How do we make the divorce experience as painless as possible for our children?
Children often need support during a divorce because they do blame themselves, because they not only blame themselves for the parents splitting up, but they feel like if their parents really loved them, they would stay together for their sake, because they want them do. And in fact, children have often said to me, "I don't care if my parents fight. I don't care if they yell. I want them together. It doesn't matter how unhappy they are. They should do it. We're a family." And so children get indignant about this. So it's very important that children get support to know, number one, that they're not responsible, and that they're not responsible for a reconciliation, that there's nothing they can do to make their parents reconcile. They also have to be taken out of the middle of the conflict and learn not to ally or to develop an alliance or to align with either parent, and to actually be alienated from one; to not blame one parent for the divorce. So it's very important to keep the children out of the middle, and parents can do that by not getting them in the middle by telling them it's Mom's fault, or Dad's fault, they want to be out of the marriage, I want to stay in it, they have a boyfriend, they cheated, they're the wrong one, because what they don't understand is the child, being a product of both parents, starts feeling debilitated themselves because their self-esteem is dependent upon being part of Mom and part of Dad, and if Dad is bad or Mom is bad, they feel badly about part of themselves.
