Children, especially, can have a difficult time with divorce. Divorce brings much uncertainty into the lives of everyone in the family, and children, who thrive off of stability, can be affected much more strongly than others. There are things you can do to help alleviate some of the stress your children have because of the divorce. Here are five ways you can help your children cope with this big change in their lives:

1. Explain the Divorce to Your Children in Terms They Can Understand

Children’s understanding of divorce will vary based on their age and maturity level. Younger children will need to be explained to in simple, yet truthful terms about the divorce. The conversation can be as simple as telling your children that mommy and daddy no longer want to fight all the time, so they will be living in different houses. Older children will usually require a more explanatory response, but you should be careful to reveal too much information as your children do not need to hear about your marital problems.

2. Encourage Conversation about Their Feelings

You should tell your children that it is normal for them to feel sad or angry about the divorce. You will have your own feelings about the divorce, and it is important for your children to be able to have theirs. Allowing your children to talk about their feelings will allow them to progress through the grieving process.

It does not matter whether you and your spouse are divorcing amicably - you still have to divide your property between the two of you before your divorce can be finalized. While this process can be annoying at best and combative at worst, it is a necessary evil of divorce. Illinois courts look at the division of property as being equitable, rather than equal. You may not necessarily come out of the marriage with everything that you personally gained during the marriage. Dividing property during a divorce can be a careful game of negotiations, especially when it comes to high-value assets, such as a house or a vehicle. Here are a few common assets that most couples have and how they can be divided:

Your Home

Though the family home can be a source of emotional attachment for many people, the easiest way to decide what happens to the home is to sell it and split the profits. That would only work if you have equity in your home. If you have to sell your home for less than what you owe on your mortgage, you will have to determine who pays the remaining mortgage amount after it is sold. If one of you wants to keep the home and the other one does not, then the spouse who wants to keep the home can buy out the other half of the home, but you will need an accurate assessment of what your home is currently worth.

Your Vehicle

If you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse own a vehicle together, it can go the same way as the home. You can either sell the vehicle and split the profits, or one of you who wants to keep the car and buy out the other person’s half. Figure out what the current value of your vehicle is and then split that in half - that would be the amount your spouse should pay you if he or she wants to keep the vehicle.

At that time there was no Illinois divorce law on the subject of pet “custody.” Nonetheless, later in my career, I argued for custody of a dog’s ashes which were in an urn on the divorcing couples’ fireplace mantel. Again, I argued in both cases that the family dog was like a child or family member to my client. I knew that for many, a Pet becomes a best friend and a true member of the family. In both cases, I incurred the ire of the Judge who was not pleased with having the Judge’s time wasted. By the way, a good divorce lawyer will think first about his or her client’s beliefs and argue for them and only second about any potential waste of the Court’s time.

In March 2014, I wrote a blog and posted it here on our website entitled: Who Gets the Dog in an Illinois Divorce? The answer then being, that the dog was treated like any other property in an Illinois Divorce and divided according to the rules of marital versus nonmarital property with no recognition as to how important that Pet was to the client.

Physicist Andres Gomberoff believes that science can help resolve child custody arrangement questions. Gomberoff, who has two ex-wives and a current girlfriend, was searching for a way to optimize time with children while still allowing for alone time.

Bigger and blended families may be stuck juggling a variety of schedules that don’t make the most sense for any of the parents or the children. To find the best visit schedule, Gomberoff applied the same process that is used to minimize magnetic material in a spin-glass system.

Gomberoff recruited friends in an effort to use mathematics and physics to see whether there was an optimal approach to generating visitation schedules. They used examples from a network of friends who had children and exes. While he and his team discovered that there was no way to satisfy every parent, applying physics did help to reduce the number of unhappy couples. In their research, the team found an algorithm that allows every parent all of their own children on the same weekends.

Free speech versus privacy rights? It sounds like shouting match between two talking heads on Bill O'Riley's television show, doesn't it?

Surprisingly, however, revenge websites and "revenge porn" is just one of the newest conflict areas where people post sexually explicit pictures of their soon-to-be exes, boyfriends, girlfriends and just friends on the Internet (see my last blog on this topic).

Now websites that encourage revenge " postings" not necessarily "porn" have taken root, these revenge websites have been used as a form of extortion. Your soon-to-be ex spouse, ex boyfriend or girlfriend posts a picture of you with humiliating and shameful comments about you.