How Do We Tell The Kids About Our Divorce? – Part 2

It’s taken months or years for you and your partner to decide the next step is divorce. As adults, you’ve had a lot of time to consider and process this change. This is not the case for kids – even if they’ve seen a lot of fighting and know things are rough between their parents.

Because your kids are likely in such a different head space than you about the parent problems, one of the best things you can do for them (and yourself!) is to take time to prepare and plan for telling them about the divorce.

The ‘How’ sets up the ‘What’ to tell the kids (What to Tell the Kids is the second blog of this series).

Here are key elements of the planning/preparing phase of telling your child(ren) about your separation or divorce:

1. Set aside time together and/or with a divorce mental health professional to prepare for telling the children. Seek the help of a divorce professional who is a licensed mental health provider. That includes divorce coaches and child specialists who are easily found in collaborative divorce groups at www.cpcal.com.
2. Create a temporary or longer-term agreement about the living arrangements and parenting time. Kids will have questions about how their lives will be affected and you can have some answers, even if they are temporary.
3. Develop a divorce story that fits your family situation that addresses the why’s in an appropriate way.
4. Co-create a brief script to help you cover the important points with your children.

Here are some helpful do’s and don’ts that apply to ‘How’ to tell you kids in the actual conversation with them.

Do:

1. Tell the children together unless there are extenuating circumstances (like a restraining order).
2. Communicate your divorce story calmly. You’ll want to check in with your body, face, and voice to make sure you not just the words are calm. If you are overwhelmed, this change will be scarier for your kids
3. Focus on the children and their reactions by accepting their responses and offering honest reassurances.
4. Sit quietly with your kids and give them space to process if at any point they are too upset to continue.
5. Break this down into 2-3 conversations for younger children. Revisit topics with your kids over days and weeks as they have questions or emotional reactions to the news.
6. Work to get along with your co-parent. Studies show kids adjust best when parents have low conflict.
7. Divorce research indicates most children love both parents and want to spend plenty of time with each and have both involved. Reassure your children that both of you will be involved in their lives and want to spend lots of time with them.

Don’t:

1. Rush your kids. Instead, allow them time to process and react to the news.
2. End the conversation or cut them off because you are uncomfortable. Take deep breaths and remind yourself this is for their well-being.
3. Blame or be defensive. Of course, you can let them know this is also hard for you.
4. Use an angry tone or harsh words. This will increase anxiety in your children.
5. Get overly emotional (with sadness or anger). It’s okay to cry lightly and let them know it’s hard but you will be okay.

HOW you tell the kids has everything to do with setting aside blame, shame, acrimony, and mistrust to focus on what the next chapter will look like, each parent modelling better behavior and working together in telling the kids about the divorce.

Overall and throughout your divorce, protect your children from conflict between you and their other parent: research indicates that children fair far better with low conflict between parents than high. This can be particularly hard when creating your divorce story and telling the kids together. However, you made it to this blog and a web site that helps parents get a better divorce – you are on the right track!

This article was a collaboration of expertise and contributed by Melissa Lenon, LMFT, Sharon Clark, Ph.D, Jane Eular, Esq. and Cinda Jones, CFP, CDFA.