I'd like to know… I want to know if there's maybe another reason, an underlying problem or something
BBC Two’s ‘Mum and Dad are Splitting Up’ is based on intimate interviews with both young people and their parents about their experiences of family break ups.
In the process, the families - sometimes discussing the event together for the first time – ask questions that have remained unsaid for years and often find themselves surprised by the answers.
17 year-old Daisy Merriman’s parents separated two years ago. At the time, her mum Claire did not go into detail about the reasons why she and Daisy’s dad David decided to split.
Daisy says: ‘I'd like to know… I want to know if there's maybe another reason, an underlying problem or something.'
But Daisy’s mum doesn’t think children need to know ‘the ins and outs.’
‘They know that their mum and dad aren't going to be together any more. That's hard to take at 14 or 20 or any age I should imagine,’ she says.
‘I know it's a bit of a line that sometimes you trot out to perhaps protect your children, that Mum and Dad don't get on any more and we love you but we can't stay together, and that is true, it doesn't matter what causes that to happen.’
But if young people, like those in the film, would like to know the reasons behind the break up of their family - should there be more openness?
Paula Hall, a psychotherapist who works with the relationship support organisation Relate, told the BBC it depends on the age of the child, the reasons for the break-up and their ability to understand it.
According to Hall, when a child or young person asks why their parents are separating, they are really asking: "Is there a way you can stay together?"
As parents, if you have decided the marriage is definitely over, you do not want to get into a debate about how to fix it, she suggested.
Hall says it can be difficult to talk about the split with your child without placing blame on the other person, and there are times when the discussion would be ‘inappropriate’ to for a child to hear.
It takes adults to really pull something out of themselves, to be bigger than the issues that they've faced in the past
Child psychologist Laverne Antrobus said parents should be wary of the effects of the discussion on the personal identity of their child.
She warns that: ‘depending on the age of your child, they are still learning about their own identity and particularly their own identity in relation to you as a parent.
‘So if you say something that sounds fairly innocent, for example, “He or she doesn't make me happy any more,” that might seem very straightforward and obvious to you, but for a child they might start thinking, “Well what happens when I don't make you happy, will you leave me?”
She also warns that the interruption of divorce in a child's life could be more long-term if there is a lack of clarity about the separation - if, for instance, the couple still continue to live together.
‘It takes adults to really pull something out of themselves, to be bigger than the issues that they've faced in the past,’ she said.
**Mum and Dad are splitting up: Thursday 5 September, 9pm, BBC Two
**