As parents, you know that however carefully you tread, your divorce will affect your children. From this point on, they will no longer have the same access to both parents as they have done until now.

Before you get too worried about this, take a look around you. You likely know many sets of parents who have divorced, and most of their children will be doing just fine. Yours will, too, if you take the necessary steps to help them adjust and cope.

Here are some of them:

Give each parent ample parenting time

If you love someone, as kids love their parents, you would be confused if that person suddenly stopped spending time with you. You might feel they no longer love you.  There are occasions when it is best if the child reduces or eliminates the time they spend with one parent. Yet in most cases, children benefit by continuing to spend a good amount of time with both parents.

Keep the difficult discussions away from your kids

Your children do not need to hear most of what you discuss when you divorce. They do not want you to air your differences within their earshot, in front of their friends or over lunch at Grandmas’s house. You will need to have difficult conversations, and they may get heated, so make sure you find a time and a place that will not harm your kids.

Work as a team

You might not have made a great marital team, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a great co-parenting team. Adjusting your thinking and separating your past from your future can be challenging. Yet, if you can pull it off, your child may be even better off than when you were married. Consider legal help to come up with an effective parenting plan.