Kids First: What Kids Want Grown-Ups to Know About Separation & Divorce is an essential, child-centered guide designed to help parents, caregivers, and professionals reduce the emotional impact of divorce on children. Compiled by the Kids First Center, this breakthrough resource provides powerful insight into how children truly experience separation and divorce - and what adults can do to protect their emotional well-being during one of life’s most challenging transitions.
See Divorce Through a Child’s Eyes
When families change, children often experience confusion, fear, sadness, anger, and divided loyalties. This guide book walks parents and professionals step-by-step through the series of events children typically encounter during separation and divorce, including:
- The initial announcement of separation
- Changes in living arrangements
- Transitions between households
- Exposure to parental conflict
- Adjusting to new partners or blended families
- Ongoing court or custody issues
Rather than focusing solely on legal or adult perspectives, Kids First clearly explains the emotional meaning these events hold for children. It reveals the direct connection between parent behavior and child emotional response, helping adults understand how their words, tone, and actions can either stabilize or unintentionally harm their child.
A Practical Tool for Parents Who Want to Do Better
Divorce is difficult—but the way parents handle it makes all the difference.
This book provides practical, compassionate guidance to help parents:
- Reduce conflict in front of children
- Avoid putting children in the middle
- Communicate in age-appropriate ways
- Support emotional adjustment
- Promote resilience and long-term well-being
- Strengthen co-parenting even during high stress
The guidance is especially valuable in the moments when it feels hardest to respond calmly and thoughtfully.
As Susan Wiggin, LMSW, co-parent coach and Guardian ad Litem, shares:
“Kids First gets it right! Parents who want their children to be well adjusted after their parents’ divorce will take this information to heart and employ it consistently; especially when it is the hardest to do.”
Designed for Both Parents and Professionals
Kids First is widely recognized as a breakthrough resource not only for parents, but also for the professionals who support families in transition, including:
- Therapists and counselors
- Social workers
- Mediators and family court professionals
- Guardians ad Litem
- Co-parent coaches
- Educators and child advocates
Its clear explanations and emotionally grounded perspective make it a valuable parenting tool in counseling sessions, parent education programs, and divorce recovery workshops.
Why This Book Matters
Research consistently shows that children’s long-term adjustment to divorce is influenced less by the divorce itself and more by how parents manage the process.
This book helps adults:
- Understand children’s hidden fears and concerns
- Recognize behavioral signals of stress
- Break cycles of conflict that harm children
- Build healthier post-divorce family structures
- Prioritize children’s emotional safety
By placing children’s voices and experiences at the center, Kids First empowers adults to make decisions that support stability, attachment, and resilience
- Divorcing or separating parents
- Recently divorced families
- Blended families navigating change
- Family therapists and counselors
- Mediation and custody professionals
- Anyone committed to child-centered co-parenting
If you want your children to emerge from separation feeling secure, loved, and emotionally supported, this family therapy book offers the perspective and tools to help you get there.
About the Author
The Kids First Center is a private, nonprofit organization based in Portland, Maine, dedicated to helping children and parents cope with the effects of separation and divorce. Through education, advocacy, and child-focused programming, the organization works to reduce the emotional harm children often experience during family transitions. Drawing on years of experience supporting divorcing families, the Kids First Center compiled this book to give parents and professionals a practical, compassionate roadmap for protecting children during one of the most vulnerable periods of their lives. Their mission is simple but powerful: put kids first.
Kids First helps families through the difficult transition of separation and divorce. This book is the collective knowledge that has been gained by staff, volunteers, parents, and children.
