After a separation, the parents generally each have their own home and the children travel every other week. In the case of “Nesting”, the children remain in their original nest, it is the parents who come and go. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this practice? Decryption and opinion from our psychologist.
In France, in 2020, 12% of children whose parents are separated live in shared residences, according to INSEE. Among them, some live in “nesting”, a term derived from “nest” in English which means nest. We also talk about reversed alternating residency. The principle ? The children stay at the family home, it is the parents who alternate from one week to the next. Born in the United States, this trend is gaining more and more followers in France. But contrary to what one might think, nesting does not only have advantages.
Nesting provides stability for children
Nesting is a way of preserving the nest, this familiar and reassuring place where children grew up with their parents. The major advantage of this mode of organization is thatit offers some stability to children. “In itself, nesting can be a really good idea for children because their spatial and material references are preserved. They sleep in the same bed every night, they make the same journey to school every morning, they eat at each meal on the same table, with the same plates, the same cutlery. And then, they don’t need to have everything in duplicate (bed, toys, etc.)“, comments Héloïse Junier, childhood psychologist, doctor of psychology and co-author of the comic strip “Ma vie d’enfant” (Dunod, 2023).
Nesting would therefore make divorce easier to bear for the children since there remains a trace of their happy family moments. If the agreement between the parents is satisfactory, nesting can be a good compromise.
The disadvantages of nesting for parents
However, if nesting seems to be an ideal method of organization for children, it is much less so for parents. In practice, the system may be a little more complex than expected. “It already requires excellent understanding between parents (particularly with regard to the distribution of cleaning, tidying, shopping, rules of life at home, etc.).
On a completely different levelnesting also implies that each parent has their own accommodation at the same time, which can represent, for some families, a real financial abyss“, observes the childhood psychologist. However, in big cities, this is impossible for the vast majority of families!
There is also the question of intimacy since the ex-partners find themselves forced to share the same bed from one time to the next. A situation that is all the more complicated if there is a new spouse. Nesting is also not suitable if one of the two still has feelings for the other because it doesn’t help him move on.
Ultimately, nesting has its fair share of pros and cons. Although it may be suitable for certain families, it is not unanimous! It seems especially interesting as a transitional mode of organization in the sense that it allows children to accept the separation gently and gives parents time to organize themselves to find another solution.
Thanks to Héloïse Junier, childhood psychologist, doctor of psychology and co-author of the comic strip “Ma vie d’enfant” (Dunod, 2023)