My ex and I separated a few months before my son turned 5, divorced just over a year later, and his father died a few months after he turned 7. The instigating factor to our split was that my son’s day care provider (with whom he had been for over a year) called me and asked if something was wrong because he was acting depressed. My formerly gregarious, joyous child was withdrawn and sullen at day care. If he actually was doing something and another kid came and took it away, he wouldn’t even protest.
This was a wake-up call to me and brought my own depression to the forefront – I didn’t even realize how miserable I was until I saw it reflected in my child. This situation replayed itself a few times over the years – when he started to act up or seem down, I would step back and look at the big picture of our situation and realize that something needed to change.
I guess my point is that dysfunction will impact kids at any age, whether it occurs within a marriage or as one comes to an end. Growing up, I had a classmate who knew his parents stayed together “for the sake of the kids” and he learned to manipulate the situation and play them against each other. We can’t know for sure, but it seems to me that it would have been healthier all around if the parents had split and perhaps found their own happiness than staying miserable together and having the kid pulling all the strings.
Generally speaking, the younger a child is when presented with any adversity, the more they normalize it and take it all in stride. Not long ago, someone asked a question here about a school-aged child dealing with chronic illness, and I recalled my observation from working in a Children’s Hospital that the kids often had a much more matter-of-fact attitude toward the illness than the parents, because that was their “normal”. The same applies toward a dealing with ‘broken’ family or death, based on my experiences.