Divorce is a difficult time for everybody involved, particularly children. Many parents worry about the mental and emotional health of their children throughout the divorce process, and with good reason.
Typically, after a divorce, the parents will set up separate households and the children go back and forth according to a schedule. However, this situation is not ideal for everybody. As a result, many divorced families are experimenting with nesting, as per Psychology Today.
What is nesting?
Instead of the children doing the moving, nesting has the parents doing it. Essentially, the children stay in one house and the parents move in and out. This mimics the movement of parent birds taking care of babies in a nest, hence the name.
In most situations, nesting is temporary. You may decide to nest throughout the divorce process in order to provide your children with maximum stability and to give you a safe space to get used to single parenting. You may also decide to nest if your children are close to high school graduation.
What are the potential difficulties?
Successful nesting requires a lot of trust and communication between ex-spouses. In the event that you are going through a contentious divorce, you may not be on good enough working terms with your co-parent to facilitate nesting. Remember that you will still be jointly maintaining a family home while nesting.
Nesting can also present difficulties when it comes to finding new partners and permanence in your life. This is white nesting is a temporary situation in the majority of instances. However, it is a way to provide your children with maximum stability during a difficult time.
