A child, like an adult, or even more so, goes through the stages of losing the integrity of his family. How does this manifest itself in life? The entire period can be divided into 5 stages1. Denial2. Anger (about 20 days)3. Bidding (approximately 20 days)4. Depression (about six months)5. Acceptance With denial, everything is clear “No, you’re joking,” “I don’t believe you.” If the child is already a teenager, then he may deny one of the parents and not want to communicate with him. The main thing here is to remember the interests of the child himself: “it’s easy to destroy, difficult to restore.” Lost contact with one of the parents will have a negative impact in the future. Therefore, it is important for everyone to try to maintain a relationship with the child. Small children begin to fight in the garden. Girls can throw out all the emotions associated with their father on boys through causing them physical pain. As terrible as it sounds, children who have brothers or sisters cope better with divorce. They have the opportunity to play out aggression on each other. If aggression does not come out into the physical world, then it goes into psychosomatics: enuresis, biting nails, biting lip, etc. Bargaining After it became clear that anger in this situation is powerless, the child the desire to return to the state when everything was in order begins to manifest itself. He often turns to his parents or to a higher power, saying something like: “Please, let everything be as before, let this pass! I will definitely become better.” Depression The realization comes that nothing can be changed. The child is indifferent to everything and loses interest in life. Nothing else can please him or have any meaning. Acceptance Depression begins to recede. Instead, peace and tranquility comes. The child begins to live fully in new realities. It is worth saying that here is a description of all existing stages, but it is not a fact that the child will survive each of them or that they will occur in the same order. It is possible, for example, a transition from denial immediately to depression, or from denial to bargaining. I hope that this information will help you better understand what happens to a child during a parental divorce. I would be grateful if you would share your experiences and advice on this important topic in the comments. Read all articles and posts in my Telegram channel https://t.me/kpr_psy