How to Tell Children You’re Getting Divorced
By David W. McMillan, Ph.D.
Qualifiers:
The most important caution is not to speak to them about your marital struggles. Don’t confide in them. Don’t tell them you are angry or hurt by your spouse. Don’t tattle on your spouse and tell your children that your mate has done you wrong.
A second thing to remember is the Bible verse, “Honor your Father and your Mother… so you can live long and life will go well with you.” (My translation of Deuteronomy 5:16).
This is your child’s job description. In conflicts between parents, children should remain neutral. They should do everything they can to avoid taking sides. Though having two parents nurture and support children is not essential, it is definitely best for them.
Children come into the world wanting to split their parents, push one away and have the other parent (usually the mother) to themselves. It is the parents’ job not to let that happen. This is why parents draw a line between adult business and children’s business. Your finances are none of your children’s businesses. Your sex life is none of your children’s business. Your vacation plans should not be shared with your children until both parents have agreed on them.
And of course, as mentioned above, your quarrels are adult-only business.
Some children are eager to be part of adult discussions. They seen power in family business. These children are eager to cast the deciding vote between two disagreeing parents. They would love to be privy to the details of parent conflicts so they might assume the role of parent to their fighting childish parents. They are eager to take one side (usually the favored parent’s side) against the other parent. Boys often want to protect mother against their mean old father and replace him as the main man in their mother’s life. Girls are often happy to take their father’s part and might see their mother as rejecting and cold to their beloved father and ally with him becoming his main feminine support.
Some children are wise enough to not want to know details of parental conflicts and they avoid having opinions or judgments in adult matters. These children fair best in a divorce.
Divorcing parents should do everything they can to protect their children’s neutrality. The best protection from divorce fallout that you, as parents can give your children is a firm and opaque boundary between their adult intimacy issues and adult conflicts and the children’s awareness so that your children know nothing about their parent’s relationship struggles.
When to Tell:
Children are often blindly wrapped up in their own lives with their friends and in their own social struggles. They can easily not notice their parents’ moods. They often take for granted that they are loved and supported by their parents and they may have a naive faith in the stability of their parents’ marriage.
So often they don’t suspect a divorce is imminent. The longer they don’t suspect, the better. If you can wait until you have clear plans for where they will be living and the parenting schedule, then that is the best time to tell them about the divorce.
Often the legal process won’t allow for that and telling them earlier is necessary because it will become obvious. And you want to tell them and prepare them for their new roles in a blended family before the divorce process creates bad habits.
The Truth:
Some parents feel that they must tell their children “The Truth.” Those parents can’t possibly tell “The Truth” because they know only one side of the truth. They will hide behind their righteous judgment of the truth and use the phrase, “The Truth,” as an excuse to bludgeon their mate with their accusations and to demand the loyalty of their children against their target parent.
The other parent may respond with their version of “The Truth” and place the children in the middle of a loyalty battle, one parent pulling one way while the other pulls in the opposite direction.
Parent is a role, not a person.
Your job as a parent is not to be an authentic person with your children. Your job as a parent is to protect the children from the reality of your intense and often childish feelings. All parents have the job of being the audience for their children’s emotion and authenticity, to help them learn how to channel their emotional energy into constructive behavior. Parents are a version of a coach or a teacher. Children don’t need to know that their dance teacher hates her husband. Parenting is playing a role for your children. The role is to care for them, protect them and emotionally nurture them. The stage should be theirs not yours. You are to give them a safe place to be themselves and tell you their truth, not for you to capture the emotional spotlight and tell them your truth. Your job is to act as if, not to be real or honest with your children. If you are with your child in the forest and you come across a bear, do you tell your child that you just peed your pants?
The Unraveling of Parents:
When I was four years old, at lunch time (called dinner time in the South), I would sit on the front porch steps waiting for my father to turn the corner coming down our street for our noon meal. As soon as he appeared, I ran 100 MPH down the sidewalk to meet him. His arms and hands absorbed my momentum and pushed me up in to the air, into the trees, above the clouds. I knew my father loved me fiercely. He had a temper too and if someone tried to hurt me, he would get them. I knew what. And I believed he would keep me safe
My mother’s name was Elizabeth and she was more beautiful than Queen Elizabeth and knew all about how to be the perfect hostess, how to love and comfort me, manage me, my three siblings, take care of her three aunts and her parents, all of whom lived within two blocks. To me she was the most wonderful person in the world.
Young children need to believe that their parents are gods. At about the same time children begin to question Santa, the Easter Bunny and magic, they begin their years long task of discovering their parent’s flaws.
They don’t need for someone to expose their parents as frauds, less than perfect, before they have some mastery for how to understand and manage emotional and social realities for themselves.
So, it is imperative that, as you divorce, you help your children maintain the myth of the other parent. They need to believe that myth until they are strong enough to realize it’s a myth. Then, let them discover the other parent’s flaws for themselves with no help from you. They surely will.
Don’t Tell the Children Without the Other Parent Present:
It is nearly impossible, no matter how neutral one shares information about a divorce or how supportive one might be of the other parent, for your children to not take your side when the other parent is not present and you speak about the divorce. They will naturally begin their grief process with you as the only parent present, and they will gravitate to you for comfort and they will give you comfort as well.
What to Say:
It is important that both parents speak to the children. They need to hear you sing the same song together. If one parent shares the information and other parent is silent, it will create the impression that this divorce is the product of one parent’s wishes against the other. This silence by itself will begin the loyalty battle and place the children in the middle.
You might consider scripting this scene. Before you begin, imagine the room and who sits where. It would be best if the parents could sit next to one another. And even better if they could hold hands.
This would present a united front and would be an antidote to their children’s initial splitting impulses. You might place the children together on a couch, so they have a physical reminder that their best alliance is with their siblings rather than with one or the other parent.
Choose which parent will speak first. It might be best if the parent least interested in divorce speaks first. You hope your children don’t figure out who or what precipitated the divorce.
The script might go something like this:
First Parent Speaker: Children we have some sad news. Though we remain friends and we are both dedicated to you and to taking care of you, we have decided to divorce.
Second Parent Speaker: We know we are letting you down. We have failed. We broke our promise to you, to God and each other to remain married. And we are both ashamed of our failure.
First Parent: We have asked God to forgive us and we believe God has forgiven us. We are asking for your forgiveness now.
Second Parent: This is not your Mother/Father’s fault. Don’t blame them.
First Parent: This is not your Mother/Father’s fault. Don’t blame them.
Second Parent: We failed each other. We are both at fault. We have grown apart and we are going in different directions.
First Parent: The most important thing for you to know is that it is not your fault. This had nothing to do with you. You are not to blame. We are. We both are.
Second Parent: Lots of things happened since we married which neither of us handled well.
First Parent: We aren’t proud of the hurt we caused each other. And we would just as soon get this divorce over and buried in the past and forget it. And to go forward to the next chapter of our lives
Second Parent: So please don’t ask us question about what led us to this decision. It’s our business, not yours. It’s in the past, so let’s leave it there.
First Parent: And remember neither of us are proud of this story. Though we are tending our wounds now, we remember why we fell in love and I know why you love your Mother/Father.
Second Parent: And I understand why you love your Mother/Father. And we are grateful to each other for you.
First Parent: And we are going to be on the same team raising you.
Second Parent: When you are in trouble with your Mom/Dad you are in trouble with me.
First Parent: Yes, when you are in trouble with your Mom/Dad you are in trouble with me too.
Second Parent: We both love you.
First Parent: The most important thing you can do is to stay focused on your life. Please don’t get distracted by us.
Second Parent: We will both be grieving in our own way. And we will both be excited about our new opportunities. But these won’t distract us from our job as parents, which is to keep you children on track doing what God meant for you to do.
First Parent: And remember your job is to love your Mom/Dad.
Second Parent: And your job is to love your Mom/Dad. And if we hear you throwing shade on the other parent, you will be in trouble with us.
If you have the details of the parenting plan, share them now. The sooner the children know what to expect of you and the future, the easier will be their adjustment to their new circumstances.
Who Decides:
First Parent: The decision of where you will live and how much time you will spend with each parent is not your decision to make. It is ours and perhaps a judge’s decision. (It is better if you two can agree.)
Second Parent: However, neither of us want to be an impediment to you when you wish to see the other parent. If you wish to see the other parent, when it is not their parenting time, simply ask the on-duty parent and we’ll make that happen. But you must ask. The parent with the designated parenting time is always the in-charge parent.
First Parent: That said, we will be cooperating together. Sometimes, when one of us is out of town, for example, you might stay with the other parent. We will work all that out. You will know the plan and what to expect, except, on rare occasions when some surprise happens.
Second Parent: We are committed to being cooperative parent with your best interest in mind.
Frequently Asked Questions[1]:
1. What happens next?
2. Where each of you will live?
3. Where they will live and what will happen to their “stuff”?
4. Whether they will be able to see each parent and for how much time?
5. Whether each of you will continue to love them?
6. Whether it is okay for them to love each of you?
7. Who will care for them, including day care providers?
8. Will they have to change schools?
9. Will they still be able to see their friends?
10. Can the continue in their activities?
11. Will they still be able to see their grandparents or favorite aunt?
[1] What Should We Tell The Children? A Parent’s Guide for Talking About Separation and Divorce. 2009 American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Chicago, Illinois.
From This Point Forward:
Children are usually very self-centered. Assuming that the world revolves around you is a marker of immaturity and we can expect that in children. This is an asset for children who are adjusting to divorce.
If a child’s life remains more or less the same except for the bed they sleep in, then they will barely notice the divorce. If the parents don’t speak ill of one another; if they support the disciplinary decisions of the other parent; if they remain polite and cordial to one another when they are together, then the children may not carry any significant wounds from the divorce.
If fact, if both parents find new satisfying relationships with step parents who also love them, your children’s lives may be even further enriched.
Though this is not the topic of the essay, it is important to understand that the role of a step parent is the most difficult role in a blended family. If you hate your children’s step parent, your children may hate them as well. And what will their Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, summer vacations and school breaks be like having to share time with a step parent they hate for you?
Once again, parenting is an act, a role to play regardless of how you feel. If you want your children to thrive after your divorce, put on a smile and play your role as mature adult parent. Confess your sin. You should not be getting a divorce. You should have found more strength, or you should have gotten better help earlier or whatever… Share the blame and learn from the painful tuition you paid for this wisdom. Carry it with you into your life’s next chapter. Wish your ex well. Forgive them for your sake and your children’s sake, not for your ex’s sake.