How To Tell Your Children You’re Getting A Divorce With Calm And Clarity

Your kids don’t need a perfect script. They need you regulated, clear, and willing to hold space for whatever they might feel without making them responsible for yours. I’ll walk you through telling your children you’re getting a divorce, and doing it in a way that helps protect their sense of safety, love, and stability.
 

I share how to prepare before the conversation. I talk about the timing of having this conversation and a few ways to give your kids extra support after they hear the news of the divorce. 
 
Then I lay out the five most important things your kids need to hear most when you tell them about the divorce. If you know this conversation is coming up for you and your kids, this episode is a MUST listen. 
 
If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s navigating divorce, and leave a rating or review so more women can find this support. What part of the “telling the kids” talk feels hardest for you right now?

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Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

Karin Nelson 0:00

You are listening to Becoming You Again, episode number 263, and I'm your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. This is the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world. It's where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move toward a life that you truly want. Welcome back. How is everything going in your lives? I just realized the other day as I was coaching two of my clients who are right in the middle of their divorce, and they were both getting ready to tell the children about the divorce. And so I walked each of them through some tips and things that I talk to many of my clients about when it's time to tell the kids that you're getting a divorce. And I realized I haven't done a podcast episode on this. And over the last several years of helping women come up with how do I do this? How do I lay this out for them? Working with them to show up mentally and emotionally in the state that they would like to as they do this process of telling their kids about the divorce. I have come up with some tips that I think are going to be really, really useful to you if this is where you're at as you're going through your divorce. So I think this is going to be a really helpful podcast for a lot of women. So make sure to take notes because I think this is going to be a really good one. But I want to start with you, first of all. Because before we get into the conversation of how you do this for your kids and what you want to say and what you want to bring to the table, all of that, it cannot go without saying that we have to first focus on you and what is going on inside of you before this conversation ever happens. Because the truth is, if you are drowning in your own grief, your own shame, your own fear, your own anger, which is very possible for many and many women going through a divorce, right? It's totally normal to feel all of those things. But if you haven't given yourself the support and the help that you need, it is not going to feel very easy or good or supportive to your kids when you go to have this conversation. So you need to be in, you don't have to be completely healed. That's not what I'm saying. But you definitely need to go into this conversation, having supported yourself mentally and emotionally, and showing up with the intention of this is the kind of mom I want to be as I'm having this conversation before you have the conversation, right? So before this conversation ever happens, you need to have the support you need in place. Know the things that support you in terms of somatic practices, grounding exercises, uh, processing through any emotions that you need to before you have the conversation. Have those in place. You can call it your emotional safety plan, you can call it whatever you want, but have those in place. Do it before and then do it after. Call a friend if that is one of the things that helps you. Have a session with your therapist. Call me. If I'm your coach, I'm there, I'm right there with you, like before, after through email, all the things that we have, these support systems all through our coaching. But if you don't have me as your coach yet, I offer a free session. It's a 30-minute session, and you know this is coming, like you know this conversation is coming up. Schedule a session with me and let's just I'll walk you through it. I'll walk you through how you can show up and support yourself and maybe give you a few tips on what to lay out for your kids if that's what you want to do. You can schedule that in the description below. You can go to my website, but like, come on, it's a free session. You might as well use it, right? Okay, but again, have that safety plan in place with ways to support you. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't be emotional in front of your kids. It's totally okay to be emotional in front of your kids. In fact, when you show them that it's okay to feel their emotions and to have emotions, it gives them permission to also have their own feelings in front of you and lets them know that it's totally normal and okay to do that. Now, I'm not saying you should just break down and cry or scream or yell or any of that in front of them, but it's okay to like let them know that this is hard. Like it's okay to do that. It's also going to be really helpful for you to be emotionally calm so that you can stay present enough that you don't have to take care of you and that you can be there to support them in whatever way they are going to react or feel. Because it's really important, again, to let them know that whatever they're feeling is okay. Whether it's sad, whether it's indifferent, whether it's happy, whether it's angry, whether it's shutting down, whether it's screaming, whether it's, I just need to get out of here and get away from you. Like, I don't know what their reaction is going to be, but whatever it is, it's okay. And it's not a reflection of you, it's just what they're feeling. And for you to be able to hold space for that is really, really important when you have this conversation. So take care of you first so that you can show up and support them in whatever ways they need. Okay. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the timing of this conversation because I think it's a little bit more important than some people will give thought to. The research tells us, you know, I love research because I want to know the why in what I'm teaching you. And so the research tells us that the best window is about two to three weeks, maybe a month before actual physical changes in like their life, you know, maybe they're gonna go live with the other person or something like that, is gonna happen. Okay. Now, this isn't a hard and fast rule. For me, this isn't how it went. We told our kids that we were planning on getting a divorce. We stayed in the same house, living in the same house for like a year and a half after we told them for part of the separation and part of the time after we were already divorced. So if this isn't a hard and fast rule, but if it's possible for you, do it about two to three weeks to a month before physical changes happen, okay? Also try not to do it the night before someone moves out. Now I know you can't control your soon-to-be ex, you can't control anything that they do, but we want to give our kids a little bit of time to like sit with the changes that are coming and time to process. It's probably gonna be a little bit easier on them if you choose a weekend or a day when they don't have to go to like a bunch of athletic, you know, classes after school or uh hobby classes that they take after school, or maybe even don't tell them right before they go to school in the morning. That's a lot for them to have to carry throughout their day. They might want to cry, they might feel like they're angry, they might want to be completely quiet. They're probably going to need some room to feel what they're feeling without immediately having to hide it or pretend like everything is fine in front of their friends, in front of a classroom of people, in front of the people on their team, or however that's gonna work out. So just give them a little bit of space and respect as you break this news to them because it may be really difficult for them. It might be also really useful to tell your children's teachers at school or teacher at school and just let them know. And if your kids have a therapist, definitely let their therapist in on the conversation, right? So that they can talk with them in their sessions if that is something that the therapist feels would be useful, right? But telling the teacher at school and counselors at school can be really helpful. I know when I was going through my divorce, my son was going through the sixth grade, and his school actually had like a peer support group for other kids whose parents were either going through a divorce or were divorced. And he never said, he never told me specifically that it was really helpful, but I know that one of his really good friends was also in that support group. And I found it to be very helpful in terms of having a place for him to be able to talk about anything that he needed to talk about that he didn't want to bring to me, which is totally fine. He doesn't have to bring everything to me. I just wanted to be able to support him in the way that I could. And I knew that having that support group was one way that could help him. So let your teachers, let the kids' teachers know beforehand and just like ask them to give you any feedback of anything that they might notice with your children after that you break the news, right? That can be useful information for you to again know how to support them through this change. And then lastly, in terms of timing, try not to do it like on a holiday or on somebody's birthday in the family that's important to them. Okay, so let's talk about the actual conversation and what you want to include in that. If possible, have both parents there. My ex and I, we did this together. We sat down with our kids in our home at our kitchen table and told them together. Um, so if it's possible to do that, do it together. I know that that isn't always possible. And I know that you can't obviously like control, again, you can't control the other person in this relationship. But if possible, each of you should do your best to not denigrate or say mean things about the other person as you're sitting there in front of your kids, right? It's just something to consider. But when you do that, here's what it communicates to your kids that we are all in this together, that we are still a team. Our family is just gonna look a little bit different. We may not be staying married, but we are still both your parents and we're both still here. There's a lot of power in that subconscious message when you can give this news together, right? Okay. So if it's not possible, that's totally okay. But definitely try if possible. It's also probably a good idea to have this conversation somewhere familiar for your kids. Like I said, we had ours at our kitchen table in our home. I wouldn't necessarily do it like out in public, like at a restaurant or something. Again, you you know you and you know your kids best. So take all of these things as just like a guideline and then make the decision that feels best and right to you. So if I'm saying something and you're like, nah, that doesn't feel right, do it in the way that feels right to you. But just take this as like, it might be better if you do it this way. I can't say that for sure for you. You know you and you know your kids best. So just take these ideas as like a possible guideline, but like we don't know how your kids are gonna react. And being somewhere in public might not be the best choice in terms of them and having the space to be able to react in how in whatever way they are going to react, right? Because again, it's totally okay for them to feel whatever they're feeling. You don't need to fix it, you don't need to change it, you don't need to make them feel better. You just need to hold space for them and let them know that it's okay to feel whatever they're feeling. That's the goal we want here. We don't want to tell them that they're feeling something wrong or they're doing it wrong or they're not allowed to feel that way. No, they're allowed to feel whatever they're feeling. You hold space for them and support them through it. Okay. I know what you're thinking. You're in the middle of divorce, or you're on the other side of it, and you found yourself thinking, I don't even know who I am anymore. First of all, you are so not alone in this. And second of all, I made something just for you. It's called 115 Ways to Get to Know You, and it's a $7 guide filled with ideas to help you reconnect with yourself, your wants, your passions, your personality in ways that you might have forgotten were even possible. I'm talking about creativity, adventure, self-care, joy, emotional healing, all of it. And the best part? You get to pick what feels good to you. There are no pressures, there's no rules, just permission for you to explore. Because the truth is, your relationship with yourself is the most important one you'll ever have. And it's never too late to start building it. Find the link in the show notes to grab your copy today for just $7. I can't wait for you to dig in. All right, so these are the five things that I have identified over the years of coaching and through research and going through like the best things that need your kids need to hear during this conversation. These are the five things that research my own and like the other experts out there say are the things that your kids need to hear. These are the most important things to have in the conversation. So let me lay these out for you. Number one, this is not your fault. You need to make this very clear to your kids. If you have young kids, it's really easy for them to believe that they have done something to cause this to happen. And even a teens and older kids might think this too. They might think something like, oh no, I was bad, I didn't listen, or I like didn't do that thing that mom asked me to do, and she yelled at me and until I got it done, right? Like it's really easy for kids' brains to go to that place of like, I caused this, I did this. So it's gonna be really important for you to literally make it very clear. Look them directly in the eye if you have to, and say it more than once. This is not your fault. This is not your fault. This has nothing to do with anything you did or said. Okay, make that very, very clear. And that message needs to be repeated probably often, even after you have this conversation. Number two, we both love you, and that is never going to change. Your kids, all they want to know is that they're gonna be okay and they're going to be loved. That's it. They want to know that. So reinforce that. Let them know that love from their parents does not go away because of divorce. Simply say, I love you, your dad loves you. That is permanent and it is never going to go away. That's really, really important for your kids to know. So make sure to literally say that out loud. I love you. We both love you, and it's never gonna change. Okay. Number three, let them know that they are still going to be taken care of. Like, don't wait for them to ask this question because it might just be running in the back of their mind of like, oh no, now what's gonna happen? Am I gonna be okay? Am I gonna be safe? Safety and love, those are like the two foundational things that our kids need and want. They want to know that they're safe and they want to know that they're loved. So we covered loved in, so we covered love in the one before. Now we need to make it very clear that they are safe, that they are going to be taken care of no matter what. So answer this before the question even comes out because they may be too afraid to ask it. So you're just gonna say it to them flat out before the before their fear runs wild, right? They are not going to be abandoned. Someone will always be looking after them, taking care of them. You will still have a home. You will still go to school, maybe even stay in the same school, if that's how you guys have worked out your divorce decree, right? One of you is still going to be there every single day to take care of them. They are safe. Reinforce that as often as you need to in this conversation, okay? Number four, let them know that some things are going to change and you're going to tell them what will change. You're going to be really specific about it. Something that can be really scary for kids, and especially during divorce, is change. Change creates uncertainty in our brain. And we're like, we like the idea of certainty. Even though we don't really actually have certainty from moment to moment, our brain kind of creates this facade that we do because it feels safe to think that we know what's going to happen. So the more you can let your kids know the upcoming changes, what they are, the more certainty they will feel that they know what's what's coming, that they know what to expect. That can create safety, an environment of safety for them, right? So share what you know about the living arrangements, about schedules, about who's gonna be in charge of what, when and where, right? About who's picking them up here and who's gonna take them in there and where they'll be on these certain days. It might be really useful to maybe not write in this conversation, but to let them know we're gonna have a calendar and everything's gonna be on the calendar, and you can look at the calendar and you can know. You can always ask me, you can always ask dad. We will always know who's gonna be in charge of you, where you're going to be at all times, right? Let them know that they're gonna be safe. And if you haven't figured it out yet, let them know. We haven't figured that part out yet, but it's coming. We will, when we know, you will know. You don't have to lie and be like, yeah, it's all figured out. We've got it all. Like, if you don't actually know what the logistics look like, just let them know. But say, we're still working on that. When we know, you will know. This is all about reassurance that everything is still going to be okay. That's what your kids want to hear when they get this news of mom and dad are not gonna be married any longer. Just let them know that they're gonna be okay. And then number five, you can still love the both of us. You don't have to choose. So often parents who are going through a divorce are so hurt and angry that whether they're doing it consciously or not, they put like a wedge between their kids and they make them choose me or your dad, right? Something like that. That is only hurting the kids. That is only hurting the kids. So number five is really, really important. Let them know that they do not have to pick a side, they can still love both of you and make it very, very clear that they are not being asked to choose. Loving their dad does not diminish their love for you. I want to say that again. Your kids loving their dad does not diminish the love that they have for you. And loving you does not mean that they are betraying him in some way. So give them this gift of letting them know that it is totally okay for them to love both of you. And you can say it in this conversation. So the last thing that I want to let you know is I think it's really important that this is not just a one-time conversation. Telling your kids about the divorce is going to be an ongoing dialogue. It's not something that you just check off the box and then you just move on and you never talk it about it and you never talk about it again. Like as things shift and change and settle and you know, transition, your kids are gonna have more questions. And that's okay. And and depending on the ages of your kids, if you have like a wide range of maybe you have five kids and you have a range of like seven to 17 or something, they process things very differently at different ages, right? And so be willing to have these conversations over and over again, reinforcing all of the five things that I just talked about. Be honest, it doesn't mean that you have to like say, Well, your dad cheated on me, and this is why we're getting divorced. You don't have to say that. Those are adult conversations. And if your kids are kids, even if they're teenagers, you do not have to say why you're getting a divorce if that is not the conversation that you're ready to have. So you can still be honest with what is happening. You're not staying together. You can say it with love, and you can say it with calmness and show up to support them through this transition that they are also going to be experiencing along with you. Okay, now I want you to hear me when I say this. Research is very clear about this. How your children ultimately do through the divorce has very little to do with the fact that the divorce actually happened. It has to do with how the adults around them handle it. Let me say that again. Your kids are gonna be fine if you and your ex are fine. If you and your ex are fucking assholes with each other and treat each other like shit constantly, even outside of marriage, your kids are gonna have a hard time because your kids are gonna have to feel like they have to take sides. Your kids are not gonna feel safe. They are not gonna feel loved. They are not gonna feel steady, they are not going to feel secure. And what did what did we reinforce at the beginning of this? What they want is to feel love and safety. So show up as the kind of parent that you want to be to your kids in this conversation, and show up as the kind of co-parent that you want to be. Doesn't mean you have to love your ex, doesn't mean you have to be friends with them, it doesn't mean any of that. But if you want your kids to do good through this divorce, then you have to be good as an adult. You have to handle your own emotional shit and keep your side of the street clean. That's it. You're not ruining your kids. You're showing them what it looks like to make a hard choice with integrity, with honesty, and then you keep showing up. That is a lesson that is going to serve them for the rest of their lives. All right, my friends, that is what I have for you today. I hope this episode gave you something to hold on to. It gave you some clarity, it gave you some tips on what to do, what to include in your conversation, and how to support yourself and your kids as you go through this transition. If this episode helped you, please feel free to share it. Go and leave me a rating or a review wherever you're listening to the podcast, because this definitely helps get the podcast in front of other women who are going through a divorce just like you. And as always, I love you. You're amazing. Thank you so much for being here. I will be back next week. Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson Coaching.com. That's www.k-ar-in-n-l-s-o-n coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.