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Divorce: How to Talk to Your Children
It’s hard enough for adults to understand divorce, so making it easy for kids is critical
When I got divorced, my youngest child was literally just days old. My oldest, on the other hand, was almost three years old. At the time, I wasn’t sure how to approach the “divorce discussion” with him. He wasn’t potty trained yet. We still had to do the choo-choo train or the airplane to get him to eat some foods. He was still trying to eat bugs and dirt, for Pete’s sake! How was I supposed to talk to him about the ending of a marriage — especially when I barely understood it myself?
But here’s the thing: unless they are literally a baby, like my youngest, you have to talk about it. Even very young children are going to notice when a parent is no longer living in the home. They’re going to be confused by going back and forth between two homes. They need answers that they can understand.
Of course, the problem is that we often don’t understand it all ourselves. We might be able to explain that we’re getting divorced because our partner was unfaithful or we grew apart or whatever the reason is — but that’s not always appropriate with the kids. And it doesn’t answer questions like why you can’t work it out, why you got married in the first place if you’re getting divorced now, or…
