It’s very difficult to know how to talk to your children about divorce. It’s a complicated subject that you feel may be difficult for them to understand, but it’s also something that they need to know about because it’s going to change their life.
If you are wondering how to address this, here are a couple of tips that may make it easier.
Make sure you and your spouse are on the same page
You and your spouse want to talk in advance about how this conversation should go and how you want to present it to the children. Ideally, you want them to see you as something of a united front. You need to tell them that you both still love them, that this is something both of you chose and that you’re both still going to be involved with them after the divorce.
Have the conversation with the entire family
This can be difficult, as some younger children may not be nearly in the same mental or emotional space as older children. But you still want to break the news to everyone at the same time. You never want one of your younger children to find out from an older sibling. The best thing to do is have a big family conversation where you broach the subject for the first time. If children still want to have one-on-one conversations where they get a bit more attention and ask more questions, you can do that after everyone knows that the divorce is coming.
Putting your children first
It’s clear that your children are very important to you, and these tips can help to show them that. Make sure you also know what legal steps you can take to continue putting them first.