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• Do make sure your children know (by specifically telling them) that you love them and that the divorce is not their fault.

• Don't have hostile, name-calling fights in front of the children.

• Do reassure your child that divorce is not a sign of personal failure or a cause for shame.

• Don't ask your child to choose whom he or she loves more or with whom he or she wants to live.

• Do establish positive patterns of child care from the beginning of the separation.

• Don't let your child feel like he or she is being shuttled between parents.

• Do let your child continue being a child.

• Don't use the child for emotional support or as someone in whom you confide your deep, dark secrets.

• Do encourage the child to have a continued relationship with your ex-spouse.

• Don't try to hurt your ex-spouse by discouraging visitation.

• Do try to establish and maintain a calm atmosphere and a stable environment.

• Don't say negative things about your ex-spouse—even if you feel strongly that they are true.

• Do try to establish and maintain regular patterns of visitation.

• Don't use your child to deliver messages (especially negative ones) to your ex-spouse.

• Do inform your child's teachers about your divorce and about any accompanying changes in living arrangements.

• Don't prevent your ex-spouse's parents and other relatives from having access to the child.

• Do try to include your spouse in important decisions and events in your child's life.

• Don't allow issues of visitation or custody to become linked with those of alimony and child support.

• Do continue to reassure your children that even though you and your spouse no longer love each other, you will always love and care for them.

-- Bernard Rothman, Esq.

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