When a couple decides on divorce the biggest question they will ask themselves is how will this effect my child/children? During a divorce whether parents want to believe it or not their children are affected, how they are affected may differ based on their age and gender, but none the less they are affected. Divorce for any child is a dreadful experience and according to divorce information over 1million children suffer from the divorce of their parents each year. It is also discussed in the article that a child begins to have great fears when their parents start going through a divorce and those fears include, change, abandonment, and hostility between parents. Although my parents are not divorced, from my experience (after taking care of my nephews while my brother and sister-in-law at the time were going through a divorce) younger children because they don't understand whats going on tend to get more quiet, and subconsciously blame themselves. Younger children will not express how they are feeling in words but in their actions and many times it is up to the parent to reassure thier children that they are not to blame and that they love them. With my older nephew what I saw was a more inquisitive attitude, he questioned everything with, why? No answer was good enough because essentially what he wanted was everything to go back to how it "used to be". 
A recent Hawaiin Blog discusses how depending on the child's age, emotional maturity, and happiness will result in how easy or difficult it will be for the child to get through the divorce. This blog also gives you four steps to help everything go smoothly, which include, reassuring the child of your love, letting your child grieve, and coming up with a good child custody schedule. Personally, I think watching you parents go through a divorce at any age has to be hard and children look to their parents for reassurance that everything is going to be ok, and without that a child can feel hurt. Children undergo great change during a divorce, changes include everything from changing homes, changing schools, to changing their responsibilities, many times parents after a divorce will put burdens on their child that include helping them financially and around the house. Parents need to remember that even though it may seem like its not affecting their child, it is. For more statistics on the effects of divorce on children you can visit, "The effects of Divorce on America.com". To show affection and love to your children is a necessity during a divorce and sometimes because of their own stress and pain of the divorce parents tend to forget that...Top Image from flickr
Bottom Image from flickr
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