In a per­fect world, par­ents would know bet­ter than to in­volve their chil­dren in their own re­la­tion­ship dif­fi­cul­ties. They'd keep their anger with each oth­er sep­a­rate from their re­la­tion­ship with their chil­dren and they would deal with their is­sues with­out en­list­ing their chil­dren as wit­ness­es, sup­port­ers or con­fi­dants. But in this world, par­ents com­plain to their chil­dren, want their chil­dren to share their anger with the oth­er par­ent, share in­ap­pro­pri­ate in­for­ma­tion and gen­er­al­ly dis­play the worst of them­selves.

Chil­dren are nat­ur­al re­cruits in the par­ent wars, be­cause they love their par­ents so much that they'll do any­thing to make them feel bet­ter or to keep them from be­ing hurt. But chil­dren can't get in­volved in par­ents' prob­lems with­out pay­ing a heavy price. The in­ten­si­ty of the feel­ings in­volved is hurt­ful to them, not to men­tion the aw­ful things par­ents do to each oth­er. They aren't emo­tion­al­ly equipped to han­dle these very adult emo­tions and is­sues. Their own nor­mal emo­tion­al de­vel­op­ment gets short-changed when they're try­ing to cope with par­ents' dif­fi­cult be­hav­iour.

Chil­dren who take sides with one par­ent in an on­go­ing con­flict end up sac­ri­fic­ing their re­la­tion­ship with the oth­er par­ent, much to their detri­ment. In some cas­es, af­ter a while, things swing in the oth­er di­rec­tion and they re­ject the par­ent they for­mer­ly sup­port­ed. Some chil­dren even­tu­al­ly re­ject all the anger and bit­ter­ness and emerge dis­il­lu­sioned about both par­ents. As the say­ing goes, if you poi­son a child's mind, it's the child who dies. How to sur­vive it all? The ground rule is - Avoid in­volve­ment. This is much eas­i­er said than done. The nat­ur­al urge is to find out as much as pos­si­ble about the sit­u­a­tion, to know what's go­ing on. When par­ents are in­dis­creet, it's al­most im­pos­si­ble to avoid gath­er­ing too much in­for­ma­tion. But the more you know, the more con­fused and hurt you're like­ly to feel. Chil­dren and young peo­ple take their par­ents' be­tray­als per­son­al­ly.

It's eas­i­er to keep out of par­ents' busi­ness when you have a lot of your own busi­ness go­ing on. Get­ting in­volved in as many ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties as you can han­dle is use­ful. In­ci­den­tal­ly, the ex­tra ac­tiv­i­ties, be­cause they pro­vide bal­ance, help with fo­cus­ing on school­work. Wor­ry­ing about your par­ents, on the oth­er hand, makes it hard to con­cen­trate and re­mem­ber. So take ad­van­tage of what­ev­er ac­tiv­i­ties are avail­able through school or in your area. Vol­un­teer­ing is an­oth­er great out­let. Vol­un­teer ac­tiv­i­ties are usu­al­ly al­so avail­able through school. These keep you oc­cu­pied, help you do some­thing use­ful for some­one else and re­mind you that you're worth­while and have some­thing good to of­fer. It's good to re­mem­ber that there's a world be­yond your stress­ful home and your par­ents' bick­er­ing. It's es­pe­cial­ly good to be able to make some­one's life bet­ter for a lit­tle while, even if you can't change any­thing at home. And some­times par­ents aren't will­ing to pay for ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties or deal with the ex­tra pick­ing up and drop­ping off in­volved.

Try to or­gan­ise study groups with friends. Some­times an or­gan­i­sa­tion or home­work cen­tre in the area has a reg­u­lar study time, open to all stu­dents. This can al­so help with school­work, be­cause study­ing on your own at home can be dif­fi­cult, es­pe­cial­ly when you're on the alert for any out­bursts. Most of all, try to let go of the feel­ing that you are re­spon­si­ble for any of your par­ents' dis­cord. You didn't cause it and you can­not fix it. Try­ing to solve their prob­lems will al­ways be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Keep­ing your­self pro­duc­tive­ly oc­cu­pied will help you to re­mem­ber that you have a sep­a­rate life and help you to keep liv­ing it too.