What part does media play in how divorce affects children? Children do not have the cognitive skills to observe media in a critical manner and evaluate; they simply take what they see at face value and process it as fact. It is important to teach children from a young age that television and movies are fictional, skewed depictions of reality. Children imitate what they see, so if they see children react poorly to a divorce they will respond in the same manner. It then becomes the parent's responsibility to intervene and give their children the tools and venue to appropriately understand and discuss what they've seen on television.