Books
- Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma The people we love and those who raised us live inside us; we experience their emotional pain, we dream their memories, and these things shape our lives in ways we don’t always recognize. Emotional Inheritance is about family secrets that keep us from living to our full potential, create gaps between what we want for ourselves and what we are able to have, and haunt us like ghosts. Valuable insight to help you support your child’s emotions during divorce.
- The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive by Robert E. Emery, Ph.D, 2006
- The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents by Lisa D’Amour, 2024 An urgently needed guide to help parents understand their teenagers’ intense and often fraught emotional lives—and how to support teens through this critical developmental stage—from the author of Untangled and Under Pressure
- Parenting through Divorce: Helping Your Children Thrive During and After the Split by Lisa Rene’ Reynolds, Ph.D, 2017 Parenting Through Divorce concisely lays out the specific emotions and reactions parents need to anticipate from their children while going through separation, divorce, and its aftermath. Rather than weighing parents down with complicated plans, confusing information, and legal terminology, this book takes a commonsense approach, providing readers in a state of emotional distress with the practical, down-to-earth advice they need to sensibly and comfortingly guide their children through this often-painful process.
Articles & Research
- The Effects of Divorce on Children - Comprehensive research review from the National Institutes of Health
- Adolescents’ mental health problems increase after parental divorce, not before, and persist until adulthood: a longitudinal TRAILS study - This long‐term cohort study found that adolescent mental health symptoms increase after parental divorce (rather than preceding it) and persist into adulthood. Implication: the divorce event itself (or subsequent changes) contributes uniquely to emotional risk, so parental supports post-divorce are critical.
Videos & Podcasts
- TED Talk: The Impact of Divorce on Children by Dr. Tamara Afifi - Research-based insights on children's resilience
- Zero to Three: Helping Young Children Cope with Divorce - Expert video series for parents of young children
- The Silent Struggle: Divorce & Your Teen’s Mental Health — Parenting Today’s Teens. Looks at how divorce affects teens’ mental health even years later, and gives suggestions for what parents can do to support emotional healing.
- Parenting Teenagers Through Your Difficult Divorce - An episode dedicated to the shifts in parenting when kids become teens in the midst of divorce: how to help rebuild identity, emotional regulation, empathy, and boundaries.
Support Organizations & Websites
- DivorceCare for Kids (DC4K) - Support groups and resources for children of divorce
- Sesame Street's Divorce Resources - Age-appropriate tools for younger children
- Rainbows - International nonprofit supporting children through family transitions
Professional Support
- American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy - Directory to find qualified family therapists
- Psychology Today's Therapist Directory - Search tool for mental health professionals specializing in child/divorce support
Note: All resources are regularly updated. Check current availability and reviews before making any purchases or commitments.