Your eight-year-old is getting ready for their weekend with their dad, and you’re helping them pack their overnight bag. As you fold clothes into the backpack, you mutter—maybe to yourself, maybe to your older child who’s nearby—”I can’t believe he gets to be the fun parent while I deal with all the homework and discipline. Must be nice to only parent on weekends.”
You think the comment is harmless, just venting your frustration to someone who might understand. But your eight-year-old stops mid-movement, their small face processing what they just heard. Now they’re wondering if going to Dad’s house makes them disloyal to you. They’re questioning whether Dad really loves them or is just “playing” at being a parent. They’re feeling guilty about looking forward to the weekend they’d been excited about just moments ago.
Or maybe it’s a phone conversation with your best friend while your kids are supposedly engrossed in their tablets. “The divorce was expensive enough, but now he’s nickel-and-diming me over every little expense. He never cared about money when we were married, but now suddenly he’s tracking every penny. He’s being such a cheapskate about child support.” Your twelve-year-old absorbs every word while pretending to be focused on their screen, and suddenly they’re wondering if asking Dad for new soccer cleats makes them a burden, if their very existence is creating financial conflict between their parents.
Perhaps you’re at a family gathering, surrounded by relatives who’ve always been “your side” of the family. Your sister makes a comment about your ex, and you add with a bitter laugh: “Oh, he’s already dating someone. Apparently, he’s moved on just fine. I give it six months before she realizes what she’s gotten herself into.” Your ten-year-old, who’s been playing with cousins in the next room, catches the edge of the conversation and now carries a new burden: the knowledge that you’re hurt, that Dad’s happiness might be somehow wrong, that this new person in Dad’s life should be viewed with suspicion and hostility.
These moments happen constantly in divorced families. Words spoken in frustration, hurt, or even casual conversation create invisible wounds that children carry for years—sometimes decades. The comments feel justified in the moment because the emotions behind them are real. You are exhausted from being the primary parent. The financial negotiations are frustrating. Your ex moving on does sting. These feelings are valid and understandable.
But research has demonstrated time and again that while divorce itself doesn’t inevitably damage children, how parents handle the divorce absolutely does. According to research published in PMC, parental divorce and separation is associated with increased risk for child and adolescent adjustment problems, including academic difficulties, disruptive behaviors, and depressed mood. However, studies consistently show that children are not necessarily negatively affected by living in a single-parent family—it’s the conflict level between parents that predicts child outcomes.
The words we speak about our co-parent in our children’s hearing become the lens through which they view half of their own identity, their family structure, and their worthiness of love. Understanding what not to say—and why these statements are so damaging—is one of the most important investments divorced parents can make in their children’s long-term well-being.
The Research on Divorce, Conflict, and Child Outcomes
Before we explore the specific statements to avoid, it’s crucial to understand what research tells us about how divorce affects children and what factors make the difference between children who thrive post-divorce and those who struggle.
The research landscape is nuanced and important for divorced parents to understand. Studies spanning nearly three decades demonstrate that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic outcomes. However, this finding requires critical context: these studies compare intact families to all divorced families as a group, without accounting for the level of conflict in the home before divorce.
More recent research provides crucial distinctions. According to a 2024 study published in ScienceDirect, parental divorce has significant negative effects on children’s long-term outcomes, with boys experiencing lower educational attainment, worse labor market outcomes, and increased mortality risk, while girls face lower educational attainment and higher rates of early pregnancy. However, the same research acknowledges that the quality of the post-divorce environment—particularly the level of ongoing parental conflict—significantly moderates these outcomes.
The critical factor isn’t divorce itself, but how parents navigate divorce and co-parenting. Research from PMC on the Divorce Process and Child Adaptation shows that interparental conflict trajectory—both before and after divorce—significantly shapes child outcomes. Children in families with persistently high conflict fare much worse than children whose parents maintain low-conflict co-parenting relationships, even after separation.
A comprehensive study published in Frontiers in Psychology emphasizes that low interparental conflict is recognized as an important protective factor that enhances children’s ability to cope with their parents’ divorce. This means that divorced parents who successfully minimize conflict and badmouthing can actually create better outcomes for their children than parents who stay together in high-conflict marriages.
The impact of parental conflict in divorce extends far beyond childhood. Research on the psychological effects suggests that children of divorced parents may be more susceptible to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and relationship difficulties in their adult lives—but again, these outcomes are most strongly associated with high-conflict divorces rather than divorce itself.
Perhaps most concerning is research on parental alienation and psychological manipulation. A 2022 study published in PMC found that adults who experienced parental alienating behaviors in childhood reported significant mental health difficulties, including anxiety disorders, trauma reactions, emotional pain, and substance use issues. The intergenerational transmission of these patterns was also documented, suggesting that children who experience one parent badmouthing another may replicate these dysfunctional patterns in their own future relationships.
Understanding this research should motivate every divorced parent to become deeply conscious of how they speak about their co-parent, not as a favor to their ex, but as protection for their children’s mental health and future relationship success.
Understanding Children’s Unique Vulnerability
Children of divorce occupy a uniquely painful position: they love both parents while simultaneously hearing negative messages about one parent from the other. This creates profound internal conflict that research shows can have lasting psychological effects.
Children inherently identify with both parents. When you criticize your ex-partner, children don’t hear it as objective information about another person—they hear it as information about half of who they are. If Dad is “irresponsible and can’t be trusted,” children wonder if they carry those same defects. If Mom is “controlling and impossible,” children fear they might be similarly flawed.
This identification isn’t conscious or rational; it’s a fundamental part of how children construct their sense of self. Developmentally, children need to idealize both parents to feel secure in their own worth and value. When one parent actively works to undermine this idealization, children experience what psychologists call “loyalty conflicts”—the agonizing sense that loving one parent means betraying the other.
Research on high-conflict divorce published in ScienceDirect shows that children caught in loyalty conflicts demonstrate higher rates of anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems. They’re essentially being asked to choose between two people they desperately need and love, a psychological burden no child should carry.
Children also lack the cognitive and emotional development to process complex adult relationship dynamics. When you explain that “Daddy left because he fell out of love with me,” your six-year-old can’t understand the nuances of adult romantic relationships changing over time. What they hear is that love is conditional and can end unexpectedly—a terrifying prospect for a child whose security depends on parental love.
Older children and teenagers face different but equally challenging dynamics. They may appear more sophisticated and able to “understand” the adult perspectives you share, making it tempting to confide in them about co-parenting frustrations, financial struggles, or your ex’s new relationship. But adolescents experiencing their parents’ divorce are already navigating tremendous developmental challenges around identity formation, and being pulled into adult conflicts derails this crucial developmental work.
The Six Statements That Damage Children
1. “Your Dad/Mom Doesn’t Really Care About You” (Or Any Variation Questioning Their Love)
This category includes direct statements like “If he really loved you, he would…” or “She doesn’t make you a priority” as well as more subtle implications: “I guess your father had better things to do than come to your game,” or “Your mother is too busy with her new life to remember your birthday.”
These statements, whether direct or implied, strike at the very core of a child’s sense of security and self-worth. Research on attachment and child development demonstrates that children’s beliefs about their parents’ love for them fundamentally shape their internal working models of relationships and their own lovability.
When you question whether your co-parent truly loves your children, you’re not protecting them from disappointment—you’re teaching them that they might be fundamentally unlovable. Children don’t have the cognitive capacity to understand that a parent’s inadequate behavior stems from that parent’s limitations rather than the child’s unworthiness. Instead, they internalize the message that something about them fails to inspire consistent love and commitment.
This dynamic is particularly damaging when the criticized parent is, in fact, imperfect or inconsistent. If Dad does forget important events or Mom does struggle with follow-through, children already feel the pain of those failures. Your commentary doesn’t protect them from hurt—it amplifies it by confirming their worst fears and preventing them from developing healthy coping mechanisms.
Children need space to develop their own authentic relationship with each parent, complete with realistic perceptions of strengths and limitations. When you narrate your co-parent’s deficiencies, you’re robbing children of the chance to form independent judgments and to practice the crucial life skill of loving imperfect people without either idealizing them unrealistically or rejecting them completely.
The long-term effects are significant. Adults who grew up hearing one parent question the other’s love often struggle with relationship anxiety, constantly seeking reassurance that they’re truly loved, or they develop avoidant attachment patterns, believing that deep down they’re not worth consistent love and commitment.
2. “The Divorce Is Your Dad’s/Mom’s Fault” (Assigning Blame and Vilification)
This includes explaining the divorce in ways that cast one parent as the villain: “Your father had an affair and destroyed our family,” “Your mother chose her career over our family,” or “This wouldn’t have happened if your dad could control his temper/drinking/spending.”
These statements may be factually accurate—sometimes divorce does result from one partner’s significant betrayal or harmful behavior. But sharing these details with children, regardless of their truth, places an unbearable burden on them and creates lasting damage to their psychological development and relationship capabilities.
Studies on parental conflict show that parental revenge motivations in divorced parents are positively associated with ongoing conflicts, which in turn are negatively associated with child well-being. When you explain divorce in blame-assigning terms, you’re satisfying your own need for validation and sympathy at your child’s expense.
Children developmentally need both parents to be “good enough” in their minds to feel secure in themselves. When you position yourself as the victim and your co-parent as the villain, you force children into impossible positions: they must either reject a parent they love to maintain loyalty to you, or they must carry the guilt of loving someone you’ve positioned as the source of family destruction.
This creates what psychologists call “parentification,” where children feel responsible for managing your emotional needs and protecting you from further hurt. They may hide their affection for the “guilty” parent, fabricate stories about how much they dislike spending time with them, or develop anxiety about any display of loyalty to both parents simultaneously.
The blame narrative also teaches children profoundly unhealthy lessons about relationships. They learn that when relationships fail, someone must be at fault rather than understanding that most relationship endings involve complex dynamics where both people contributed to the breakdown. They learn that love and hate are the appropriate responses to human imperfection rather than compassion and boundary-setting.
Adult children of divorce who grew up hearing blame narratives often report feeling manipulated and angry when they eventually gain the maturity to recognize that relationship breakdowns are rarely one person’s fault. This realization often damages their relationship with the parent who positioned themselves as the blameless victim, as they come to see that they were used as pawns in an adult conflict.
3. “We Can’t Afford That Because of the Divorce/Your Dad’s/Mom’s Child Support”
Financial stress is one of the most common realities of divorce, and it’s reasonable for children to understand age-appropriate information about family finances. The problem arises when you explicitly or implicitly blame your co-parent for financial limitations or use money as a weapon in co-parenting conflicts.
Statements like “Ask your father to pay for that—he has plenty of money,” “We can’t afford new clothes because your mother won’t give me what I’m entitled to,” or “Maybe if your dad actually paid his child support on time, we could…” place children in the middle of financial conflicts that they can neither understand fully nor resolve.
Research on divorce and child outcomes shows that children from economically disadvantaged families experience higher levels of stress, academic challenges, and emotional difficulties. When financial stress is coupled with ongoing parental conflict about money, these negative effects intensify significantly.
Children cannot compartmentalize financial information the way adults can. When you tell a ten-year-old that “we can’t afford gymnastics because your dad won’t help out,” they don’t hear a neutral fact about resource allocation. They hear that they’re a financial burden, that their interests and needs create conflict between their parents, and that asking for anything might trigger another battle.
This creates several harmful dynamics. First, children may stop asking for things they need or want, even essentials, because they’ve learned their needs create problems. Second, they may develop guilt or shame about their very existence—they understand on some level that they’re the reason child support exists, making them feel responsible for parental financial conflicts.
Third, these statements often teach children to manipulate or play parents against each other around money. If Mom says “Ask your father to pay for that,” children learn that financial requests should be strategically directed to maximize success while minimizing conflict—a setup for dysfunction that persists into adulthood.
The appropriate way to handle financial realities is to explain limitations without assigning blame: “Gymnastics is expensive, and our budget is tight right now. Let’s talk about which activities are most important to you and see if we can make one work.” This acknowledges reality while maintaining respect for your co-parent and avoiding burdening children with adult financial conflicts.
4. “Your Other Parent Is Trying to Buy Your Love” (Criticizing Different Parenting Styles)
This statement and its variations—”Of course you like going there; Dad lets you do whatever you want,” “She’s trying to be the fun parent while I do all the real work,” or “He’s spoiling you to make up for the fact that he left”—reflect the very real frustration many primary custodial parents feel when the non-custodial parent’s time with children feels like “Disneyland parenting” while they handle the mundane responsibilities of daily life.
These feelings are understandable and valid. The asymmetry of divorce parenting—where one parent often handles school nights, homework struggles, and discipline while the other gets weekend adventures and treats—can feel profoundly unfair. However, verbalizing these frustrations to or around your children creates damage that far outweighs the momentary relief of venting.
Research on co-parenting quality shows that children adjust best to divorce when they can experience positive relationships with both parents without feeling guilt or loyalty conflicts. When you criticize your co-parent’s different approach, you’re asking children to side with you against their other parent rather than allowing them to enjoy the distinct benefits of each household.
Children intuitively understand that different homes have different rules, rhythms, and resources. They’re remarkably capable of adjusting to varying expectations between households when parents allow them to do so without commentary. The problems arise when you explicitly or implicitly communicate that the differences are manipulative, unfair, or evidence of bad parenting.
These statements also reveal to children that you’re keeping score, that you view parenting as a competition where there are winners (the fun parent) and losers (the responsible parent). This competitive frame prevents children from relaxing into enjoying time with each parent because they’re aware that their pleasure at Dad’s house might hurt Mom, or their compliance with Mom’s rules might seem like criticism of Dad’s more relaxed approach.
Moreover, children already carry confusion and guilt about potentially enjoying themselves “too much” at the non-custodial parent’s home. They worry that looking forward to their weekend with Dad means they don’t love Mom enough, or that having fun at Mom’s new apartment is somehow disloyal to Dad who they see less frequently. Your commentary amplifies this painful guilt rather than reassuring them that loving both parents fully is not only acceptable but desired.
5. “Your Dad’s/Mom’s New Partner Is…” (Any Negative Commentary About New Relationships)
Watching your ex-partner move on romantically is one of the most painful aspects of divorce for many people. The person who once promised to love you forever is now choosing someone else, and that rejection—even when you also wanted the divorce—can feel crushing. When that new person enters your children’s lives, the pain and fear intensify exponentially.
Common statements include: “She’s not your mother,” “I don’t want to hear about him,” “They’re moving way too fast—who introduces someone to the kids after three months?” or more subtle commentary like “That’s nice you had fun with Dad’s girlfriend” said with a particular tone that communicates volumes.
Research on children’s adjustment to parental divorce indicates that children face additional adjustment challenges when parents form new romantic relationships, but the level of difficulty largely depends on how existing parents handle the introduction and integration of new partners. Children can successfully form positive relationships with parents’ new partners when they have permission from both parents to do so without guilt or divided loyalty.
When you make negative comments about your co-parent’s new relationship, you’re putting children in an impossible situation. They may genuinely like this new person, or at minimum, they want their other parent to be happy. Your disapproval forces them to either hide their positive feelings or to reject someone their other parent cares about deeply, neither of which serves their emotional health or their relationship with their parent.
Your commentary also communicates to children that their other parent is making poor choices or is untrustworthy in mate selection. This undermines children’s faith in that parent’s judgment and by extension makes them question their own judgment as half that parent’s child.
Children also need to see their parents moving forward and building new lives post-divorce. When you criticize your co-parent’s new relationship, you’re implicitly suggesting that your ex should remain frozen in time, alone and possibly unhappy, which teaches children that moving on from painful circumstances is somehow wrong or disloyal.
The appropriate response to your co-parent’s new relationship involves managing your feelings privately (with a therapist, trusted friends, or in a journal) while remaining neutral to positive with your children: “I’m glad you had a nice time” or “It sounds like Dad is happy.” You don’t have to pretend you love the situation, but your children need permission to form their own authentic relationship with this person who will be part of their lives.
6. “Don’t Tell Your Dad/Mom About This” (Creating Secrets and Divided Loyalties)
This statement encompasses any request for children to keep secrets from their other parent, whether about significant issues (“Don’t tell Dad we went to the emergency room”) or seemingly minor ones (“This can be just our secret—Mom doesn’t need to know we got ice cream before dinner”).
Asking children to keep secrets from their other parent—especially secrets about their own experiences or activities—places them in the role of managing your relationship with your co-parent, a role that is neither appropriate nor psychologically healthy for children.
Research on family dynamics and child development demonstrates that children caught in the middle of parental conflict, including being asked to keep secrets, show higher levels of behavioral problems and lower levels of prosocial behavior and self-esteem. The act of secret-keeping creates internal stress for children that manifests in various psychological and behavioral symptoms.
When you ask children to keep secrets, several damaging dynamics occur. First, you’re communicating that honesty isn’t actually the highest value in your family—managing adult relationships and avoiding conflict takes priority. This teaches children that strategic withholding of information is acceptable, a lesson that often generalizes to their own relationships and integrity.
Second, secret-keeping creates anxiety. Children worry about accidentally revealing the secret, about whether keeping it makes them complicit in wrongdoing, and about whether the secret itself is something they should be concerned about. They’re left to assess on their own whether “Don’t tell Dad we went to urgent care” means the visit was medically unnecessary and they’re helping you hide overreaction, or whether it means Dad would be upset about not being informed of a medical issue.
Third, secrets erode the child’s relationship with the parent being kept in the dark. When information is deliberately withheld, trust breaks down. Your co-parent deserves to know about medical care, school issues, emotional struggles, and general information about their child’s life. When you ask children to filter this information, you’re interfering with the parent-child relationship.
Most insidiously, secret-keeping teaches children that they’re responsible for managing adult emotions and relationships. “Don’t tell Mom about Dad’s new girlfriend—she’ll be upset” positions the child as the protector of their mother’s feelings rather than allowing them to be a child who simply shares their experiences naturally with both parents.
Protective Factors: What Actually Helps Children Through Divorce
Understanding what not to say is only half the equation. Research has identified specific factors that protect children from the potential negative effects of divorce and actually allow them to thrive despite family restructuring.
Studies on child coping and resilience have found that youth’s general coping capacity is a potentially modifiable protective factor for children facing parental divorce. This suggests that teaching children healthy coping skills—emotional regulation, problem-solving, and stress management—can significantly buffer them against potential negative effects.
One of the strongest protective factors is maintaining a positive relationship with both parents. Children who continue to have frequent, quality contact with both parents post-divorce show significantly better outcomes than children who lose contact with one parent or who experience one parent as emotionally or physically distant.
Low interparental conflict stands out as perhaps the most important protective factor. As mentioned earlier, children whose parents maintain respectful, low-conflict co-parenting relationships adjust much better than children caught in ongoing parental warfare, even when those high-conflict parents remain married.
Parental mental health and well-being also significantly predict child outcomes. Parents who process their own grief, anger, and adjustment challenges—ideally with professional support—are better able to shield their children from adult emotional burdens and provide the stable, consistent care children need during family transitions.
Maintaining consistency and routines across both households helps children feel secure during a time of significant change. While houses will differ in some ways, maintaining similar bedtimes, expectations, and general structure helps children feel grounded.
Creating a New Framework for Co-Parenting Communication
Avoiding damaging statements requires more than just censoring specific phrases—it requires developing a new internal framework for how you think about your co-parent and how you communicate that perspective to your children.
Start by separating your adult relationship with your ex from their parenting relationship with your children. Your ex may have been a terrible spouse—unfaithful, financially irresponsible, emotionally unavailable, or even abusive to you. But your children’s need for a relationship with that parent is separate from your need to heal from your marriage. Unless there are safety concerns that warrant supervised or limited contact, your children deserve the opportunity to form their own relationship with their other parent.
Practice what therapists call “generous interpretation.” When possible, interpret your co-parent’s behavior in the most generous light, especially when speaking about them to your children. If Dad misses a pickup, the generous interpretation is “something must have come up” rather than “he’s irresponsible and doesn’t care.” This doesn’t mean being naive or accepting poor behavior—it means choosing the interpretation that protects your children’s perception of their parent until you have concrete information otherwise.
Develop a support system separate from your children. You need people with whom you can process your frustrations, hurt, and anger about your ex-partner and the divorce—but those people should be other adults (friends, family members, therapists) rather than your children. Your kids need to be children, not your emotional support system.
Moving Forward: Repair and Redemption
If you recognize yourself in these examples—if you’ve said things you now regret, or if you’re beginning to understand how your words may have affected your children—please know that awareness is the first step toward change. You can’t erase the past, but you can repair what’s been damaged and commit to different patterns going forward.
For statements you’ve already made, consider having honest, age-appropriate conversations with your children: “I’ve realized that sometimes I’ve said unkind things about your dad when I was feeling hurt or angry. That wasn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry. Your relationship with your dad is important, and you don’t have to choose between us or protect my feelings.”
Work with a therapist if you’re struggling to manage your own emotions around the divorce and your ex-partner. The patterns that lead to badmouthing or putting children in the middle often stem from unprocessed grief, anger, or trauma that deserves professional attention.
Connect with other divorced parents who are committed to high-quality co-parenting. Support groups, whether in-person or online, can provide both validation for your struggles and accountability for maintaining healthy boundaries in how you speak about your co-parent.
Remember that children are remarkably resilient when given the support they need. The research on divorce and child outcomes isn’t destiny—it’s information that empowers you to make choices that protect your children’s mental health and relationship success throughout their lives.
Your children didn’t choose divorce, and they shouldn’t bear the burden of adult conflicts and emotions. By committing to speaking respectfully about their other parent—or at minimum, remaining neutral—you’re giving your children permission to love both their parents fully, to feel secure in their own identity, and to develop healthy models for how people navigate conflict and change.
The words you choose today shape not only your children’s immediate emotional experience but also their lifelong patterns in relationships, their mental health trajectories, and even how they’ll eventually process and integrate their parents’ divorce into their own life narratives. Choose words that heal rather than wound, that protect rather than burden, and that prioritize your children’s well-being above your own need to be right or validated.
Have you navigated the challenge of speaking respectfully about your co-parent despite difficult circumstances? What strategies have helped you protect your children from adult conflict while still processing your own complex emotions? Share your experiences in the comments—your insights might provide hope and practical guidance for other parents working to create healthy co-parenting relationships after divorce.