Helping Your Child Navigate Parental Separation and Divorce

I like to think of myself as the kind of person who, never, never, never gives up. I like to believe that anyone involved in a marriage should share that philosophy about his or her marriage. Being divorced myself I found out that, not everyone, shares my "never give up" attitude.

In spite of the high divorce rate in this country I like to believe that most of us understand the supreme importance of family and doing whatever needs to be done to keep a family intact. Some of our most wonderful moments in life are due to what is happening in our family unit. We want our families to be joyful, safe and what any family should naturally be.

No where are these hopes and dreams we have for our family more important than in the lives of our children. It's my opinion that, although divorce is painful for the adult parties of divorce, no one suffers in divorce like the children of the marriage do. I know that, in the short term, divorce may seem like the easiest path to happiness. Often though it is the most difficult and more painful route to take, particularly where there are children involved.

Yearly there are more than 1 million children who experience the divorce of their patents. The process and trauma these children experience will normally begin long before there is an actually divorce. It will begin with parental disagreements, anger and continue to worsen throughout the divorce process and can often last for many years after the divorce is final.