ABSTRACT
Parents are universally very protective of their children and the idea of exposing kids to emotional pain, worry, and distress runs counter to every parental impulse. Telling children about an impending divorce should be geared to the appropriate developmental stage as well as the particular needs of that child or teenager. Young children are inherently adaptable and take their cue from the security of their attachments to their parents. Whether children, including pubescent and adolescent children from thirteen to eighteen years, dwell on the moment they were told of the impending divorce or not, it is a watershed event for sure. Some children, however, are drawn directly into the field of parental conflict and adolescents are more likely to be aligned with one parent than their younger siblings. Resistance to visiting and outright rejection fortunately only describes the minority of separating families but are still encountered frequently enough when it comes to adolescents and parental divorce.
