Growing up with two married parents, I really didn’t have a framework for what my daughter, a child of divorce, would go through when her dad and I split up. Although I hate the expression “child of divorce,” as we didn’t make her from divorce, the fact is she has a rather different experience than I did as a child. I wanted to understand what it might be like to go through her shoes. So I interviewed my friends, at least 10 who were all children of divorce, and over time as a parent undergoing the divorce process, I learned a lot about what things a kid doesn’t need to hear or deal with about divorce or from his or her divorced parents.

1. Negative Comments About the Other Parent

I don’t really care if your ex was a deadbeat dad or if your ex-wife was a royal b*tch. The bottom line is your child most likely loves the both of you so much that your negative comments or a family member’s comments, like a grandparent or aunt or uncle, are detrimental to your child. When someone else goes to say something bad about a child’s parent during or after the divorce process, it injures the child severely.

Read More: 5 Things Children of Divorce Don’t Want to Deal With

Be the Adult,

Laura