ALTHOUGH THERE IS no single measure of the effects of divorce on children, no one disagrees that children experience pain and confusion when their parents divorce. With this knowledge in mind, divorcing parents, other family members, therapists, and the legal system can take steps to protect children and mitigate the most damaging effects. These efforts begin at the level of helping children cope emotionally with their parents' divorce. Having identified key problems that most commonly arise, experts can work with parents to devise ways of avoiding them.

Divorced parents

One difficulty experts often encounter when trying to help children through divorce is what Wallerstein calls a parent's "diminished capacity to parent." Parents are themselves healing from the pain of divorce, and their emotions are particularly raw. "It is a fact of life that during the early stages of...