1 Introduction

Children living in two homes and the complexities of their everyday lives are increasingly encountered in child welfare services, especially in custody disputes. A key challenge for social workers is how to ensure that separated parents are able to recognise and prioritise their children's needs independently of their own conflicts (Sudland 2023). The aim of this paper is to contribute to existing knowledge by examining how children living in two homes navigate and position themselves in relation to their parents' conflicts and to emphasise the importance of everyday micropractices (like changing home, asking money or sharing time with parents) for children's well-being.

The need to understand the lives of children in dual residence arrangements has grown, as shared residence following parental divorce and separation has become more common. In the European context, almost 20% of children with separated parents live for an equal or nearly equal amount of time with both parents. Sweden leads this trend at 42.5%, followed by Finland at 23.8% (Hakovirta et al. 2023). In Finland, the number of officially confirmed shared residence agreements has more than doubled over the past decade (THL 2023), and many parents make such arrangements without official confirmation.

There are notable differences between European countries, both in norms concerning appropriate parental roles after separation and in legal frameworks. In some countries, equally divided shared residence is the presumptive arrangement, and when parents disagree, it may be the first parenting model considered (e.g., in Belgium, Germany and Spain). In others, shared residence can be implemented only by mutual agreement between parents (Fernández-Rasines 2017; Hakovirta et al. 2023; Vanassche et al. 2017). In Finland, shared residence was incorporated into law in 2019 as one option for arranging children's housing after parental separation, provided that both parents agreed (Parliament of Finland (Eduskunta) 2019; Amendment on the Act on Child Custody and Right of Access, 190/2019).

Shared residence has been proven to have many positive effects on both children and their separated parents. It has been connected to better coparenting, fewer interparental conflicts (Augustijn et al. 2023) and children's improved socioemotional and psychological well-being (e.g., Steinbach 2019). Conversely, many children alternating between parental homes find themselves in the middle of their separated parents' everyday conflicts, which can burden them and bring unpredictability to their lives. These children must cope with everyday uncertainty while navigating their parents' conflicts. Recent research has also begun to conceptualise transitions between parental homes as relational rather than merely logistical situations (Saini and Chung 2026; Smyth et al. 2026). To gain a deeper understanding of children's own viewpoints, we approach their coping at the level of everyday micropractices, a perspective that has rarely been used in studies of children (e.g., Løvschal-Nielsen et al. 2018; Wentzel Winther 2015).

Earlier research on children's well-being after parental separation suggests that the success of shared residence arrangements depends on the quality of the parental relationship (e.g., Steinbach and Augustijn 2022). Several psychosocial child experts and researchers have stressed the role of good parental relationships and the ability to cooperate (e.g., Augustijn 2021; Turunen 2017). In Nordic family law contexts, shared residence is not recommended in situations involving ongoing parental disputes and high levels of interparental conflict (Morbech et al. 2024; Norlén 2023; Turunen 2017).

In countries where shared residence is prioritised in legal decisions, it has also become more common in disputed divorces when it is seen as being in the child's best interests (Fernández-Rasines 2017; Vanassche et al. 2017). Recently, however, the necessity of indisputable parental cooperation has been increasingly challenged, and good parent–child relationships are considered more important (Nielsen 2017; Steinbach and Augustijn 2022). Given that shared residence has become more prevalent in many countries and is increasingly considered a standard living arrangement for children after parental divorce (Bergström et al. 2019; Hakovirta et al. 2023; Steinbach 2019; Vanassche et al. 2017), the research focus should likewise shift towards a more nuanced examination of shared residence that considers interparental conflict and the child's well-being (Morbech et al. 2024, 368).

This article examines postseparation parental conflicts from the perspective of children who live alternately with both parents. We use the concepts of ‘children living in two homes’ and ‘children alternating between parental homes’ to refer to the constant movement that characterises these children's everyday lives as they travel back and forth between their parents' homes. We are especially interested in how children position themselves in relation to their parents' conflicts. Children's perspectives are important because there is limited knowledge about how they experience and narrate their parents' postseparation conflicts. Children's everyday knowledge offers a new and important contribution to debates concerning postdivorce residential arrangements and separated families.

Our research questions are as follows: How do children living in two homes position themselves in relation to their parents' conflicts, and what kind of moral reasoning is embedded in these positionings? What kinds of micropractices do children adopt to cope with the uncertainties arising from the conflicts they encounter in their everyday lives?

2 Literature Review

2.1 Children's Experiences of Everyday Life

Research interest in children's everyday experiences of living in two homes has increased in recent years, with most studies drawing on qualitative approaches (e.g., Berman 2018, 2019; for an overview, see Birnbaum and Saini 2015; Haugen 2010; Johnsen et al. 2018; Kitterød and Lidén 2021; Linnavuori and Stenvall 2020; Merla and Nobels 2026; Smart 2004). As positive aspects of living in two homes, children emphasise the opportunity to maintain close relationships with both parents, as well as friendships and leisure activities in both homes (Berman 2018; Birnbaum and Saini 2015; Smart 2004). Children's well-being is closely linked to parental flexibility and cooperation, particularly when parents listen to children and include them in decision-making about living arrangements (Berman 2018, 2019; Birnbaum and Saini 2015; Kitterød and Lidén 2021; Linnavuori and Stenvall 2020; Smart 2004). At the same time, living in two homes may become challenging and burdensome because of continual moving, differing household rules, or missing the absent parent (Birnbaum and Saini 2015; Haugen 2010).

Few qualitative studies have addressed parental conflict in the context of dual residence from the perspective of children's experiences; however, conflict has seldom been the central focus of analysis (Berman 2018; Johnsen et al. 2018; Sadowski and McIntosh 2016; Smart et al. 2001). Existing findings suggest that parental conflict, as experienced by children, can undermine children's well-being when they are living in two homes. Children describe conflict between parents as distressing and report feeling caught between them, particularly when communication between parents is poor or when conflicts are ongoing or unresolved (Johnsen et al. 2018; Sadowski and McIntosh 2016). In such situations, children may try to protect their parents from escalating conflict by suppressing their own feelings and needs, while parental conflict is associated with children's feelings of insecurity (Berman 2018; Sadowski and McIntosh 2016). Research further suggests that parental conflict in the context of living in two homes can have lasting implications for children's emotional well-being and sense of safety (Johnsen et al. 2018).

2.2 Parental Conflict and Children's Well-Being

Research on children living in two homes has been dominated by quantitative studies comparing children's well-being in dual residence with that in sole residence or other family forms (e.g., Aasen Nilsen et al. 2017; Bergström et al. 2019; Brons and Poortman 2026; Fransson et al. 2016; Rissanen 2016). The findings suggest that dual residence is associated with positive outcomes for children (e.g., Bergström et al. 2019; Nielsen 2017).

Parental conflict has been examined as a factor associated with children's well-being. Findings are mixed regarding whether dual residence increases children's exposure to parental conflict. Some studies suggest that frequent parental contact may heighten the risk of children witnessing conflict (Jevne and Andenæs 2017; Turunen 2017), while others report no increased involvement or even lower levels of being drawn into interparental disputes (Holt et al. 2024). However, there is broad agreement that high and ongoing parental conflict can undermine the potential benefits of dual residence (Mahrer et al. 2018).

Parental conflict is commonly conceptualised along a continuum from low to high. Low levels allow for cooperation despite differences in parenting styles. Moderate levels are characterised by anger and poor communication, and high levels involve physical or psychological violence as defining features of high-conflict situations (Nielsen 2017). Research consistently shows that intense or violent interparental conflict poses serious risks to children's psychological adjustment, regardless of living arrangements (Harold and Sellers 2018). Some studies suggest that continuity in the parent–child relationship can be protective for children when parental conflict is present but not highly intense or violent (Bergström et al. 2014; Berman and Daneback 2022). For example, Sandler et al. (2013) found that children's mental health was more closely related to the quality of parenting and the distribution of overnights between parents than to the level of interparental conflict.

Previous research has relied largely on quantitative indicators, focusing on coparenting dynamics and living arrangements. Qualitative studies have examined children's experiences of living in two homes, but parental conflict has not been the central focus of analysis. This study addresses this gap by qualitatively examining children's experiences of living in two homes, bringing parental conflict to the fore. This perspective is important for identifying children's ways of coping in these situations and for recognising circumstances in which support is needed.

2.3 Children's Positioning and Moral Reasoning

A typical storyline in research on parental divorce constructs children as victims without agency. This has led researchers to seek alternative narratives by attending to children's own accounts and analysing how children may position themselves in relation to parental divorce and conflicts (e.g., Smart 2006; Smart et al. 2001; Stokkebekk et al. 2019).

In her pioneering study, Smart et al. (2001) open the ways children are doing postdivorce childhood. In her follow-up study, Smart (2006) examines in greater depth children's narratives and their positioning in relation to parents' divorce. The study groups the narratives along the axes of structure and emotion and shows that children's accounts are complex and contradictory, including narratives ranging from coping, survival and personal growth to stories of blame, victimisation, loneliness and withdrawal. Smart (2006) also reflects on children's ethical dispositions regarding how adults should behave towards each other and their children and conduct divorce ‘in a proper manner’. This ethical aspect is more widely analysed in the earlier study by Smart et al. (2001), where the ethics of fairness, care and respect are identified in children's moral reasoning concerning postdivorce family life dilemmas.

Children's positions in divorced families with prolonged conflicts were more recently studied in a Nordic context by Stokkebekk et al. (2019). Their analysis identifies three child positions: keeping balance (storyline of family conflict), keeping distance (storyline of the troubling parent) and keeping on with life. These positions can be read as expressions of children's resistance to threats to their well-being and dignity.

The present study builds on and extends this line of research by focusing on children living in two homes in low and moderate conflict situations, and on how they position themselves in relation to their parents' conflicts and what kind of moral reasoning is involved in this positioning.

3 Theoretical and Methodological Commitments

Our approach to studying how children living in two homes position themselves in relation to their parents' conflicts through everyday micropractices is based on three angles: (1) the social studies of childhood, (2) positioning theory and (3) everyday micropractices.

3.1 Social Studies of Childhood

Following the social studies of childhood, we base our study on children's knowledge and agency (James et al. 1998). We use the concept of ‘children's knowledge’ to refer to children's everyday experiences from their own social position. This perspective emphasises that children's knowledge must be approached from their social position and by asking children themselves (Mayall 2008). Research on divorce processes has focused mainly on one-directional, top-down perspectives in which parents are considered active agents and children are seen as passive recipients of parental decisions (Maes et al. 2012). In this study, we approach the lives of children alternating between parental homes from the bottom up, from the children's own perspectives. We are aware of the critical discussions concerning earlier definitions of children's agency, which have tended to valorise the discursive, agentic and competent subject (Abebe 2019; Raithelhuber 2016; Valentine 2011), and we are also sensitive to children's vulnerability and dependence.

3.2 Positioning Theory

We use elements of positioning theory to analyse children's narrations of their everyday experiences of living in two homes in relation to their separated parents' conflicts. According to Rom Harré (2015), ‘the root idea of positioning theory is that the way people […] act is to some extent determined by shared and sometimes contested beliefs about how rights and duties to perform certain sorts of acts are distributed among interested parties’ (pp. 321–322). The moral order and the (often unclear) rights and duties of parenting in shared residence represent a complex task (Harré 2015) in which children must take their stance. To manage their everyday lives, children living in two homes need to position themselves in relation to the parental postseparation conflicts they experience. From the viewpoint of positioning theory, children living in two homes do not passively occupy given roles in which they interact with their quarrelling, separated parents. Instead, they actively negotiate their positions, a process that involves notions of who they are and what they can do (Burr 1995; Davies and Harré 1990). According to Jevne (2017), positions are relational in nature. In reflexive positioning, one positions oneself, and in interactive positioning, what one person says positions the other.

Positioning theory has been used in earlier studies on postseparation contexts to examine parental perspectives on family conflict (e.g., Jevne 2017; Jevne and Andenæs 2017), how the postseparation child is positioned in victimised mothers' interviews and court documents (Bruno 2018) and children's perspectives on family conflict (Stokkebekk et al. 2019). In this study, positioning theory is applied at the level of children's everyday micropractices, with attention to the moral dimensions embedded in their accounts.

3.3 Everyday Micropractices

We focus on children's self-positioning at the level of everyday life. By micropractices, we mean everyday routines and seemingly minor acts that may not appear significant on their own but that, together, are meaningful for children's experiences and well-being (Flores and Mason 2024; Jung and Zimmerman 2024). Parents' conflicts are embedded in the everyday routines of children's housing arrangements and may create uncertainty and unpredictability in the lives of children alternating between two homes. We are interested in how children navigate these situations and what kinds of micropractices they adopt to manage the uncertainties arising from conflicts in their everyday lives. Children's everyday micropractices have only occasionally been studied in earlier research (e.g., Løvschal-Nielsen et al. 2018; Wentzel Winther 2015). We argue that analysing children's positioning at the level of everyday routines can best capture their viewpoints on parental postseparation conflicts.

4 Data, Analysis and Ethical Considerations

The data consist of qualitative interviews and written accounts of childhood experiences of dual residence following parental divorce in Finland. The dataset comprises 14 participants, including seven children and adolescents aged 8–17 years who were interviewed (four girls and three boys) and seven written accounts provided by participants aged 12–33 years (all female).

Recruiting participants was challenging because there was no straightforward way to reach children living in two homes. Therefore, participants were recruited through multiple channels. Interviewees were recruited primarily through limited snowball sampling, while written accounts were collected through an open-ended online writing request circulated on an anonymous, publicly accessible discussion forum aimed at young people and through NGO networks supporting families after divorce.

All participants interviewed were living in two homes at the time of data collection, while the written accounts included both contemporaneous and retrospective childhood narratives. The time since parental divorce ranged from 1 to 26 years, with most accounts referring to more recent divorces.

The interviews were semistructured and focused on experiences of everyday life in two homes. Written accounts were collected through an open-ended writing request inviting participants to describe their experiences of living in two homes. The interviews and written accounts were analysed as one dataset. Differences between interviews and written accounts were recognised but were not used to structure the analysis.

Most participants described moving between homes as part of normal everyday life and reported being generally satisfied with the arrangement. As this article focuses on children's experiences of parental conflicts in everyday life, descriptions of smooth daily routines remain in the background. The accounts referred mainly to moderate or low levels of conflict, and the material did not include experiences of parental violence.

Our data were collected between 2014 and 2016, before shared residence entered Finnish law in 2019 (Parliament of Finland (Eduskunta) 2019; Amendment on the Act on Child Custody and Right of Access, 190/2019). During our data collection, shared residence was already a common way to arrange children's housing after parental divorce. Although our data were not collected recently, we consider them temporally relevant because the issues children encounter in their everyday lives of living in two homes remain significant. Because the data were extremely challenging to collect and we greatly appreciate all the children and young people who shared their experiences of living in two homes with us, we consider it valuable to analyse these data thoroughly.

Our analysis of the children's descriptions proceeded in a layered and progressively deepening manner. First, we identified the larger thematic data units in which the children and young people described their everyday practices of living in two homes. Second, we searched in these selected data units for descriptions of parents' conflicts. Third, we analysed these descriptions more closely, focusing on the different micropractices children adopt in parental conflict situations. In particular, we analysed the moment-by-moment actions, interactions and experiences children described (Flores and Mason 2024), and the rights, duties and moral reasoning embedded in them (Smart et al. 2001, 84–104). As a result, we formed four different ways children position themselves in relation to their parents' conflicts. These ways of positioning do not represent static typologies but analytically distinguishable patterns that may overlap and change depending on context, relationships and situations. Our research process was dialogic and data-sensitive. We worked separately, discussed our findings together, returned to the data and continued the discussion until we reached shared understanding. In our analysis, we were especially concerned with situations where conflicts were likely to arise (e.g., Haugen 2010, 116–117). In this way, we ensured that weak signals of children's experiences of the conflicts were also identified.

As positioning theory emphasises, the identification of storylines and positions is an interpretative process in which the analyst's own framing plays a role. We are aware that the positions and analytical categories developed in this study are constructions rather than direct representations of participants' accounts. The analysis was shaped by our disciplinary backgrounds in social work, as well as our engagement with family studies and childhood studies, which informed both the reading of the data and the development of the analytical categories.

In acquiring our data, we followed the research ethics guidelines used in Finland (Tampere University, 2026, Ethics Committee of the Tampere Region; Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK 2019). At the time of data collection, no ethics committee statement was required or could be obtained for this type of research design. The most important guidelines we have followed concern informed consent, including the voluntary agreement of underage participants and their guardians when the participant is underage, and safeguarding the participants' anonymity (e.g., Elliot 2005, 134–150). The specific research ethics issues in this study concerned the conduct of interviews with minors and the use of written material collected from children and adolescents. Experiences of dual residence after parental separation can be a sensitive issue for children. When minors are research subjects, the researcher must follow the principle of the research subject's right to self-determination and voluntary participation with particular care. A sensitive approach to the research is required because of the power imbalance between the adult researcher and the minor. In the case of the minors in this study, permission to participate in the interviews and to use the data obtained was secured from both the parents and the child. The subjects were informed about the purpose of the study, the role of the researchers and how the information the child provided would be used. They were also informed that they could withdraw from the study at any point during the interviews.

In reporting the findings, accounts by participants under 18 are referred to as children's accounts, while contributions by adult participants are referred to as retrospective childhood narratives. Pseudonyms were used for all participants. Quotations are identified by pseudonym, gender and age at the time of the interview or writing.

5 Results: Four Ways of Positioning in Relation to Parental Conflicts

As a result of our analysis, we found that children living in two homes positioned themselves either outside or amid their parents' conflicts. Positioning may be active, passive or involuntary in nature. We identified four forms of positioning: (1) active positioning outside parental conflicts, (2) passive positioning outside parental conflicts, (3) involuntary positioning amid parental conflicts and (4) active balancing amid parental conflicts. Across these positionings, children adopt different micropractices in everyday situations when they need to manage or protect themselves from the effects of parental conflict. In the following sections, we explore each form of positioning in more detail.

5.1 Active Positioning Outside Parental Conflicts

The first identified form of positioning involves children actively and consciously placing themselves outside their parents' conflicts. The children stated that they did not want to take part in these conflicts and therefore tried to avoid them. When discussing the advantages and challenges of living in two homes and their parents' conflictual relationship, Kaisa described her response as follows:

Interviewer: How does it feel when your parents do not get along, really?

Kaisa: Well, it feels quite bad. When both parties criticise each other, they do not like to listen to the critique against the other… now and then, Mum tells me to say to your Dad this and that, and then again, the other way around.

Interviewer: So, what do you do in situations like that?

Kaisa: Well, I just try not to listen and stuff—it goes in one ear and out the other (Kaisa/girl/15).

Kaisa gives an example of actively positioning herself outside her parents' conflicts by adopting a micropractice of physical withdrawal. Children often do not want to hear or see their parents quarrelling, and they try to protect themselves by not listening, by withdrawing to their own rooms, or by leaving the home. They tend to view it as unacceptable behaviour when their parents speak ill of each other to them.

Mental distancing is another micropractice children living in two homes use when actively positioning themselves outside their parents' conflicts. In Samuli's interview, parental conflicts emerged repeatedly, and in the following excerpt, he reflected on ways of coping with them:

Interviewer: Let us imagine that Matti, who is the same age as you, was here with us. What would you tell him about this kind of living arrangement?

Samuli: Well, at least one could say that divorce is not the end of the world. You can survive if you keep a cool head and try to sometimes understand your parents, too. And it's worth saying bluntly what you want. I mean, with whom you want to live. This kind of alternating between parents' homes is not at all a bad choice—you can also be almost a whole family (Samuli/boy/16).

Actively positioning oneself mentally outside parental conflicts is helpful for Samuli. In this micropractice, not losing one's temper, expressing one's own opinion and acting reasonably are important. This positioning involves both the child's right to their own opinions and their perceived duty to understand their parents in difficult situations.

Physical action is the third micropractice we identified among children who actively position themselves outside their parents' conflicts. In everyday practice, physical action manifests as children's independent and active management of their own affairs, including moving between two homes. Kaisa described her independent home-switching practices without the help of her quarrelling parents:

Interviewer: Okay. So, right—you have got a microcar, so you travel between homes yourself?

Kaisa: Yeah.

Interviewer: Do you also do these home changes completely on your own?

Kaisa: Yeah, I pack my stuff into the trunk, and then I go.

Interviewer: How often do you switch homes?

Kaisa: I switch every week. It's pretty quick (Kaisa/girl/15).

Detaching from one's parents and childhood home and embracing an independent life, centred on friends, hobbies, studying and independent movement, are intertwined. Parents' conflicts may encourage young people to become independent from their parents. In her description, Kaisa proudly demonstrates her ability to manage on her own when the interviewer asks whether she carries out home changes completely independently.

5.2 Passive Positioning Outside Parental Conflicts

The second way in which children living in two homes position themselves in relation to their parents' conflicts is by remaining passively outside them. This means that quarrelling parents may ‘forget’ their child because they are focused on their own issues. As a result, children are forced to take responsibility for their own affairs, even when they may not yet be ready to do so.

One example of how children cope with being overlooked by their quarrelling parents is the micropractice of independent action. Because of their parents' conflicts and ongoing communication difficulties, children are forced to learn to cope with many life issues without parental care. In the following excerpt, Sini, a young adult, advises suitable micropractices on the basis of her own experiences:

Interviewer: What would you say to Kerttu, who is the same age as you about this kind of living arrangement?

Sini: [A] week is a short period of time and a good length to start with, but in the long run, it is not necessarily good anymore. Learn to take care of yourself; your parents will not necessarily have enough strength to, and they will not remember everything, especially if they do not talk to each other. Get a good friend, and hold on to that. Do not stay alone. At least, this is what I did (Sini/girl/18).

In her narrative, Sini presents the micropractice of being forced to take care of oneself independently as a solution when parents do not have the capacity to care for their child in the midst of conflict. She also advises young people in the same situation to find a good friend with whom they can discuss these issues. At the same time, she expresses, as a moral rule, the parents' duty to take care of their children, avoid leaving them alone and communicate with each other.

Children may also find themselves positioned as forgotten family members because of their parents' conflicts. In her interview, Annika, a 10-year-old girl, described how parental conflicts undermined her parents' ability to coordinate her everyday arrangements. As a result, she struggled to manage daily routines on her own and linked these experiences to being bullied at school:

Well, probably the bullying started when I did not at first always remember whether I should go to my Mum's or Dad's (Annika/girl/10).

Annika's description provides an example of positioning in which the child is left alone because of her parents' conflicts. The child is lost and unable to adopt a suitable micropractice for how to act. Annika's positioning as forgotten is connected to parents' moral duty to take care of children's transitions from one home to another when children cannot manage these transitions themselves.

5.3 Involuntary Positioning Amid Parental Conflicts

The third way in which children alternating between two homes position themselves with respect to their parents' conflicts involves being involuntarily dragged into the middle of them. This positioning can also involve being a victim of a conflict in which the child, in one way or another, involuntarily becomes a means or tool of parental conflict.

In involuntary positioning, a child may become a messenger between parents and be dragged into the middle of their conflicts because the parents are unwilling to communicate with each other. For example, when Kaisa discussed her parents' relationship and their conflicts, she described the following:

Interviewer: Have you ever thought that you could tell your parents that you are not their messenger?

Kaisa: Yes, I have said it many times, but… it sometimes still goes on… but it is not such a big deal, as the messages to be passed on are not so important. Just, say, something like Arttu [little brother] has some, say, birthday or something like that (Kaisa/girl/15).

Kaisa expresses a kind of adaptive micropractice for transferring messages between her parents. Her parents transmit information about the child's issues through the child, thereby avoiding meeting each other. Kaisa feels that the messages she must carry have been quite minor, and she adapts to this task, even though she expresses the moral rule that parents should discuss matters with each other rather than through their children.

In involuntary positioning, a child may also end up being pushed back and forth between parents when the parents cannot negotiate with each other to respond to the child's needs. The micropractice left to the child is to move between parents asking for money for everyday items they need. In the next excerpt, Eija, a young woman, described her positioning in her written account of childhood:

If I asked something extra from Mum (for example, a sports team's gym suit), she would answer ‘Ask your father’ and vice versa. [My] parents hardly interacted with each other (Eija/woman/33, lived in two homes from ages 10 to 17).

Eija's narrative highlights how her parents' poor relationship lasted long after the divorce and how a child can be used as a tool of conflict when parents cannot reach agreement. This positioning is rooted in the parents' uncooperative behaviour, which violates the moral rule that children should not be used as tools in parental conflict.

Positioning oneself involuntarily as the instigator of parental conflict also emerged in our analysis. In these situations, children living in two homes are at a loss as to which micropractice they should adopt. Kaisa described how ordinary everyday delays in schedules, or simply spending time with her father, may trigger quarrelling:

Interviewer: What do you argue about with your Mum?

Kaisa: Well, it's about how Mum thinks I'm more on Dad's side when there's conflict between them, and then she just kind of snapped. I was supposed to go home after training, but the training session ran really late—I think it went on for like another hour. Dad had a game straight after that, so he could not take me home. And then Mum started yelling at me, saying I should've come home anyway even though Dad could not give me a lift… She got really upset about it.

Interviewer: Is that something that comes up often between you and your Mum?

Kaisa: Yeah, quite often Mum gets upset about things that Dad and I do. A lot of the time it's like—I mean—there's really no reason for it (Kaisa/girl/15).

Kaisa's description demonstrates how children may be unexpectedly drawn amid parental conflicts in their everyday lives for almost any reason. In practice, different everyday situations can activate parental conflict, and children have to suffer the consequences. In Kaisa's reasoning, parents should not quarrel without a real reason.

5.4 Active Balancing Amid Parental Conflicts

As the fourth form of children's positioning in relation to their parents' conflicts, we identified active balancing amid parental conflicts. Children foresee situations in which parental conflicts may arise and try to prevent them by actively adopting different micropractices.

One example of such a micropractice is weighing up which housing alternative is best for avoiding parental conflict. In her written account, Elsa described how she ended up living in two homes as the best option, although it had many pros and cons:

Living in two homes is, of course, always very difficult. It is, however, usually a preferable alternative to one home where there would be quarrelling all the time. For this reason, I would rather live in two homes than in one, even though I would not always have enough strength to move with my belongings from one place to another. A bad thing about living in two homes is that it's burdensome and complicated, especially at the beginning. You must arrange your life in a new way so that you have enough strength to move every other weekend to a different parent's house (Elsa/girl/17).

Elsa experiences living in two homes as complicated and burdensome but also as a better solution than living under the same roof as quarrelling parents. For her, quarrels are not part of desired home life.

As another way of avoiding parental conflict, children may actively adopt a time-balancing micropractice. Unequally shared time with parents can be one reason for parental conflict. In her written account, Mari describes her parents' relationship as marked by hostility and emotional turmoil. In the next excerpt, she reflects on how she sought to divide her time equally between her parents:

At first, I tried to live for one week with one parent and then one week with the other. I was seeking a sense of fairness and regularity in the arrangements, and both felt very important to me. In the end, I could not cope with it (Mari/girl/21, lived in two homes from ages 17 to 19).

Mari described how she shared her time equally between both parents to avoid conflicts. She expressed the moral duty of a child to treat their parents equally. Ultimately, this time-balancing micropractice proved too difficult for her to fulfil.

Expressing loyalty is the third example of a micropractice children adopt to actively maintain balance amid their parents' conflicts. Children strive to maintain good relationships with both parents. Consequently, they balance their parents' wishes with their own needs. In her written account, Mari gave an example of how children express their loyalty to their quarrelling parents by maintaining balance so that they do not take sides:

It would be extremely good if my parents could communicate with each other about issues concerning me. It's difficult to find yourself in a situation where you must choose between parents. I don't choose a side, even though my father encouraged me to do so. I supposed that Mum would be hurt, although she didn't use to say it directly (Mari/girl/21, lived in two homes from ages 17 to 19).

Mari described how she was expected to choose between her parents and mentioned that her father wanted to form an alliance with her. For Mari, it was morally important not to take sides, so that she could remain loyal to both parents and avoid hurting them.

Another example of how children show loyalty is by changing homes to address their parents' needs. For example, children may take responsibility for a parent's mental well-being after a divorce. In the next excerpt, Mari wrote about how, after her parents' conflictual divorce, she tried many different housing arrangements before ending up living in two homes as the best solution for balancing her parents' needs:

I had been closer to my father for a long time, and living with my mother felt difficult. My father had left my mother, who was sad and bitter about that. I would have felt bad if I had moved to my father's. I didn't want to leave my mother living alone in a big house (Mari/girl/21, lived in two homes from ages 17 to19).

In this example, Mari prioritised her mother's needs over her own while maintaining a balance between her parents. Mari's father had been closer to her than her mother for a long time. Despite this, she chose her housing arrangements based on her mother's well-being and felt guilty about wanting to leave her mother. Mari showed loyalty to her parents, but at the same time, this situation violated the moral rule that parents are responsible for their children and not vice versa.

In our study, the children living in two homes described evenly sharing their time between their parents and expressing fairness and equal love towards both parents. Children may fear that deciding where they want to live will cause conflict between their parents. This means that they prioritise their parents' needs over their own.

6 Discussion

In this article, we examined how children living in two homes position themselves in relation to parental conflict following divorce in low- and moderate-conflict situations in contrast to the prevailing research interest in high-conflict situations. We were particularly interested in the micropractices children adopt and their moral reasoning in dealing with parental conflicts. Our results expand and deepen the understanding of children's positioning from that of victims to a more situationally and morally reflective form of positioning present in the everyday life of children living in two homes. Our findings further support the view of children as active agents of their separated parents' everyday conflicts (e.g., Jevne 2017; Miller et al. 2017; Stokkebekk et al. 2019).

The forms of children's positioning we found in low- and moderate levels of parental conflict are very close to those identified by Stokkebekk et al. (2019) in prolonged high-conflict situations, but we outline children's positions along different analytical angles. In Stokkebekk et al. (2019), positions are derived from distinct storylines, such as the family conflict or the troubling parent, whereas in the present study, positioning is organised along the child's location outside or amid the parental conflict and the forms of children's agency (active, passive or involuntary). While Stokkebekk et al. (2019) interpret children's positions as forms of healthy resistance, framing them as resourceful ways of managing threats to well-being and relationships within family conflict and embedding them in distinct storylines, the present study approaches these positions without a predefined lens. Positions are here examined in terms of how they are shaped by children's location in relation to parental conflict and by varying forms of agency, including constrained and involuntary forms. Taken together, these studies offer a richer understanding of how children navigate parental conflicts.

Our findings on children's micropractices open up new insights into how positioning is continuously negotiated in relation to parental conflict and shaped by situational context and age. While children may actively seek ways to distance themselves from conflict, their capacity to do so is uneven, and they may also become involuntarily positioned within it. At the same time, children demonstrate considerable skill in managing family relationships, balancing between parents and responding to competing demands in ways that often prioritise the needs of others over their own. These findings are consistent with the view that positioning is not fixed but changes over time and is renegotiated in everyday practices and social interactions (Burr 1995).

Children's moral reasoning is deeply entwined with their positioning and the micropractices they adopt. When children living in two homes narrate their everyday life, they concurrently comment on the rights and duties that parents as well as children have in postdivorce everyday life. Following Smart et al. (2001), we found that children reason about fairness, care and respect in ways that reflect expectations of equal treatment, parental responsibility and loyalty within family relations. Our findings show that children's everyday micropractices are not merely practical coping strategies but also morally loaded efforts to preserve fairness and emotional stability within postdivorce family life.

Children's moral reasoning is not neutral, but reflects their dependence on their parents, their need to maintain these relationships, and their limited power to influence the situation. Because of the uneven power relationship between parents and children, children are not fully able to negotiate their positioning, and their capacity to resist or shift their positioning remains limited. This is particularly evident for younger children, who have fewer means to adopt different micropractices and are more likely to become passively positioned. At the same time, these power relations also shape and constrain children's moral reasoning, limiting their capacity to influence parental conflict.

This study has certain limitations. The number of participants was small, and the data are gender biased because the snowball method and an open writing request did not allow the researchers to influence the composition of the sample, which limits the generalisability of the findings. Our data were collected several years prior to this analysis, which may reduce their timeliness. The broad participant age range, including both current and retrospective accounts, may have influenced how experiences were interpreted and narrated. Despite these limitations, our findings suggest that similar situations and experiences are typical in the everyday lives of children living in two homes today.

As shared residence and children's living in two homes have become more common and widely accepted as an official form of residence after parental divorce (Hakovirta et al. 2023), it is necessary to increase understanding of this kind of living arrangement. High-conflict situations represent the tip of the iceberg in postseparation conflicts, and they have received considerable attention. We can suppose that some kind of parental conflicts are a usual part of postseparational family life for many children. When living in two homes, children encounter these conflicts as part of their everyday lives.

For family practitioners, we suggest that support should focus on children's experiences, everyday micropractices and moral reasoning rather than solely on parental conflict, cooperation difficulties or custody disputes. Understanding how children position themselves and navigate parental conflicts can help practitioners better recognise their impact on children's lives and respond more effectively. We agree with Eikrem and Andenæs (2025, 8) that questions about a child's agency and coping strategies are relevant when assessing interventions. Children's different ways of positioning require varied approaches to addressing different levels of parental conflict and to supporting children's well-being in everyday life across two homes.

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