How to Tell Your Children You’re Getting a Divorce

Child holding cut out of family in their hands

It’s a common belief that it’s better for your children to stay in an unhappy marriage than to be subjected to divorce.  Naturally you might want to avoid uprooting your children from the only life of family, friends, and home they’ve ever known.

Below is what can affect children the most and offers simple tips to help them adjust.

Emotional effects on children

As a former 13-year-old child of a bitter divorce and after 20 years practicing family law, I can tell you it’s not the actual divorce that’s most destructive to children emotionally.  Divorce is simply the legal dissolution of marriage.

Rather, it’s ongoing conflict and interaction between you and your spouse that is most emotionally destructive to the children.  This can include not only actively fighting and shouting, but also treating each other with coldness, indifference or contempt.

The fact is that your kids want you to be happy and they know when you’re not.  They can likely feel when a divorce is imminent.  As a result, they often experience ongoing anxiety from not knowing what will happen.

Children thrive on consistency, structure and routine.  Above all, children need stability and security and know what they can expect from both of you.

They might experience stomachaches, headaches, act out aggressively, and become withdrawn, socially, emotionally, or both.  Their grades might suffer too.

Older children might make efforts to avoid being at home and verbalize that they want to be out of the house.  They might express that they want the divorce to happen.

Before breaking the news

Before telling the children, it’s best to have at least a general custody and parenting time arrangement in mind.

While communicating with your spouse might be the last thing you want to do, it’s important for your children.  They need both of you.  It’s therefore essential to isolate your personal conflict from your role as parents.

When making custody and parenting time decisions, it’s generally best to seek competent legal advice to make sure you’ve covered important issues you might not have considered.  These can include where the children will primarily reside, how decisions as to the children’s health, education and general welfare will be made, and where they will attend school, and how the parenting time arrangement will be implemented.

Telling the children

Ideally, you and your spouse should tell the children together.  Along with any adjustments for the ages and personalities of your children, these general guidelines can help your child adjust emotionally to the divorce:

  1. Keep it honest yet simple.  Do not point fault at one another.  Do not divulge intimate details about who did what.
  1. Acknowledge that the experience will be sad. Repeatedly emphasize that your child did nothing to cause the divorce.  Reassure them that regardless, you will always look out for them, do what’s best for them, and above all, love them.
  1. Explain exactly what’s going to happen. Maintain your child’s routine as much as possible. Knowing what to expect will help your child feel more secure.
  1. Encourage your child to share his or her feelings as openly as possible and simply listen.
  1. Don’t put your child in the role as your confidante. It’s not his or her role as a child.   For help sorting through your feelings, consider joining a divorce support group or seeking counseling.
  1. Inform your child’s teacher, school counselor and primary doctor about the divorce.  They can keep you posted on any concerns and offer guidance.

Thank you for reading and please share with others who could find this post helpful.

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