父母离异，孩子何去何从？“巢居”给你答案

The new trend of “nesting” is a transitional, or temporary, arrangement where the children stay in the family home while the parents rotate on- and off-duty by agreement on a prearranged schedule.

新趋势“巢居”是一种过渡性或者说临时性的婚姻形式，孩子们住所不变，父母们达成共识，按照预定的时间表轮流抚养他们。

First, you need to decide whether nesting makes sense for you and your family. Nesting is not a cookie-cutter approach. You’ll need to create a nesting agreement unique to your situation. Your agreement should reduce the conflict between you and your spouse. It should also reduce the stress for the children. Nesting sets the stage for a cooperative and reasonable divorce process, avoiding court. It also prepares everyone for a new “family under two roofs”.

首先，父母需要确定“巢居”对自己和家庭是否合理。“巢居”这一方式不是千篇一律的，你需要根据自身的情况拟定一份独特的协议。这份协议要减少你与配偶的冲突并且缓解孩子的压力。“巢居”不仅为达成共识的、理性的离婚创造了条件、避免了当堂对峙，它还为所有人设计了一种新型的家庭模式——“两个屋檐下”家庭（离婚后夫妻依然住在同一栋房子里，并按照协议内容分别抚养小孩）。

Nesting during divorce or separation can give you time to figure out the future of your relationship. You may decide to reconcile after respite from the conflict in the marriage. 

离婚或分居时，“巢居”可以给父母时间来考虑彼此关系，从婚姻冲突的罅隙中获得喘息的余地，然后调整相处模式。

You may move ahead with the divorce, making decisions that will have a lasting impact on you and your family. Nesting allows you to pace this process in a way that keeps you and your children stable.

父母可能会继续离婚，做出一些对于自身和家庭有着极其深远影响的决定。而“巢居”让父母和孩子以平和的方式加快这一进程。

It can be hard to move in and out of the family home, and nesting parents experience first-hand what their children may experience when they later live in their parents’ two homes.

从家里搬出搬进是很麻烦的，而“巢居”生活的家长们会直接体验到他们的孩子日后将会经历的，生活在离异父母各自家庭时的感受。

When parents are considering separation or divorce, their biggest worry is most often about the children. Today’s parents are increasingly determined to protect their kids from the potential damage that a high-conflict divorce may cause.

当父母考虑离婚或者分居时，他们最担心的就是孩子。而如今的父母更加坚定地想要保护子女远离离婚可能带来的潜在危害。

Celeste Viciere, a licensed mental health clinician finds that nesting can benefit children both socially, and when it comes to practical everyday stuff. 

一位职业心理临床医师Celeste Viciere发现，无论在社交还是实际生活方面，“巢居”对孩子们都是有帮助的。

“‘The shock of the painful news to the children is softened by a brief transitional period in which the kids’ environmental surroundings remain the same and the only change is the presence of one parent or the other, versus both [parents] at the same time,” says Dr. Fran Walfish, a family and relationship psychotherapist and the author of “The Self-Aware Parent.

弗兰·沃尔费什博士（一位家庭及关系心理治疗师，也是《自我意识的父母》一书的作者。）说：“对孩子们来说，不幸消息带来的震惊会被这段短暂的过渡期所缓和，因为在这段时间里，他们周围的环境保持不变，唯一改变的是，双亲陪伴变为任意一方的单亲陪伴。

“Having the children live in the same house that is familiar to them can be beneficial because it's easier to stay in the same school and keep the same friend group. Often when kids have to bounce between different households, it tends to affect their social lives due to the location,” says Viciere.

职业心理临床医师Viciere也认为：“让孩子们住在他们熟悉的房子里是有好处的，因为在同一所学校，与同一个圈子里的朋友相处会更容易。而当孩子们不得不在不同的家庭之间辗转时，地理因素会影响他们的社交生活。”

But Viciere, too, sees the downsides of nesting.

但是Viciere也看到了“巢居”的不利之处。

“[Nesting] may feel confusing to a child,” she says, “Children may struggle with having amazing family memories in the house but feel unable to share them together anymore. It could also lead to a false sense of reality where they become hopeful that their parents could get back together.”

她说：“‘巢居’可能会让孩子们感到迷惑，他们很可能陷入一种拥有美妙的家庭回忆，却难以将回忆共享的痛苦挣扎中。同时，‘巢居’也会给孩子们造成一种父母还会复合的假象。”

Shelley A. Senterfitt, does not recommend nesting as she finds that it can create opportunity for the very kind of conflict divorcing parents are trying to avoid.

Shelley A. Senterfitt（一位律师出身的、如今主攻家庭法律问题和关系的心理治疗师）也不推荐“巢居”，因为她发现“巢居”可能会引发离婚中的父母本想极力避免的各种冲突。

Senterfitt offers the following extreme example: “Imagine what if dad’s girlfriend spent time at the house and left her bra there? How is mom likely to respond when she finds the unmentionables of her ex’s new squeeze? Sharing a residence creates too many opportunities for parents to trigger one another which will not benefit the children.”

Senterfitt提供了以下极端的案例：“想象一下，如果爸爸的女友在家中居住且不小心遗落了她的文胸怎么办？发现了这些东西之后，妈妈又会作何反应？共享同一所住宅会为父母们带来许多争执的隐患，而这对孩子是不利的。”

All that said, Senterfitt still does see nesting sometimes pan out successfully for the very short-term. 

尽管如此，心理治疗师Senterfitt觉得有时“巢居”在短期内还是卓有成效的。

“The only instances I am aware of in which parents have made nesting work is when it is done on a very time-limited basis (e.g. for the remainder of a child’s senior year in high school) and when the parents have had a very amicable divorce (e.g. they both wanted to end the marriage and are committed to putting the children’s interests ahead of their own),” Senterfitt says. “[But] this describes a very small portion of divorcing couples.”

心理治疗师Senterfitt说：“据我所知，我觉得唯一见效的情况是，在非常有限的时间段前提之下的“巢居”（例如：在孩子高中最后一年里），并且双方已经和平分手（例如：他们都想结束婚姻关系，并且致力于把孩子的利益置于他们自己之前），但是这种情况仅描述了离婚人群中极小的一部分。”

cookie-cutter  adj.  having the same appearance (as if mass-produced)）千篇一律的

sets the stage for  为……创造条件

unmentionables n.  [戏谑语]内衣

squeeze  n.  (非正式)男朋友，女朋友

trigger  v.  to make sth happen suddenly 触发

例：The thieves must have deliberately triggered the alarm and hidden inside the house.

pan out  取得进展

例：Their attempt to start a new business didn't pan out.

amicable  adj.  友好的

例：The meeting ended on reasonably amicable terms.

reconcile  v. 调和，使协调一致；（使）和解

例：Therefore need for a third impulse to reconcile the two .

respite  n. 缓解；暂缓；vt. 使缓解；使暂缓

例：This respite enables me to perform a vital errand.

pace this process  加快这一进程