When some Georgia parents decide to end their marriages, they might worry about how their children might be affected by moving from their home and into a new environment. To try to minimize the potential impact the divorce might have on their kids, some couples try an approach called nesting. This might work in the short term, but there are some potential drawbacks.
What is nesting?
Nesting refers to a situation in which divorcing parents keep the marital home and alternate staying in it with their children. In this approach, the parents might get a separate apartment and switch weeks for which parent will stay in the home and which will stay in the apartment. This situation can help minimize the disruption children might face by being forced to move from their home and potentially change schools while also dealing with their parents’ divorce. However, it is not something that can realistically continue long into the future.
Drawbacks of nesting
For nesting to work, the parents should be going through an amicable divorce in which both agree that they want to end the marriage. They should also be able to respect each other’s boundaries. Sharing the home and an apartment can lead to conflict when one parent discovers that the other has done something with which he or disagrees. Nesting can also be confusing to children who might think that their parents could still reconcile and get back together.
Nesting might work for a small subset of parents who can get along well with each other even though they are no longer married. It might potentially help children during the transition so that they can get used to the fact that their parents are divorcing. Trying to extend this arrangement beyond three to six months might not be good for either the children or the parents, however. Eventually, the parents will likely need to establish separate homes while continuing to work with each other through good co-parenting relationships.