David Cohen is the director of domestic research for Sesame Workshop

When my friend tried to explain her divorce to her 8-year-old niece, her niece reflected “It’s going to take me awhile to process this.” Her niece’s reaction might be considered precocious, but it also shows the deep emotions children grapple with when faced with such a life altering effect.

Young children need ongoing and sensitive help from trusted adults who approach this event in age appropriate ways. In fact, young children are at risk of having more adjustment problems than older children, since they are still in the early process of developing the coping skills necessary to deal with all the changes associated with divorce. They also often blame themselves for the divorce or feel that it is their responsibility to bring their parents back together.

Given the special relationship that children develop with Sesame Street characters and the human cast, we believed that we could play a role for families going through this often traumatic situation. Clearly tackling a topic like divorce, especially with preschoolers, required a sensitive and thoughtful approach. Typical of all Sesame Workshop initiatives, our approach included the input of advisors, who included psychologists and other mental health professionals specializing in the impact of divorce on younger children. We also conducted preliminary research with divorced parents and their children, who viewed working drafts of the materials and provided suggestions and recommendations which could be incorporated into the final version.

We are incredibly grateful to the parents who shared their own stories and provided invaluable feedback about how we described and portrayed divorce. Feedback from parents helped fine tune the video in which Abby Cadabby’s friends show their support when she tells them about her parents’ divorce. For example, the moms and dads suggested that different types of divorce situations should be portrayed in the video, and not just those in which the divorced parents live near each other (as is the case with Abby’s parents in the video). To address this, producers included live action films of real families talking about how they cope when divorced parents live farther apart. These live action films were included with the Sesame Street story in the final version of the video.

Parents also mentioned that in the draft version Abby acted calm and composed when speaking about her parents’ divorce and that was not realistic. Instead parents suggested that Abby should show the feelings that they’ve seen in their own children — anger, confusion, and sadness. As a result, Abby was more explicit in expressing her complex emotions in the finished version of the video — she tells Gordon, “Yeah, I am angry! And sad… oh, I love my mommy and daddy so much!”

Great wisdom and sensitivity went into the creation of the materials. In the words of an 8-year-old girl, it took a lot to “process this.” With the help of the advisors and families who helped shape this project, we were able to launch “Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce” which is available here. We’re hopeful this initiative will make a difference for families of divorce as they help their preschoolers navigate the challenges and experiences they’ll face together through this major life event.

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Luckily Sesame Street’s Abby Cadabby and her friend Rocio Galarza, Senior Director of Outreach and Content Design for Sesame Workshop, are here to help. On Wednesday, February 20, Abby and Rocio will be taking questions about divorce and separation from parents, children, friends and anyone who has questions about staying resilient while navigating a divorce or separation.

Email us at divorce@sesame.org and Abby and Rocio will record an answer to your question in a video segment that will be posted online next week. In addition to your question, please include your name, age (if you wish) and your hometown so we can give say hello if your question is picked. We will also write you back directly if Abby and Rocio have the opportunity to answer your question.

Let your friends, family and colleagues know too! Everyone is welcome to send in a question. We can’t wait to hear from you.

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JoAnne Pedro-Carroll is a clinical and research psychologist and author of the award-winning book, “Putting Children First:  Proven Parenting Strategies for Helping Children Thrive Through Divorce.” 

Today, there’s an important conversation taking place at Sesame Street – another important conversation in a thoughtful and penetrating series that has taken place behind the scenes here over the past several years. Those conversations culminated in Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce.

I can’t begin to tell you how important and valuable I believe this project is, and how particularly pleased I am that Sesame Street chose to tackle this very tough subject. Having spent more than 30 years working with children and families as they struggle with big changes in their lives, I have seen a very real need for what Sesame Street delivers. While the bookstores and media have a virtual torrent of information about divorce, much of it is conflicting. As a result, it can be very tough for parents to know what to believe, and how best to help their children through the transitions. That’s why Sesame Street, which has earned parents’ trust for basing its programming on a depth of quality research, and has a very wide reach, is such an invaluable resource on separation and divorce, as on so many other critical topics.

In the United States, some 40 percent of all children experience their parents’ divorce. We know from research that the series of changes this causes in children’s lives does impact them, sometimes in profound ways for their entire lives. We know that for some children the effects can be devastating. Despite the myth that all children – particularly young children – are resilient, they are not automatically so. But the good news is that it is possible for children to survive and thrive. Research has shown what factors and behaviors influence positive outcomes and promote children’s resilience. With this knowledge, parents, family, friends, health care providers, judges, mediators, attorneys, teachers, and everyone who cares about children have the opportunity to help children thrive.

This research is the body of knowledge that Sesame Street has tapped into and interpreted so thoughtfully and creatively – as always, with insight into and sensitivity towards young children’s developmental stages. In working with the talented and dedicated team that put together this project, I was deeply impressed by their commitment to providing children and parents with the verbal tools and positive messages to help them through what are often bewildering and frightening times.

In creating the divorce story around Abby Cadabby, the team chose a charmingly wispy – and potentially vulnerable – character that young children can relate to. By having her tell her story in retrospective, they give children a context for what they may be experiencing and an example of effective ways of coping.  Abby reveals that at first she had a number of different strong feelings – something typical of young children – but that her feelings changed over time. While she expresses some lingering sadness and disappointment over the fact that her family is no longer all together in one home – again, emotions that many children continue to feel – she focuses on the positives of the “two-hug days” when she experiences the unchanging love that both parents show her.

In conversations with Gordon and her Muppet friends, Abby also becomes the vehicle for other fundamental lessons. Many children believe that they caused their parents’ divorce, and many are convinced that they can get their parents back together again. Often they hide these and other fears, worries, and misconceptions from their parents. But through Sesame Street, children learn that divorce is a grownup problem that children do not cause and cannot solve.

Parents, too, learn from the Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce resources what their children may be experiencing and how they can broach difficult conversations and offer reassurance. They witness, through Abby, the tremendous importance of children having age appropriate information about what will and will not change in their lives. Children lack the ability to label and understand their emotions at times.  The Sesame Street materials give parents child-friendly tools for connecting and communicating with children about their feelings.  The written materials and downloadable app all reflect the importance of parents’ taking good care of themselves and parenting in ways that convey their unending love, and creating calm transitions and consistent expectations and routines for children.

Research has shown that the three most detrimental factors for children experiencing their parents’ divorce are a breakdown in the parent/child relationship, unresolved, on-going conflict, and poor quality of parenting. Conversely – and this is where the Sesame Street model is so helpful – nurturing a loving and positive relationship with the child, behaving respectfully toward the child’s other parent, and providing positive parenting with both emotional warmth and authoritative limits pay enormous dividends in children’s short- and long-term well-being.

There’s so much more to say. But perhaps my biggest message today is that, once again, even as they struggle through their own transitions, parents can turn to Sesame Street with confidence that the insights and advice they offer for parents and children is absolutely spot-on.  This Sesame Street resilience project empowers parents with tools for providing a message of hope, healing, and healthy new beginnings.

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Ed. Note: Denise Albert is the Co-Founder of the lifestyle brand,  The MOMS. She and her partner, Melissa Gerstein are contributors to HLN’s upcoming parenting show, Raising America. Denise contributes to The Huffington Post Parents and Divorce.

As a mom addicted to my iPhone and to technology I often struggle with how much time to allow my kids to use their iTouches. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have given them the devices at their young ages of 4 ½ and 8. However, their dad receives new phones from his place of business so our kids are the beneficiaries of hand me downs. Who would say no to that!

When I see my kids playing games and using apps that are actually teaching them things, I have a hard time taking the devices away. My 4 ½ year old has learned math through sports. He is savant-like with the scores he studies on the NFL and NBA apps. He has learned how to count and add, including more complicated addition, by adding numbers of points in field goals, touchdowns and baskets.  

I can’t even take as much credit as I would like for teaching my boys about sports because I truthfully believe their devices have taught them so much. My youngest has also learned pre-reading and puzzles, and quite possibly could be hired for IT-type of work thanks to his iTouch, my iPhone and the apps on my iPad.

But now I’m just as addicted, specifically because of an app that I feel was made just for me. Sesame Street’s Divorce App is coming out at a time when I need it most. I’ve been separated for almost a year now. When I began the process there were really limited resources for us as a family. I’ve been chronicling my divorce online at The Huffington Post in the hopes that my journey might benefit others. I’ve been told in particular that one thing I did changed certain peoples’ actions.

I wrote about Sesame Street’s program when it was first announced. Now, thanks to Sesame Street, I have more information and a smart resource in a way that will please my kids.

My kids occasionally ask me out of the blue, “Why again did you and dad divorce?” My answer is usually the same; “Sometimes moms and dads are better off as friends, not being married.”

As far as divorce goes, I’m pretty lucky. We didn’t battle in court, we figured out all the details without hefty legal fees, and we agreed upon custody. But the kids don’t know any of this. Mostly, they want to know where they are sleeping on a given week, who is dropping them off for school and what they can have for snack. Other times, the deeper questions come. “Why again?”  “Will you marry dad again?” “Can I have a step-dad?”

After going through it time and time again I’m now comforted and part of a larger community thanks to Sesame Street’s Divorce App which provides good answers to many basic questions. Many of the questions my kids ask are there. What and why are just the basics. It goes further to “Who’s going to take care of me,” and “What should I tell my friends.” The app answers “Why are we different,” “Why can’t we buy all the things that we used to.”

Many of the questions are questions my kids have already asked. Many of the answers are just the right wording and language I would want to use.

The best part about the App is being able to share it with my friends. If having the right language and answers about divorce is important my family, it’s just as important for the people around us.

If my kids (and I) continue to be app addicts, at least there’s now an app with the knowledge, wisdom and the right amount of comfort, support and help that parents going through a divorce need during this transition time in our lives.

And it’s time we don’t treat divorce like a disease. Divorce doesn’t have to be different. It just has to be done right. And as a mom in transition, I’m a proud app addict now.

The Sesame Workshop Blog

Sesame Street

Millions of young children experience divorce, and they struggle to understand what exactly is happening. Parents also struggle to explain these changes, if they are able to open up to their children about the subject at all. That’s why Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce provides resources featuring our beloved Sesame Street Muppets that give divorced parents strategies on how to communicate with and support their children. The videos, which are for targeted audiences struggling with divorce, will not air on the Sesame Street television series.

As with everything we do, Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce is based on thorough research. Given the sensitive nature of the subject, we have taken extra care to approach the topic in a way that will be supportive of children and not confusing or scary. However, the research doesn’t do the job all by itself. A major reason our educational tools are so effective is because our wonderful Muppets bring the story to life.

Sesame Street writer Christine Ferraro wrote the script for our video materials starring Abby Cadabby, Elmo and Rosita, and spoke about the difficulties of writing stories about such a sensitive topic.

“We never want to go too into detail with any of these,” Ferraro said, “because every kid’s situation is different. Every divorce is different and every family’s situation is different. We want to keep it a little bit ambiguous so it’s applicable to all children, but it’s also Abby’s story. Abby is talking about the fact that her parents are divorced. She’s already at a place where she has accepted it, and that made a big difference emotionally.

“The general messages that come across,” she added, “are you are not alone, we are here for you. You can talk to people about this. It’s good to talk. There are many different emotions you may go through. That’s OK.”

Although Abby Cabaddy’s parents are divorced in the story, Ferraro spoke to how important it was that Elmo, Rosita and Gordon, played by Roscoe Orman, appear in the story as well.

“We wanted there to be an adult, and that’s why Gordon is in it,” she said. “We wanted to show an example of a kid talking to an adult about this. Roscoe just did an incredible, wonderful job. We wanted to show there are many people in your life who can support you.”

If you would like to learn more about Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce and the ways Sesame Workshop is supporting families going through such a challenging transition, click here.

The Sesame Workshop Blog

Since its inception Sesame Street has been committed to tackling the challenges that young children face, no matter how difficult or unorthodox it may be to discuss those topics with children. With this commitment in mind, Sesame Workshop is taking on the subject of divorce, an emotional trial many children go through. Yet many parents are uncertain how to reassure or even explain what is going on to their children.

Storyboard, a storytelling project by Tumblr’s Department of Editorial, took a deeper look at the way Sesame Workshop is handling the subject of divorce. They wrote this piece about our divorce-focused outreach efforts and created the above video. We encourage you to check out both.

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