How should we deal with the effect of our divorce on children? Children, when they’re very young, develop absolute rules about the world – objects fall down, the sun raises in the east, my parents will always stay the way they are right now. If you divorce, you are literally overturning their world. They are confused, they’re upset, they’re angry, they’re hurt, they’re scared – all that. So what you need to do, most importantly, is to put through the message that they will be safe. Sit down with them and tell them what’s really going to happen. Don’t lie. They want to know – “Am I going to have two homes?” “Am I still going to have mommy and daddy?” “Am I still going to have my siblings?” Everything. Make sure they know and tell them the truth. Also, if you can, it’s much better if the two of you tell the kid together. It’s much scarier to hear about a divorce when there’s only one parent there and the other is I don’t know where. Now, another point about this – very young children have a special thing going with this – they will believe that it’s their fault that their parents are divorcing. I know it sounds crazy. So with them, you want to absolutely make sure and let them know over and over and over that it’s not.