Divorce and a Child's Well-Being

"Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left." (Jean Kerr)

There are other types of risks to a child’s safety, security, happiness, and sense of well-being besides the threat of abduction and predator harm, the subject that is addressed in my book, What Would You Do? A Kid’s Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers.

Children who are caught in the middle of a nasty divorce between their parents experience stress, confusion, sadness and depression. Parents must try to be as amicable as possible to avoid such trauma on their children. Children should witness that their parents can maintain a civil, healthy and possibly even friendly relationship with one another and that they maintain open lines of communication with one another.

Children should never be made to feel as if the divorce is their fault. Children shouldn’t be made to feel as if they are losing a parent either. It goes without saying that divorcing parents should never use the children as a weapon against one another. Divorcing parents in referencing the other parent in front of the children should always do so respectfully. Divorcing parents should never malign one another, at least in front of the children.

Divorcing parents who try to maintain an amicable relationship will help their children heal from the traumatic shift in their lives.