By Estalyn Walcoff

1. Spend time alone with each of your children. One on one time is the most important gift you can give your children.

2. Don’t speak negatively about your ex to your children. (You can, instead, ask them how their dad’ s or mom’ s behavior makes them feel and support those feelings.)

3. Constantly remind your children that while adults may stop loving each other, adults do NOT stop loving their children.

4. Reassure them, in specifics, that their needs will always be met. (They may initially only focus on the immediate - like “will I still get to my Little League practice?”)

5. Reassure them that the divorce is NOT their fault. Even if they misbehaved. Even is they ever secretly wished that mommy or daddy would move out.

6. Allow them to express their anger and their grief. These are healthy and appropriate responses to loss.

7. Teach them the difference between constructive expressions of anger and sadness (ie. Using words, crying, writing poems, drawing pictures) as opposed to destructive expressions (tantrums, hitting, calling names, not talking, slamming doors, whining).

8. Teach them to ask you for what they need from you. (”I feel like having you read a book to me now.”)

9. Allow and offer them time to reminisce about the “old”, family as it was before the separation.

10. Tell them about YOUR feelings. (Children are more likely to open up when adults share their own vulnerabilities.)

11. If one parent moves out, make sure they contact children daily, even if by phone, even if children are very little.

12. Notify schools and teachers of what’s going on. Arrange for school info to be sent to both parents and check, yearly, that this is being done.

13. Try not to move children right away. Try to stay in same school district if necessary to move.

14. Keep clothes and books and pillows, etc., at both houses if possible.