The Divorce Hacker's Guide to Untying the Knot. Ann E. Grant

      Many studies show that, as you might expect and may fear, children of divorced parents can develop into adults with lower self-esteem and more depression and anxiety compared to children who were raised by both parents. However, what studies also show, and what I emphasize with my clients, is that children are not typically damaged by divorce in and of itself. Rather, how parents handle the divorce, their conflicts, and their own emotions are what make the difference in how well children handle this difficult situation. Or as I like to say: Divorce is not damaging to children, conflict is.

      No matter their age, a child’s primary need is to feel safe and loved. Children struggle during divorce when they feel their security threatened. Of course, a divorce is upsetting for everyone, particularly for immediate family; to a degree, this can’t be avoided. But similar to how you set the tone of a divorce by the way you notify your spouse, you set the tone for your children by the way that you inform them. I discuss this further in chapter 3, “Be the Grown-Up — Protect Your Children from Conflict” (page 76). Here I focus mostly on the first announcement.