No matter how old your kid is, it hurts them to watch you go through a divorce. My parents are getting divorced now, and it hurt me when I was told. I didn’t know what to say to either of them. I don’t know if I am going to get to see much of both of them anymore.

You might feel alone during your divorce, but so do we, we need our parents to talk to us about what is happening, not go out and try meeting someone new straight away.

I try to put on a brave face when I can see that my parents are upset, but sometimes I can’t keep it in and my emotions just take over, I feel overwhelmed with sadness. When this happens, all I want to do is listen to music in my room, or watch something in order to distract myself. This isn’t a good thing to do though and I know it isn’t good for me to keep what I am feeling on those days bottled up.

If you are a parent getting divorced, I know it is difficult, but don’t tell your kid horrible things about your ex, it really hurts them to know that that’s how you feel about their mom or dad.

The thing that hurts me most is when I’m in bed late at night, still awake, and I hear you crying, it breaks my heart because I don’t know what to do to help. I know you don’t want to cry in front of us and that you think about everything late at night and because you think we are sleeping you think it is safe for you to cry without us knowing, but it’s not… I am no therapist or counsellor; I can’t give you advice nor do I want to listen to what you have to say about our other parent, so when I hear you cry, I end up crying too. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve cried myself to sleep, because I have heard one of my parents crying late at night.

Some parents, when going through a divorce, will turn to alcohol… This breaks your kid. Waiting up until the early hours of the morning for you to come home, just to make sure you make it home safe, is the worst thing in the world. When it gets past 1 am and you haven’t heard from your parent, you naturally start thinking of all the horrible things that could’ve happened to them…

If we went out and you knew we were getting drunk and we weren’t home before 1 am you would probably ground us because of how worried you would’ve been… We also worry when you don’t tell us that you are okay. Rather talk to someone about your divorce than getting drunk to stop feeling the pain, please.

If you’re a parent going through a divorce, please chat to a professional about it, and get your kid to talk to someone, it makes it easier if we are talking to someone about the divorce.