-operation between the three.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cNobody joins the dots and sees the bigger picture.\u201d She felt the court system was \u201call about finance and control\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It pains her now to watch her children struggle with the rigidity of their father taking them every second weekend, with no allowances for what might be going on in their lives. She communicates with her ex-husband through the court-approved My Family Wizard app. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Their youngest child has had play therapy and the middle child is on the waiting list. She organised counselling for their eldest child, \u201cto get him to a place where he wasn\u2019t so angry\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In hindsight she sees how the family needed these services at the time of the separation, \u201cto allow children to have the opportunity to feel solid\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI am not going to say there is a happy ending to this,\u201d she adds. Her advice to other parents weighing up their relationship is, \u201cif it can work, please try\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I couldn\u2019t tell my son why I took him out of the house\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">John and his wife remained living in the same house for about six months after they separated. He was working nights and they managed to share the parenting of their two children, a teenage girl and six-year-old boy, before John moved into an apartment close by.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Then their son began to act out: \u201cRunning into people and headbutting them, in the chest\u201d, says his father. The couple tried to manage him themselves, but then a doctor recommended family support and they went on a waiting list.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It was at least a year after separation before John and his ex got on parenting programmes, within about a month of each other. Their son had also started play therapy. By then he had stopped acting out so physically, although he was still targeting his father, and the couple were going through the courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThere was an incident and I had to go and take my son from the house,\u201d says John, who applied, ultimately successfully, for full custody of the children. There was an interim agreement between the couple and Tusla that she would see them on Saturdays.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/your-family\/2026\/01\/26\/i-am-a-separated-dad-and-my-15-year-old-daughter-wont-talk-to-me\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018I am a separated dad and my 15-year-old daughter won\u2019t talk to me\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cFrom the start, I think she was more consumed with what was going on with herself,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to impinge on her access to my son as long as she was okay.\u201d She could drop in to the apartment to see him during the week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt was going through the courts for a year or a year and a half. At that point we were in a bit of a stressful situation in that myself, my son and my daughter were living in the one-bed apartment that I had intended to move into as a stopgap.\u201d They stayed there for two years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI was paying the mortgage [on the family home] and the rent so it wasn\u2019t an option to upsize on the rent.\u201d He is very grateful that his daughter, who lived there part of the time, was able to fit college classes around his shifts and look after her brother when he was working.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">John found the Barnardos course very helpful but believes separating couples need support faster and suggests online resources should be made available if there is a delay. He felt some of the content was all very well \u201cin a perfect world\u201d, but the real-life experience of fellow participants \u201cbalanced that out\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">John had been trying to figure out what to say to his son about being out of the family home. He knew he could not keep fobbing him off. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI didn\u2019t want to have to tell him exactly why he had to be taken from the house \u2013 and why he wasn\u2019t going back.\u201d There are only so many times you can say \u201cshe has gone on holidays\u201d or try to change the subject.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">On the course he was advised how to explain things in an age-appropriate way. But while he was in and out of court trying to finalise arrangements, he had to tell his son that he simply did not know how long it would be before they could go home. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThere was no way for me, as a man, to get a barring order on her, to get her to move out of the house.\u201d After John was granted full custody, there was court agreement the boy would go to his mother for eight hours on a Saturday. \u201cWe stuck rigidly to that for a while. But then, as life comes in the way, we were able to just be flexible and move things around as needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">One recommendation John took away from another parent, who was not on talking terms with their ex, was an app for easy calendar sharing, called TimeTree. \u201cI use it religiously now,\u201d he says. Football training, being away for work and other information relevant to co-parenting can be logged. \u201cYou can arrange things without having to directly talk about them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">John and the two children moved back into the family home in Co Westmeath earlier this year, after he bought his ex-wife out as part of the divorce agreement. Having taken redundancy some time ago to be a stay-at-home father, he is now looking for a job.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"c-unordered-list paywall\">\n<li class=\"c-list-item paywall\">Names of parents have been changed to protect their families\u2019 privacy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Acrimonious parental separation negatively affects about one in 10 children in the State, according to a new report&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[151209,79,126475,182033,42385,18,2215,19,17,2973],"class_list":["post-401155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-barnardos","tag-business","tag-child-anxiety","tag-child-psychology","tag-courts-service","tag-eire","tag-for-you","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-parenting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}