ANSWER: Your children will experience the loss of a friend that is moving away. If you feel it is appropriate, suggest ways that your children can stay in touch with friends that move. Writing may create a pen pal and prove beneficial to your child's development. Still, the spectre of a family in the throes of divorce will need special attention:

1. Clarify your own feelings
Be aware that your children will follow your emotional lead in understanding the experience of divorce. Consider your own feelings. It is natural for a divorce to bring up fears about your own relationship. Clarify what relevance your neighbor's break up has for you, before talking with your children.

2. Strengthen your couple's relationship
Connect with your spouse by speaking about the break-ups around you. What effect do they have on your husband's feelings? Clarify your own concerns about your relationship if you have any. Expressing your feelings and putting issues on the table will allow you to separate fears from reality. If there is unfinished business, this is an opportunity to prevent dissatisfaction in your marriage, by taking stock of your relationship. The opportunity is also there for the two of you to re-discover and name what feels good about your relationship. Your connection with each other will help you talk with your children.

3. Answer your children's questions and make room for expressing feelings
Express you feelings naturally. Let your daughter know you are sad about her friend's predicament. Answer your children's concerns as truthfully as possible, at a level they can understand. For example, "I am sure that Johnny is very sad about his father and mother living apart. And I am certain that his parents both love him and will continue to take care of him, separately." Explain what you do know of the situation, as your children ask you for information. Be truthful and reassuring. And be sure to make room for their feelings, too. Ask them, "Does it make you sad?" if your child looks saddened, or "Is that upsetting to you?"

4. Accept a range of feelings over time
Continue to discuss the situation only as much as your children bring it up. Perhaps they will say nothing about it for two days, then ask you suddenly out of the blue following an argument with your spouse, "Mommy, are you and daddy going to divorce like Johnny's parents?" Do not be shocked. Instead, use this kind of question as an opportunity for further discussion and reassurance. "No, honey, what makes you think that?" Allow your child's fears and fantasies to be expressed. Doing so, will help her separate her family life, from her friend's family crisis.