‘I was 13 when my parents split up. I don't remember feeling tremendously sad about it. They both seemed quite happy. Before my mum and dad separated I remember them arguing quite a lot, but after they separated they seem to get on much better and they don’t appear to bear each other any grudge

‘My first clear memory of anything in my life was last year when mum and dad told me that they were getting divorced. Mum said I just screamed as if someone had stuck a knife into me - but it was because I was so upset. Since then I seem to have been really angry with the world ‘cos I keep thinking it’s my fault even if I know that it’s not’

‘My parents finally split up last year after what seemed like endless fighting, silences, - you name it. But they have never once spoken about it or asked me how I’m feeling or how I’m coping. I wish they’d listen to me, just to sit down and talk. Most of the time I feel like screaming at them that I’m not okay and would you please just talk to me, but I don’t want to upset either of them.

‘I don’t know how they got married in the first place, they are like cheese and chalk together. Mum and dad’s relationship was a bit of a scabby area but they’re much more friendly now. Anyhow, most of my friends seem to have parents who are divorced, and most of them don’t get on so well with one another as my parents do!’.better’

‘I don’t know how behave now, because everything has changed, and I think that if I do anything wrong, then it make their quarrelling worse’.better’

‘Its funny because me and my brother know one another much better than my parents do - so we have to stick up for one another - and if we didn’t have one another I think that we would both go crazy with our worries’.

‘I don’t know why people like my mum and dad got married and had me – if they weren’t going to look after me – it doesn’t seem fair and their ain’t nothing I can do about it neither’

‘My dad kept slagging off mum and saying it was all her fault because she nagged him all the time, but I wasn’t listening to any of that, and anyhow why weren’t they thinking of me instead of themselves, that’s what I want to know’better’

‘Dunno why they think of themselves all the time, it’s me that’s suffering and I don’t see why I should – just ‘cos they can’t love one another’better’

‘I visited my dad at his expensive house that he shared with his new family. I resented Angela (stepmother) so much, and as she was in the house most of the time, I spent most of my time outside where I met new friends. I resented my dad also, because of how he paid so much attention towards his new family’better’

‘I can tell my nan anything, and sometimes I say really, really nasty things about the way I hate mum and dad shouting at one another, and she just listens and tries to explain things to me so I understand them better’