Jack of broken hearts offers support

January is traditionally the month when a struggling marriage ends on the rocks. After limping through the forced confinement of a family Christmas, squabbling couples are more likely to call it quits in the first few weeks of the New Year.

Leeds lawyer, Kate Banerjee, says solicitors have come to expect a spike in divorce inquiries in the third week of January.

“People have had Christmas and settled back into the routine and realized that actually they just can’t do it anymore, so they seek legal advice,” says Kate, who is the head of the children’s unit at Leeds-based divorce and family law specialist Jones Myers LLP. And despite a small drop in the number of divorce cases in recent years, it is estimated that one in four children in the UK are affected by divorce or separation at some point in their lives.

According to the Office for National Statistics, more than four million children do not live with both their parents. Various reports suggest family instability or breakdown can have devastating long-term consequences for a child.

Solicitor Helen Bishop who specialises in family law, has witnessed the effect a messy break-up can have on a child. She spotted a gap in the market for a children’s book which would help children get through a divorce, and so decided to write her own.

She explains: “As a family solicitor for the past 13 years, I became frustrated with the lack of literature available to help children deal with the issues that surround divorce and separation. Quite often clients would ask if there was anything they could read with the child, so I decided to write a book myself.”

As a neighbour and friend of Yorkshire children’s illustrator Simon Murray, they got talking one day and she asked him if he would take a look at her book. Simon is the son of popular Rotherham children’s author, Peter J Murray who wrote the Mokee Joe and Bonebreaker horror fiction series. Simon, who now lives in Newbury, agreed to illustrate the book, which is simply titled Jack, and it was published by the Murray family’s small publishing company, Atlantis Children’s Books, in October.

Jack is about a boy who is dealing with the emotional and practical difficulties he faces due to the separation of his parents and is aimed at children between the ages of four and eleven.

The book has been endorsed by the Family Law Association and follows the government’s Family Justice Review which recommended more material is made available for children to understand the concept of divorce and separation. Helen, who has two children, aged four and seven, says she wanted to create a story that would capture imaginations and provide comfort and reassurance to children that they are not the cause of the separation.

“Because parents are dealing with their own emotions, quite often the child hears what’s going on but is not spoken to,” she says. “Anything that can help a child go through these emotions and get through the turmoil is useful.

“One of the first things you tell a client is to let the school know because quite a child’s behaviour, whether it’s subtle or quite drastic, or just withdrawn, can affect their relationship with their friends. There are a whole variety of issues which affect them not just in their childhood, it can often overhang into their adult lives and there’s been research to show that quite often a child might have seen to be OK but in their 20s and 30s they still have quite substantial issues.” She said problems could be manifested as relationship issues, anger management problems and low self-esteem.

“My book is more about the emotional side of things, so how a child reacts to blame issues, is it their fault, could they have done more homework and not been so grumpy? And then it looks at the practical side where they are dealing with living in two homes and how to divide their time between two houses. The book tries to reassure the child.”

She has already written the next two books in the series, one about the new partner and a third dealing with the issues around a new sibling in the family.

She says: “My primary objective has simply been to provide a beautiful children’s book that can really make a difference to children.”

Divorce impacts millions of lives

There are 2.5 million separated families in Great Britain, with about 300,000 families separating each year.

The divorce rate fell in 2011 (the latest year published), a drop of 1.7% since 2010.

The average marriage is expected to last for 32 years

By the 20th wedding anniversary, 34 per cent of marriages are expected to have ended in divorce

The number of divorces in 2011 was highest among men and women aged 40 to 44.

Jack is available through Amazon and Waterstones.