If your parents are divorced or in the process of getting a divorce, you may be concerned with the effects this might have on you. And you should be. Studies show that children of divorce have considerably greater risk of experiencing, uhh … “psychological issues” compared with children who live in a stable two-parent environment.

Here are some things children should expect from their post-divorce life, as well as some advice on how to cope with these significant and traumatic changes.

Stage 1: Having the “talk.” Expect your parents to sit you down in an effort to comfort to you, perhaps saying something similar to this typical parental rhetoric: “We want you to know this isn’t your fault. We love you very much, but we just aren’t happy together anymore.” This is most likely only a half-truth. If you’re under the age of 18 (or, in your case, under the age of five), the stress of raising you is enough to send any married couple straight to divorce. Realize that, conventional propaganda aside, their divorce is at least partially your fault. Chances are, your parents were much happier before you were born, and once you arrived, they started to bicker and resent one another, ultimately sending your mother into the arms of the real estate agent who sold your family its first home. Anyway, take responsibility. Nobody likes someone who passes the buck. Yes, it’s your fault. You should accept the truth.

Stage 2: Moving out. The first few stages of divorce can be incredibly confusing, especially if you’re moving from a nice three-bedroom house in a beautiful neighborhood in suburban San Jose to a cramped, one-bedroom apartment in the “interesting” part of town because your mother doesn’t make enough money to support you both. At this age, you may feel powerless, but in fact you have a number of attractive options, including the following popular coping mechanisms: obsessively clinging to your old security blanket and that old stuffed bear with the missing eye (bearclops), or becoming less imaginative and uncooperative during play, or perhaps even hurling Legos and Lincoln Logs at the other pre-school children. Although you may be reluctant to engage in such passive-aggressive actions, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can attract the type of adult attention you’re no longer receiving from your self-obsessed parents.

Stage 3: Moving away. Eventually, of course, you’ll move out of that ratty apartment and out of the state altogether, since your mother will want to get as far away from your father as possible. When you end up in Hawaii, you’ll start kindergarten, allowing you to develop your now-stunted socialization skills, since you’ve spent most of your pre-school year being sullen and withdrawn and somewhat mean to the other children. But you should embrace this newfound stability and routine, which will finally make you feel secure again.

Stage 4: Meeting the new family. For some reason, a year later, you’ll be living with your father again, ending your newfound sense of stability. He’ll be living in Washington this time, with a new wife, Big Edna, and her two kids, Jimmy and Little Edna. Most likely, you won’t get along with either Edna, though Jimmy will be fairly supportive as a big-brother figure (years later, he’ll be the damaged one, falling deep into several addictions). You should be prepared for the extreme difficulty of transitioning from the undivided attention of your mother to the sporadic attention of two parents in a chaotic household comprising three kids (one an irritable and rebellious teen), with another child on the way. If you feel yourself getting lost in the mix, your best option is to start wetting the bed. Your father and Edna will refocus their attention on you, sending you to the doctor, a specialist who will hook your bed up to some sort of urine-detection alarm system that will buzz you (and the rest of the house) awake at around 2:30 a.m. every night, as the warmth of your own pee spreads across your belly, soaking your pajamas and puddling up on your plastic sheets. Trust me, you won’t know it at the time, but (at least subconsciously) you’ll desperately crave the attention this will bring.

Stage 5: Moving yet again. A few years later, on a visit to your mother, who will be living in Virginia, you’ll be coaxed back to her, bribed with a 10-dollar-a-week allowance and the allure of no Ednas. What you won’t realize is that moving across the country and making new friends isn’t as easy in 4th grade as it had been in kindergarten. Friendships have been established. Kids have learned to be cruel. One older neighborhood kid will torment you, hurling a ninja-style throwing star at you one day (and missing), firing a pellet gun at you another day (and hitting you in the hand, causing a welt that will sting and throb for a month). Following a spirited game of “Smear the Queer,” you’ll receive your first set of stitches when your forehead splits open after this same bully throws you into a tree. Since you won’t really make any friends that year, you can get your mom to buy you one of those new Atari game systems, which you can play, safe and alone in your tiny apartment—though you’ll only have one game (ironically called “Combat”) which, sadly, requires two players.

Stage 6: Dealing with the inevitability of parental dating. Your father will eventually divorce Edna, so when you go back to live with him after your Virginia experience, the two of you will share that big, empty house, and your father will have to focus on you—and only you—at least for a little while. However, you should be prepared for the inevitable; he will start dating again. When he does, try not to be too dismayed when it’s your 6th-grade teacher, whom he’ll meet at a parent-teacher conference. When she spends the night, try to fall asleep early (or fashion earplugs out of wadded-up toilet paper), so you don’t have to hear the disturbing sounds of their lovemaking coming from the adjacent bedroom. You’ll feel an incredible amount of resentment at this new development. One way of coping is to pick a fight with one of your best friends at school, who will overpower you and sit on your chest while you sob uncontrollably. Another, more acceptable, way of acting out is to ask embarrassing, accusatory questions during your class’ Sex-Ed. unit, awkwardly conducted by your father’s new girlfriend, just to let her know that you know that you’re learning about all of this on more than just a theoretical level.

Stage 7: Coping with another, entirely new family (again). After your father marries the 6th-grade teacher, she will move into your house, get pregnant, and instantly badger you about your slovenly habits, usually via Post-it notes left throughout the house. Once a month, she’ll invade your room, gathering up all the clutter, emptying your closet and all the drawers, putting all of your belongings in a huge pile in the middle of the room, and forcing you “to deal with your goddamn mess.” Since you’re on the verge of teenhood, you’ll be difficult to get along with anyway, and she won’t help matters by constantly complaining about you to your father. At this point, you won’t have a lot of options. You could “act out” in a variety of ways, but it might just make matters worse, since it’s clear this new wife has your father on her side. In this impossible situation, your best option is to move back in with your mother, who is now living in Hawaii again and who will be happy to leave you alone, so afraid of alienating you that she’ll fail to notice when you stay out until 1 a.m., or when you come home intoxicated.

Stage 8: Rejecting your own predictable, pathetic, childish (adult) self-pity. Eventually, you’ll pull it together, graduating high school, going to college, and moving out on your own. Since you’ve had to deal with so much instability already, you should relish your newly acquired independence. Your life will go through the usual ups and downs, of course, though in general it will all seem relatively placid and stable and serene. Indeed, after living in four states and attending three different elementary schools, two different junior high schools, and three different high schools, you’ll probably want to stay put, living out your entire adult life in the same city. But you should realize the inevitability of lasting and possibly unforeseen consequences. You might have trouble connecting with your own family since you don’t really believe that families are inherently trustworthy. You might also have problems in your romantic relationships or become depressed for no apparent reason or get too busy to call your own father for months at a time. You might also continue to blame your personal ills on your parents and their divorce, but you should remember that, by now, decades have passed. You should also know (and perhaps you do, deep down) that it was all for the best, that they weren’t right for one another, that you all weren’t right together, that their divorce is forever a part of your life, and that your life has been a series of fascinating events that have led you here, to this—all of this. And you should continue to tell yourself that it all has meaning and purpose and that, despite your self-pity, children (and adults) go through this shit all the time.

You’re no different, kid. Get over it.